I am not among them. I was directly responding to a statement by someone else to the effect that Hogan was not a very good writer.

While I can't judge whether he is a good writer, I don't know of any better judge than myself of whether I enjoy his writing, which I do immensely regardless of whether he is a crank.

I know lots of people who are brilliant in some thing, but hold completely idiotic views in other areas.

My best friend where I work is a fellow who despises dogs. He can't stand them and will kick them if they jump on him or lick him. This puts us a little at odds , because I've always been a dog lover and recently got a Jack Russell for the kids. It turns out that it was my friend's grandfathers JR who turned him against all dogs. Now I also know that he is a really, REALLY smart guy - at least as far as programming is concerned. I don't view him this way myself, but in the small community in which he known, he is concerned to be something of a programming god by other people many of whom themselves are considered exceptionally intelligent and godlike in their programming abilities. He also has many other fine qualities, BUT he HATES reading. Can't stand it. Makes his eyes and head hurt. It's boring. Refers to bookstores as 'places of evil.' He has a number of other strange qualities that I won't go into.

Now, he's a smart guy and I admire him for his virtues, but he has some really strange weirdness goin' on. He'll be at my house tomorrow with his girlfriend for thanksgiving and it will be one long argument between him and my oldest daughter about the wickedness of reading.

Being intelligent is unfortunately insufficient for preventing one from believing in very foolish things.

k