A Brown Thanksgiving

I finally succeeded in reading The DaVinci Code over Thanksgiving, putting my family and in-laws through about two dozen sighs of disbelief and tirades against various egregious errors in the text. I actually kinda like his writing, as an intellectual adventure a la Indiana Jones. I just wish Brown had common sense and the ability to reason, although I am aware that these qualities are often lacking in ex-patriate Americans. I read so much about the book that there weren't many surprises but the surprises that did get me were pleasant. I tried not to complain about the obvious research errors and focused on using reason to point out the stupidities.

Here is my hit list:

1. How secret can a secret organization be if a list of all of its members is in a government library and is titled, "The Secret Dossiers?"

2. Do benevolent organizations that claim to care about the truth, continue to hide that truth, even after 'all the experts' have suggested it?

3. Dan Brown always wants to have his cake and eat it. How can the true nature of the Holy Grail be a secret if dozens of books have been written about it?

4. The left side has been associated with evil since the ancient Greeks. This would make them misogynists as well, since according to him femininity has always been associated with the left side.

5. Judaism in the years B.C. also didn't allow women as priests so the non-conspiracy goes back to them as well.

6. The Catholic Church and Islam are the only major world religions that continue to associate intercourse and fertility, every other one has separated them with contraception. That makes the Church and Islam the only true 'fertility cults.'