Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V: Rediscovering America

The authors reiterate that they are “frustrated optimists” who are inspired by “the number of people and small groups who are summoning themselves with their own trumpets.”

Good Signs

Sacrifice—soldiers who are willing to re-deploy to wars in the Middle East. “Never have so many asked so much of so few—and never have those few delivered so much for so many and asked so little in return.” (Again, a good book on what that sacrifice is like is War by Sebastian Junger.)

Diversity—example of the US military and particularly the Navy. “It’s amazing how you guys can be so many religions, ethnic groups, and still make this thing work, and be the best in the world.” (Authors paraphrasing an Iraqi coast guard officer)

Teach for America—“Kopp said that of all the TFA grads, about one-third stay on as teachers. . . . Not all education experts support the program, because it puts the least experienced teachers in the most challenging classrooms. It will take more time to determine how much of a difference TFA teachers are making in the lives of children . . .”

Inventors—Mike Biddle, founder of MBA Polymers, has invented processes fro separating plastic form pile sof junked computers, etc. and recycling it, using less than 10% of the energy used in making new plastic. (However, he uses plastics from China and the EU because America doesn’t have laws that require manufactures to foot the bill for recycling. According to the authors, manufacturers don’t mind these laws because recyclers compete for the junk.)

Companies that stick it out with American manufacturing and workers. “The role of the CEO now is not to dictate but to empower.” (Robert Stevenson, whose company is the oldest manufacturer in continuous operation in Buffalo, New York.) “Get your people working toward a common goal. . . .I set the goal and show the road and say, ‘How you drive on that is up to you.’”

Last thoughts:

America needs a comprehensive 21^st century job strategy. We need to address the “growing mismatch between the needs of the employers and the skills American workers get in school and in the job market.” With this in mind, it’s time to begin again to finance start up companies. (Government involvement, regulations, standards are necessary, but must be clear and simple.)

In the section entitled “Shock Therapy,” the authors say that America needs to understand that it is “’an anchor to the floating world.’ Weaken that anchor and the world will drift in directions we cannot foresee and probably will not like. A declining America will be bad for business—all business, including [that of every country in the world].”

To succeed in a way that will keep the world afloat, America needs a politics of the “radical center.” Moderates are not lukewarm–they are reasonable, and they compromise and get things done. A way of mandating change as a moderate is to have a third party candidate in national elections. Though the candidate won’t be elected, s/he will serve to moderate the opposite ends of the spectrum and influence national policy. S/he will affect the agenda of the two major parties.

The authors claim that voting for a third party candidate is not ‘throwing away’ a vote, and give the (unfortunate) example of George Wallace, but also of Ross Perot, and of the Progressives and Teddy Roosevelt. (I don’t entirely agree that a third party vote isn’t thrown away. I think of the example of Ralph Nader—not in this book. Whether you are a Democrat or not, you’d probably agree that folks who voted for Nader in the Bush v. Gore contest, ended up throwing their votes away by assuring the election of someone whose priorities were far from their own.)

The candidate that America should elect is the one who will specify which taxes s/he will raise and which programs s/he will cut, since both must happen.

Calling America exceptional doesn’t make it so and doesn’t help us. Exceptionalism isn’t a permanent state. We have to make sacrifices and get back on track

Part I

Part II

That Used to Be Us—Part III: The War on Math and Physics

Part III of That Used to Be Us starts with more bad news. Part I tells us that we underestimated the impact of globalization and the IT revolution. Part II says we failed to respond to the above by improving our educational system. Part III? Ditto for the deficit and energy and climate challenges.

“When the flattening of the world created not only two billion more competitors but two billion more consumers, . . . just when all the rising energy demand from all these new consumers was affecting the climate and food prices and creating the need for cheap, clean, renewable energy, and just when China recognized all this and began investing heavily in wind, solar, battery, and nuclear power, America dithered, delayed, and underinvested in energy and in the wider foundations of its economic growth.”

The section on ‘the war on math’ discusses debt and borrowing power (and shows that a company/country can have great debt and great borrowing power as well as long as it has the assets to pay the debt if suddenly called.) The authors argue that when the international monetary system known as “Bretton Woods” (dollar tied to price of gold/fixed international exchange rates) was collapsed—Nixon didn’t want the country to go through a recession to pay for spending on the Vietnam War—ballooning deficits had to follow, but it took time.

