don't eat this book

Don't Eat this Book by Morgan Spurlock

I have to start by saying I am a Spurlock fan. Loved Super Size Me and really liked his 30 Days series on Fx over the past six weeks. And I liked the book. It may be because I have heard so much of him over the last few weeks on TV, but I could hear him in my head almost like he was reading the book to me. A good combo of information, story, and snark. He rehashed a lot of things I've read in other places, but this book is a good entry into the whole "Food Politics" thing.
The focus is on three things.
1) Trashing MCD's (and worthily so)
2) Calling out how much kids are at risk and how much they are targeted.
3) Pointing the ultimate finger at personal responsibility. He doesn't say never eat meat again, there is just a call to be informed and smart and act. "Vote with your fork" is the title of the last chapter and it's a call to state how you feel food should be every time you choose to eat.

All in all, pretty much what I expected and good stuff.

Two quick stories from the book:

In 1999, a French farmer named Jose Bove led a group of farmers and activists in attacking a local McDonald's in the process of being constructed in his home town of Millau. tearing the building down with his tractor. p71

One of the funniest pop-star endorsements ever was announced in September 2004, when McDonald's signed the Olsen twins to promote Happy Meals in France. ... So Mary Kate came straight out of rehab for her eating disorder to be a spokesperson for Happy Meals. (Hey look, McDonald's just wants people to buy the Happy Meals. No one said anything about eating them). p 166

Just one quick fact:

Produce in the United States now travels an average of 1500 - 2000 miles from the farm to your table. p. 234

That's it from me for a couple of weeks. I'll have six to think through when I get back.

take back your time

Take Back Your Time by John De Graaf
I've been reading a lot from the slow / simplicity movement lately and this book had been referenced a number of times so I checked it out. It's a collection of essays from people involved at different levels with Take Back Your Time Day and as such, there is some repetition but a lot of different tacks on the issues of time poverty in America and the need to reclaim our hours from the beast that is the American economy. There are some great essays and some not as great.
Good
Overscheduled Kids, Underconnected Families by Doherty and Carlson
Haste Makes Waste by Wann
Enough - The Time Cost of Stuff by Robin
Time by Design by Pierce
What's an Economy For? by Korten
On the Flipside there are essays about the toll of overwork on pets(?!) and a take on the concept of Sabbath that didn't quite connect the dots, but overall good stuff. Worth it if the subject interests you or applies.

Some quotes
(In 2002) Americans gave back 175 million days of paid vacation to employers. A $20 billion gift to business. (p22)

Kathy and her husband decided to reclaim family time by not enrolling their son in Little League. But when the new season started, they discovered that they had violated a community standard for good parenting, as evidenced by the shock and dismay of other Little League parents. When Kathy told another mother at the local supermarket about the family's decision, the stunned neighbor replied, "Can you do that?" (p39)

A sane lifestyle looks strange in an insane world. (p45) (Again in reference to families taking back their schedules from the onslaught of activities for kids)

Speed is irrelevant if you are traveling in the wrong direction. Gandhi (p92)

Boston Globe syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman has succintly summed up life according to he predominant vision held by our culture: Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it. (p155)

china reading list

OK the challenge -- find enough reading material for two and a half weeks while at the same time minimizing size and weight. Here's the stack that's going with me, we'll see how it goes.


Praise Habit by David Crowder


Jesus in the Margins by Rick McKinley


The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen


Post-Rapture Radio by Russell Rathbun


The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini


High Fidelity by Nick Hornby


Hopefully these will get me through 20,000 miles, seven airports, only God knows how many hours in the air, two+ weeks of hotels, and back home with one beautiful little baby girl.

