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)