But it did happen, and deficits ballooned under Reagan. The authors take Dick Cheney to task over his comment, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” They show that Reagan worried about deficits and called taxes ‘revenue enhancements’ in order to create them. Though deficits were reined in under Clinton, Alan Blinder, Princeton economist and former vice chairman if the Federal Reserve, is quoted from a Wall Street Journal essay as saying that “’The nation took leave of its fiscal senses, and simply stopped paying for anything during President Bush 43’s eight years.’” Under Obama, that deficit blew up.

The Republican Party takes a hit for a few pages, and then the authors turn on the Democrats—both are chastised for their willingness to enact policies that hurt the fiscal health of the country but that bolster their political careers and allies.

The authors believe that reductions in Social Security and Medicare are inevitable. We are not going to be able to spend so much for end-of-life care that doesn’t do anything but prolong the period of wasting away into death; we are going to have to take more responsibility for our health and not be so fat.

Across the board cuts to entitlements are required including in the defense budget.

Taxes must be raised, not just on the rich, but on the middle class as well. Tax loopholes must be closed.

The section on the ‘war on physics’ is about climate change. The authors indicate that climate change is a fact, and we need to stop pretending that it’s still a big question mark. They give examples and documentation from reports and scientists. There’s also a discussion of “low-probability, high-impact” events. (A phrase based on Dick Cheney’s discussion of Pakistani scientist and a 1% chance that they are helping Al Qaeda develop nuclear weapons. Here, it is turned around and used to discuss climate change. In general, Dick Cheney doesn’t come off very well with the authors.)

There are some examples of ways to make changes—one of the most interesting to me was that having the military use renewable power not only is environmentally sound, but can save many service men and women’s lives by avoiding roadside bombs to vehicles trucking fuel around.

The authors are telling us that the country needs oil-addiction rehab, but has refused to have an intervention because “The Democrats were cowardly and the Republicans were crazy. . . . The Democrats understood the world they were living in but didn’t want to pay the political price—alone—for adapting to it. The Republicans simply denied the reality of this world.”

Climate change will create an unstable world with a larger and larger population requiring greater global food production at the same time that global natural resources are stressed and water demand soars. California is commended for some sensible environmental policies that the country should adopt.

Part IV coming soon.  Eventually, the positive stuff arrives.

 The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Guest review by Jenny Thomas, VVHS teacher and soon-to-be teacher librarian!

It’s 1996; and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet.  Emma, a 16-year-old junior, receives her first computer–a gift from her father who has moved away with his new wife and baby. Emma’s neighbor and former best-friend Josh, brings over a CD-ROM with 100 free hours to AOL. Yes, using the Internet used to tie-up your phone line (almost no one had a cell phone), and it was limited!

The authors do a fantastic job of transporting their readers into 1996–a time in which your computer ran CD-ROMs (not apps), Friends was the hottest show on TV (but you couldn’t DVR it), and you listened to CDs on your Discman (no iPods). Facebook wouldn’t be created for another eight years. . . so how did it end up on Emma’s computer? Through an inexplicable link to 2011, Josh and Emma are able to see their lives on Facebook–15 years into the future. It’s amusing to watch them figure out Facebook (“Why would anyone say this stuff about themselves on the Internet? It’s crazy!”); they read wall posts, see who they are friends with, view their spouses, kids, and jobs, etc. Josh and Emma come to realize that their lives will take unexpected (and some unwelcome) twists and turns. When Emma starts changing the present in an attempt to improve her Facebook future, it changes the future of others, too.

Authors Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler switch off writing chapters from the perspectives of Josh and Emma, respectively.  Reading The Future of Us was nostalgic for me, as I was 16 in 1996 and vividly remember the world as the authors describe it–much different from our world in 2012.  The Future of Us is light, funny, entertaining, and relatable. I can definitely see this book being made into a movie (the movie rights have already been sold).

Professional reviews of this book have ranged from mixed to positive, which I agree with. While I don’t think the book lived up to its brilliant plot description, I definitely enjoyed reading about our world viewed from the perspective of high school students in the past. We all want to know how our own story turns out, but Emma and Josh’s story reminds us that any of the thousands of small decisions that we make every day could change our future.

Ms. Waddle’s note: I know how much we all loved Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why, so I have a ‘save the date’ for you. Jay Asher will be at the Ontario City Library, Ovitt Branch (downtown on C and Lemon Streets) as one of the guest authors for the Teen Book Fest on Saturday, May 5–along with four other great YA authors. More info will follow, but put it on your calendar now! Check out The Future of Us now, and you’ll be able to ask Asher question about both books.

