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I've become frustrated with my Xanga account, most notably because of its inability to support YouTube posts. Hopefully I can get some more functionality out of this'un.

Alright, fine... I'll put up some actual thoughts. I'm on an Andrew Sullivan kick at the moment. If you happen to have a spare hour, I highly recommend this discussion of his book, The Conservative Soul.

I think the big reason I'm interested in what he has to say right now is that his fundamental endeavor seems to be one of intellectual bridge-building. Sullivan is a conservative who has become disillusioned with recent leadership, and is trying to show his fellow conservatives why W and the gang are leading us astray. It's a fascinating discussion to observe from the outside. As someone who was never particularly illusioned (I'd like to think) with regard to neoconservatism, I'm intensely curious to get inside the heads of those who had high hopes for this administration. Sullivan is able to cut through a lot of the crap.

The reason intellectual bridge-building is so interesting to me right now is because of the intellectual climate I'm immersed in at the moment. Moving from Rice University to Beaumont has caused a bit of.... let's call it culture shock. It's amazing to me how monolithic the thought culture is here. I've encountered fundamentalism before in small doses, but it was always in a small dose whether temporally (certain youth group retreats) or in quantity (particular friends within a larger social network). Now it surrounds me. Solidly everyone I work with is conservative, but NEARLY everyone I work with is also a fundamentalist. This is not to say that they're nasty people (it says something about my upbringing that I think I have to make this clarification), in fact everyone is exceptionally warm and thoughtful. That said, for many of them it's never occurred to them that any sane person could not believe the Bible to be the literal word of God. I've been trying to figure out how to establish dialogue for the last year or so with varying degrees of success. That's why watching this conservative insider speaking so cogently to his ideological bedfellows seems so valuable. Anyway, watch the above discussion and tell me what you think.