100 ways

I'm reading this book I picked up at a thrift store called 100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World. Fascinating. From the moment I picked it up I couldn't put it down. It covers some pretty serious issues including everything from global warming to how fat and gluttonous we are in America. It reminds us that we're still 49th in world literacy and 41st in infant mortality. It also reminds us that it's not "unpatriotic" to criticize your own country, and doing so might actually incite change. The book is a great "slap in the head." People with big homes and SUVs know it's bad for the planet and don't care. They want what they want and don't care if it harms anyone else. Typical American mentality.

Finally, regarding global warming the book states, "The scientific deniers are skeptics about its potential scale of destruction, not the fact that it's occurring."

Topics include:

Altering the Earth's climate

Wars of Choice

Television

Dumping toxins

Blood for oil

Vietnam

The Kyoto Treaty (we didn't sign it, another Bush blunder--157 other countries did, including Russia, Canada and Japan)

Reaganism

SUVs

Big Pharma

Consumerism

McDonaldization

What would Jesus say?

USA, We're #1 (yes, only in weaponry, consumer spending, debt and delusion)

Our Fat Country

Commercialization of Sports

Disney

Celebrity Culture

So, give this book as a Christmas present. Bet they don't get past the third chapter before they put it down. Easier to not read it and spare themselves the guilt. And the cycle of gluttony continues....