“This is a book of exceptional importance, written on a sweeping scale with remarkable clarity by two of our most gifted thinkers. . . . It should be read by policymakers and every American concerned about our country’s future.” Library Journal

When I first saw That Used to be Us, I didn’t want to pick it up because I have approximately 70 books (but who’s counting? ) at home on my shelves, on my Kindle, or on my iPad that I haven’t gotten to. In addition, I’ve already read Friedman’s other two books on the subject—The World is Flat and Hot, Flat and Crowded. (Click here for review.) But I started finding the kind of recommendation quoted above. And then our principal recommended it so, I figured I’d go ahead.

That Used to be Us is a very worthwhile read. I want to try a bit of an unusual review of it here for two reasons. First, some teachers are looking for serious non-fiction for students and have mentioned The World is Flat. However, that book is seven years old, and already a bit dated. (No, the US intervention in the Middle East didn’t pan out the way Friedman predicted.) If teachers are going to recommend this type of non-fiction outside reading as students all enroll in ERWC courses, it would be better to start with the newest version.

Second, I know that all the teachers don’t have the time to read the book, but it would be nice to at least have an overview of it. So—this is a detailed review with links to other documents related to topics within That Used to be Us that might interest you.

First, if you happened to have read The World is Flat, and you want to cherry pick sections of this book that weren’t covered there, Read Sections II (The Educational Challenge) and III (The War on Math and Physics). If you read Hot, Flat and Crowded, you could skip Section III, as it is the ‘hot’ (global climate change) part; however, That Used to Be Us is up-to-date and more scary.

Four copies of That Used to Be Us are available at the Ontario City Library, so it can easily be picked up at COHS.

OK—here’s a look at Part I:

Part I: The Diagnosis:

While we are sleepwalking, China is using ideas we came up with to overtake our place as a world leader. We’ve gotten used to living in an entirely dysfunctional state while China gets things done. Many anecdotal examples of this are given, including incidents from one of the author’s visit to China. The authors quote plenty of folks to drive home the frustration. (“We are nearly complete in our evolution from Lewis and Clark into Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam.”) A big part of the problem is that Americans don’t understand how urgent the situation is (and other sections of the book detail proofs that it is urgent), so that urgency must be created before it’s too late. Americans used the next generation’s money to fight terrorism while “indulging ourselves with tax cuts and cheap credit.”

The solution is not to become more like China, but to “become more like ourselves.” By this, the authors mean that unlike China, which lacks freedom, has widespread corruption, horrible pollution and an educational system that inhibits creativity, we need to make our democratic system work with “focus, moral authority, seriousness, collective action, and stick-to-itiveness.”

A second problem, ironically, is that the U.S. no longer has the Soviet Union as a Cold War enemy. The death of communism in many countries has enabled a much greater percentage of the world’s population to reach for the American dream—and so, all these people are new competitors in a global market. We all compete with them for jobs. Our children need to be educated to compete with them for jobs.

There are four core challenges to America in the post-Cold War era: adapt to globalization, adjust to the technology revolution, cope with soaring budget deficits (growing demands on government), and manage rising energy consumption and climate threats. If we can’t do this, it will not only affect Americans but could be disastrous for the whole world as there is no country capable of stepping in as the world’s leader. This is the crux of the book. If the authors can make you understand this, you will pay attention to their solutions.

The solution depends on five pillars that are a partnership between the public and private sectors and will promote economic growth: provide public education for more Americans; build and modernize infrastructure; keep doors open to immigration; provide government support for basic research and development; and regulate private economic activity.

The authors detail successful public-private partnerships over the history of the United States. Examples are given from both ends of the political spectrum. They assert that the two camps no longer pay attention to our history, and this may be the death of our future. “Liberals blame all of America’s problems on Wall Street and big business while advocating a more equal distribution of an ever shrinking economic pie. Conservatives assert that the key to our economic future is simple: close our eyes, click our heels three times, and say ‘tax cuts,’ and the pie will miraculously grow.” Yes, there’s something here to offend everyone—which is good, because it challenges the status quo, as it hopes to.

Next up: Part II—the section on education—the largest and, according to the authors, the most important section of the book.

A perfect book for Thanksgiving.

“Many of life’s failures are people who didn’t realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

–Thomas Edison

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”

–Winston Churchill

Quotes like these dot the text of Start Something that Matters. Its author, Blake Mycoskie, is the founder (or as he calls himself, ‘chief shoe giver’) of TOMS. For every pair of shoes that TOMS sells, it gives one away to a needy person. It’s this ‘One for One’ business model that Mycoskie discusses in his book. But Start Something that Matters is about much more.