We take off in 9 days!

rebekah

Just finished Rebekah by Orson Scott Card last night. It is another of the novelizations of biblical stories that I have found myself into over the last year. No real quotes from this one. It was OK. Not as good as Card's other stuff (Ender Wiggins series and Alvin Maker series), but an interesting approach. Card is a Mormon so there are a couple of moments where that stream of theology enters into the conversation. The book is a pretty good picture of what her life could have been and in the end, Card provides an apologetic to place Rebekah and Jacob in a better light over their deceit toward Esau and Isaac. It's a plausible tack, but one that develops some issues when cast against a reading of the story from Genesis.
I'm not sure I'd recommend the book unless you are in to novelizations and interested in a decent picture of life in that period. I picked it up because of the title for obvious reasons.

on writing

On Writing by Stephen King
I love this book, the whole thing should be quoted here, but I won't do that.

p28 "When you're six, most of your Bingo Balls are still floating around in the draw tank."

p 147 "So we read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience helps us to recognize those thigns when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them. We also read in order to measure ourselves against the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done. And we read in order to experience different styles."
"Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that."
"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life."

state of fear

State of Fear by Michael Crichton

I don't know if I was too crazy about this book. It had some good moments, but also some very heavy handed ones in terms of preaching either side of the global warming issue. His notes at the end about where he stands are fairly interesting and I could hang with most of them.

p. 453
"There was a major shift in the fall of 1989. Before that time the media did not make excessive use of terms such as crisis, catastrophe, cataclysm, plague, or disaster. For example, during the 80s. the word crisis appeared in news reports about as often as the word budget. In addition, prior to 1989, adjectives such as dire, unprecedented, dreaded were not common i television reports or newspaper headlines. But then it all changed."
"These terms started to become more and more common. The word catastrophe was used five times more often in 1995 than it was in 1985. Its use doubled again by the year 2000. And the stories changed too. there was a heightened emphasis on fear, worry, danger, uncertainty, panic."
"Why should it have changed in 1989?"
"Ah, good question. Critical question. In most respects 1989 seemed like a normal year: (description of the year follows). The rise in the use of the term crisis can be located with some precision in the autumn of 1989. And it seemed suspicious that it should coincide so closely with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Which happened on November ninth of that year."
gap here for conversation
"I am leading to the notion of social control, Peter. To the requirement of every sovereign state to exert control over the behavior of its citizens, to keep them orderly and reasonably docile. To keep them driving on the right side of the road - or the left as the case may be. To keep them paying taxes. And of course we know that social control is best managed through fear."
NOTE: I would add that I certainly see this taking place in our current adminiastration and situation in the "war on terror", but I see it just as much in the media trying to make us NEED to watch them to get the latest information on what may kill us or our children and how we can maintain safety in our "dangerous" world thanks to their help and guidance.

p457 (In the midst of a discussion about government money spent on ridiculous fear-driven claims - like the whole overhead power lines give you cancer thing)
"At the very least we are talking about a moral outrage. Thus we can expect from our religious leaders and our great humanitarian figures to cry out against the waste and the needless deaths around the world that result. But do the religious leaders speak out? No. Quite the contrary, they join the chorus. The promote, 'What Would Jesus Drive?' As if what they have forgotten that what Jesus would drive is the false prophets and fearmongers out of the temple."

fat land

Fat Land by Greg Crister

p32 Meal $$ spent away from home -- 1977=25% 1985=35% 1996=40%
% of meals eaten away from home -- 1977=16% 1987=24% 1995=29%
calories obtained away from home -- 1977=18% 1994=34%
fat consumption away from home -- 1977=19% 1987=28% 1995=38%
Fast food accounted for 3% of total caloric intake in 1977, 20 years later it was up to 12%

p49 Adolescent soft drink consumption exploded between 1989 and 1994
74% of boys and 69% of girls drinking soda daily. Usually in place of healthier alternatives like milk or juice or water. Soda consumption caused a marked increase in empty calories that were not compensated for when the children sat down to eat, thus increasing their caloric intake.

p77 - Quoting JFK who wrote "All of us must consider our own repsonsibilities for the physical vigor of our children and the young men and women of our communities. We do not want our children to become a nation of spectators. Rather, we want each of them to be a participant in the vigorous life."

p99 - from Willet and Stampfer "After controlling for smoking the rick of death in creases by 2 % for each pound of excess weight for ages 50 to 62 and by one percent per extra pound for ages 30-49."

p161 "Parents must take back control of the table."

just so you know

If anyone happens by. My name is J and I read a ton. This blog is just a place for me to keep quotes that i want to hang on to from the different things I read. Feel free to look around if you like and even comment or ask questions about the books you see here.