and wasn't appropriately deferential to his rocket scientist father. This post from AlaskaDispatch (via Huffington Post) struck me as surprisingly judgmental of McCandless and of Krakauer's book. Admittedly, if I lived in Alaska and had to deal with silly young people trying to make the same stupid mistake McCandless made, I'd probably be bitter too, but I don't think McCandless set out trying to be a hero, and I don't think Krakauer was trying to make him into one. When I read Into The Wild , what resonated with me is how frighteningly close most of us come to wondering if anything we experience is reality anymore. There's something about the crazy-making overstimulated commercial culture we live in that makes books like this popular or creates cult followings for movies like Fight Club . In a society ruled by Baby Einstein and Kumon from day one, how are kids supposed to have rites of passage into adulthood? Sometimes I feel like we are putting them on conveyor belts and moving them from one heat lamp to the next until they're big enough to feed themselves. One day, they are children, and the next, they are adults, but some of them have never felt they made a real decision. Yes, teenagers rebel, but going against the grain in a family just for the sake of doing it isn't really making a decision; it's a reaction. I like to believe that the reason Into The Wild and other books about reconnecting with