Mycoskie asks: What matters most to you? Should you focus on earning a living, pursuing your passions, or devoting yourself to the causes that inspire you? And then tells his reader that s/he doesn’t have to choose, but can do all of these things. He, of course, is a living example. And the reason I so like this book is that Mycoskie shows how important it is becoming to be a creative thinker, to be a storyteller. Because without a memorable story, no one cares about your company or your charity, or the project you are trying to get your schoolmates interested in. Stories resonate with people in a way that facts wouldn’t.

To start something that matters, you will need to move beyond story and face your fears, do the thing you didn’t think you could. You can’t wait until the time is right because it never is. You have to be frugal and imaginative. You have to allow a broad forum of ideas, give free speech to those working with you. You must have an environment of trust. With trust, even mistakes can lead to good outcomes.

Best of all, you should start early. Like now. In high school. Work on your dreams. Start that club, that service project, whatever. Check out Start Something that Matters for hints on getting it all going. Create the model by which you intend to live your life.

Here’s a great human v. nature story, one about the fierce power of gigantic waves and man’s efforts to subdue them. Casey alternates chapters between discussions of scientists who study ‘rogue’ waves—those that are vastly larger than the waves around them and can wreck ships, kill whole crews and destroy environments when the ships’ contents (oil, toxic chemicals and more) leak into the ocean—and surfers who risk anything for the ultimate ride, following weather reports and racing around the world for the opportunity to plunge down the face of monsters that are 50-100 feet high.

The dangers to anyone involved with such colossal waves, be they scientists, ship salvagers or surfers, read like the most suspenseful of adventure stories. All over the world, the waves have names and personalities to fit—Jaws and Egypt off Maui, Mavericks and Ghost Tree off the California coast, Todos Santos off Baja, Teahupoo in Tahiti. For most of history, these waves were thought to be mythical, the stories of sailors’ imaginations because, according to the laws of physics, they didn’t seem possible. But in 2000, the British research ship Discovery with scientist Penny Holliday  on board was caught in a storm in the North Sea with wave after wave peaking at over 100 feet—and the vessel had all the equipment to measure and verify their height.

Reading, you move from terrifying stories of shipwrecks and disappearances, of a 1,740 foot wave (really!) that destroyed a swath of Alaskan coastline—and which four boaters actually lived through—to follow big wave surfers, primarily Laird Hamilton, Brett Lickle and Dave Kamala, as they travel the world seeking the ultimate wave. The waves they surf are so huge that they must use jet skis to be towed in. Casey spent a lot of time interviewing the men, following them around the world, and even getting in the ocean and riding a few waves with them.

And if our sense of fear hasn’t been fully awakened, Casey shows that the number and frequency of ferocious killer waves is increasing due to environmental damage as the temperature of the ocean quickly rises and glaciers melt, as ocean current change and collide. (Look for more tsunamis like the one in 2004 that killed 170,000 people in Indonesia.)

I think everyone will like this book—a lot. So if your teacher asks you to read non-fiction, don’t miss it. If you happen to have an interest in oceanography, physics or surfing, you won’t like this book. You’ll love it. You, ocean lover, shouldn’t miss it whether you have an assignment or not. Read it.

Some of you enjoyed reading Hoot and Flush–Scat is by the same author.

Ms. W

Scat
by Carl Hiaasen

Mrs. Starch, the cruelest teacher at the Truman School, humiliates Duane Scrod Jr., an extremely volatile student. Then Mrs. Starch vanishes during a biology field trip to Black Vine Swamp. The authorities initially suspect Duane, but they can’t question him; he’s been missing since the day before the field trip. Certain that something strange is going on, Duane’s classmates Nick and Marta investigate the disappearances. What they discover is definitely strange—it involves endangered panthers, a sleazy oil prospector, and a rampant environmentalist named Twilly Spree.

JLG Review: Carl Hiaasen specializes in accessible and engaging stories with an environmental bent. As with his previous novels for young readers, the conflict in Scat plays out between those who are committed to protecting Florida’s wildlife and the corrupt businessmen trying to profit from it. . . .

Nick and Marta are average kids who just want to know why their teacher suddenly went missing. As they investigate her disappearance, they stumble upon a plot far bigger than they expected. . . .

. . . Combining humor, intrigue, and a dash of danger, Hiaasen has created a fast-paced adventure that will captivate and entertain a wide range of readers—and might even teach them a few things about biology along the way.

“The Post-American World” by Fareed Zakaria Perhaps I’m feeling too much like ‘Chicken Little” (“The sky is falling!”), but lately I’ve been drawn to books about the future of both the world and the United States. Thankfully, I’ve generally enjoyed reading them, as I find their assertions to be thought-provoking without being alarmist. I also think that they would be very useful for a debate or an ‘issue’ paper. So it is with “The Post-American World,” a book that provides rich detail about the future of the world and the United States’ place in that future—economic, political and cultural.

