Three Cups of Cafe-Menchú

John Steinbeck, according to my recollection, wrote about walking across America to get a good sense of the land and it's people, a cool thing to do for a middle aged guy with good health and lots of money. I must have been thinking of Travels With Charlie. Steinbeck drove a camper, not walking. My memory. So I might be mistaken in thinking that when he met people and they asked what he was doing, he told them some sentimental story about patriotism and love of his fellow men, and in response, people got pissed off at him and told him to get job rather than waste his time on that kind of nonsense. So, Steinbeck finally started saying instead that he was walking across America because a buddy had bet him $50.00 that he couldn't do it. Then people liked him and invited him in.

I don't know if any of my recollection is accurate. I really don't care. And worse, seems Steinbeck didn't care either. He faked a whole whack of his book! He's a novelist, but he put this one across as journalism. Not to do that. It ain't right. And it isn't any better when Rigoberta pulls the same stuff. It wouldn't be right if I did that, either. I don't. What I do is write stuff. I leave that to readers. But here we have a whole nother kind of thing that shows us ourselves in a light not so good. We have the story of some guy who's written a popular book that turns out to be a whole scam. I look at this with some interest because it tells me-- again-- that people want to believe, and they find the reasons afterward. Camus puts it well about Communists: "First they convert, then they learn the dogma." I'm reading many books about Eugenics and Neo-Malthusianism. According to me, it's the same story: people want to see too many people, and thus they find that doom looms and something must be done. People want to see racists down on Obama, so they see every critic as a racist. It's a lie, and the believers will never give it up because it wouldn't matter if it were known to be a lie or not; it's only ever all about what people want in the first place. Below is a piece on the faker who wrote Three Cups of Tea. I wouldn't know. I don't read stuff like that book. I did read the linked essay below, which I recommend highly. Truth matters. But it only matters to people who want to find it. Many obviously do not. With them there is no Reason.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/mission-creep/?singlepage=true

I have no ideas that are so good I refuse to look for alternatives. Except my one true idea. That in the day my life is shit unless I have Three Cups of Coffee. That is close to the universal meaning of life.