AAAAANYhow, so I was on Metafilter and someone linked to The Beast, which attracted me because it basically said that "you" (you know, the "you" that Time loved so much?) are the cause of all the world's problems -- or, rather, "you" is No. 16 on a list of the year's 50 most loathsome people.
Not so interesting -- I have a healthy degree of self-hatred without my Internets turning on me -- but then I got to No. 25 on the list, Deepak Chopra.
And I quote, "Charges: Widely regarded by new age simpletons to be a font of wisdom, Chopra peddles a chutney-flavored weak anthropic principle based on the usual dippy claptrap about "universal energy" and a profoundly erroneous extrapolation of quantum physics. An accused plagiarist and sexual harasser, Chopra entreats his readers to abandon their silly religious traditions—and adopt his. Pitching a watered-down Hinduism as some perfect union of science and spirituality while supporting Intelligent Design and purporting to "prove" the existence of an afterlife, Chopra’s work proves only one thing: he’s just another mystical moron providing a psychic security blanket to soft-skulled suckers.
Exhibit A: Suggested a Middle East Disney World and Iraqi Nickelodeon to mollify their rage.
Sentence: Five years shoveling actual bullshit."
Dog? Word. Word. Also, I'm fairly sure he was testing the waters to proposition me a few years ago; it was my first assignment in Delhi and I accompanied a fellow journalist who, of all things, had forgotten a pen and pad of paper and needed me to transcribe his interview. At some point, Chopra stopped addressing said journalist and instead started asking me about myself, before finally asking us up to his room for ... mystical voodoo? A copy of his latest book? Something kinky and Kama Sutra-esque?
I rest my case. I also return to my movie.