I know the author’s work from reading copies of “Newsweek” magazine where Zakaria is an editor and consistently contributes articles on international issues. The title of “The Post-American World” sounds alarming, but Zakaria’s take on the future is very positive—provided that we don’t panic and remember that America has adapted to change before and has learned to excel. Zakaria argues that the United States is not ‘racing to the bottom,’ but that other countries are coming up in the world to be on more equal footing with America—and that’s a good thing because it takes people out of poverty and desperation. Excellent topics of research and discussion in this book include the rise of both India and China. India is an ‘inefficient’ democracy—as all democracies are because people can’t be told what to do by a dictating government. China on the other hand, though embracing capitalism in the last twenty years as an economic system, is still a dictatorship, willing to use brutal tactics in the name of progress and efficiency. Zakaria shows the reader why ‘inefficient democracies’ can continue to grow and succeed in changing times.

Another topic that would make a great argument for a history class project is what the United States should do to secure its future (and how it must be unlike Britain of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries)–not as a unipolar world power but as a legitimate broker of world power, the ally that is the hub in a wheel of nations, connected to the US through spokes of diplomacy.

“In Our Own Best Interest” is a great choice for students concerned about global issues, students who care about what happens to other people and students who are writing or debating on any controversial issue related to these themes—public health and access to it, economic policies, environmental policies and human rights at home and abroad. The author, who was the Executive Director of Amnesty International USA when he wrote the book, obviously believes that people have a moral obligation to care about others. However, the book itself moves beyond this argument to detail the many ‘selfish’ reasons—practical reasons—that working for others’ rights benefits us. Don’t skip the introductions (yes, there are more than one!) because Schulz discusses his interaction with high school students.

In Schulz’s words, here’s what he hopes to achieve with the book:

“I propound here no grand new theory of international relations nor offer revelations about human rights that are unavailable to the avid reader of high-quality newspapers. Rather, this book is intended to reframe the debate about human rights for the intelligent layperson who wants to understand the role of human rights play in the United States and it people. It is designed to take the human rights debate out of the hands of ‘experts’ (on both sides) and make it accessible to the average American. After all, their interests are really at stake here, and it is they who will pay the highest price for American indifference. . . .

“Second, the human rights I treat herein are the traditional civil and political ones, like the right to vote, to express opinions without fear of retaliation, to demand a fair trial, to be free from torture.”

The book includes an appendix that is a directory of human rights organizations.

If you are doing research on human rights, global climate change, foreign policy, economic policy, or the changing business and economic map of the world, other good books to check out (whether you agree with their arguments or wish to refute them!) are “The World is Flat” and “Hot, Flat and Crowed” by Thomas L. Friedman; and “The Post-American World” by Fareed Zakaria. I’m hoping to write a little review of each very soon.

]]> http://colonylibrarylady.com/2009/01/07/in-our-own-best-interest/feed/ 0 Ms. Waddle In Our Own Best Interest http://colonylibrarylady.com/2007/12/04/life-of-pi/ http://colonylibrarylady.com/2007/12/04/life-of-pi/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2007 21:08:26 +0000 Ms. Waddle http://colonylibrarylady.com/2007/12/04/life-of-pi/ ]]> Here’s another story that begins in India, but marches to a very different drummer. The main character, ‘Pi’ Patel is named after a swimming pool in Paris. His father, a zoo keeper, decides to immigrate to Canada, and sells the animals. Most of these stay in India, but a few are destined to cross the ocean and live in distant zoos. During the Pacific crossing, the ship capsizes and Pi is thrown overboard into a 26-foot-long lifeboat. Though his family all die, Pi finds himself floating with Richard Parker—a 450 pound Bengali tiger from his father’s zoo—as well as a zebra, a hyena, and an orangutan. The most rudimentary knowledge of the animal kingdom will tell you which of the animals survives. But Pi tells the reader that this is a story with a happy ending, so the reader wonders–how will Pi survive with Richard Parker onboard?

Pi does survive with the tiger—for 227 days. And, yes, the journey is an epic one. Pi uses all his knowledge of the animal kingdom as he realizes that the tiger’s survival is necessary to his own. He expounds on faith and his understanding of Christianity and Islam as well as his native Hinduism. He makes an argument for the environmental value of zoos. Both his ill-fated meeting with another castaway and his salvation on a mystical island may be unbelievable, but who cares? The story is so weird and intriguing on so many levels, that the reader will follow Pi’s faith in the universe anywhere it takes him.