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in case you don’t know, “merde” means “shit”. i borrowed this book from a french flatmate. according to my enormous sampling of 2 french people. it is supposedly accurate. according to one, it makes you laugh because it’s true. i didn’t ask if they thought that it was true was positive or negative. they seemed indifferent. possibly a shrug. the shrug being a commonly mentioned french behaviour to expressing indifferences or “it’s not my problem”. hmm.

the description in the front of the book says that it’s based on things that “may or may not have happened”. i really hate that. either just say that it’s truth or fiction. all fiction is typically based on some truth so there’s no point in trying to skew things. the book also takes place over 9 months (supposedly for french people, the year begins in september and ends at the beginning of may), but the author has lived there for 10 years. i would assume that all of the events probably didn’t happen in a 9 month period. in case you don’t know, the french also have a 35 hour work week (i can’t really say much here since i was only working a 32 hour work week before leaving) and get a bunch of holidays. including i guess the period from may to september.

another repeating theme is pretty much every chapter (month) includes at least one strike by some union. apparently, everyone in paris (france?) is in a union. the ridiculous thing about these strikes is that they apparently don’t ever really resolve anything. the strikes are something you just have to deal with for a couple of days each time. it’s really just like deciding a whole profession is going on holiday for a couple of days. not pleasant when it’s the garbage men or the public transport workers. it’s apparently impossible to fire someone. and i thought it was bad in large american corporations.

overall, it’s entertaining. i actually read it off and on in about 13 hours total. the copy i had was 372 pages, but it was a huge font, practically double spaced and a lot of page margin. the copy linked on amazon is listed at only 288 pages. worth a read.
the main thing i learned from this book is that i don’t want to have anything to do with france. by this, i do not mean french people, more like french culture. of course, listening to my frenchman flat mate complain about it had already turned me off to it anyway. his complaints (which i had heard before reading the book) were the same regarding the work environment and how shit just doesn’t work. i think his only positive for france was 24mbit internet access for cheap. of course, this is someone who lived in paris, moved to london and has no intention of moving back.

“yes man” (doesn’t appear to be out yet in paperback in the states) is one of the best books i’ve ever read. of course, the main character is 26, male and completely lacks any responsibilities or commitment. sound familiar? it’s autobiographical, but supposedly the order has been changed in some ways to keep it interesting. the basic premise is the author starts saying yes to everything. including spam, random leaflets, newspaper ads, advertising signs in stores. anything that ask him a question. does he want a new type of credit card? why not say it with flowers? another pint? are you looking at my girlfriend? the list goes on. he ends up traveling to a variety of destinations outside of the uk. he also lives in london. another advantage for me since i’ve been to many of the places he mentions. he met a girl for a drink on upper street which is right near where i’m staying. unfortunately, he didn’t mention the specific pub.

while it seems some parts are unlikely (could he really not think he won the spanish lottery that he didn’t enter as the e-mail says?), i highly recommend it. it’s funny and you might even learn something. i believe peter has read it as well. that factored into the purchase. i now have to get his book “join me” in which he accidentally starts his own cult.

interestingly, his yeses may be also affecting my life as i may be spending june 5-9th at the losang dragpa centre in a medieval castle with buddhist monks. i believe peter had also suggested this. raise your hand if you can see me hanging with some monks? it will be a bit of a switch from going to amsterdam (which danny also did), but everyone has crazy stories from amsterdam. i’ll just have to find somewhere to spend the first days of june. maybe liverpool. it is going to be the european capital of culture in 2008. i can always swing through amsterdam after the world cup. it’s right next door. i just can’t procrastinate and need to actually get my train ticket early so i don’t have to pay too much again.

i finally got around to reading it. it was excellent. i realize i’m probably about 55 years late with that observation. i probably read it in about 36 hours. if you don’t have any interrupts, it’s easy to get time to read. well worth reading if you’ve never read it. i could take the low hanging fruit and say how it applies to the u.s. today, yada, yada, yada, but i’m not. i would rather take this opportunity to bitch about the introduction written by some pompus jackass named ben pimlott(i assume it’s this professor). i couldn’t even finish it (it’s only 12 pages). why is there an introduction in the front of the book that explains the whole plot anyway? not that i’m a big enough sucker to fall for that one (fool me once shame on you, fool me…uh…can’t get fooled again). i mainly find it annoying that while the book itself is written in a very straight forward manner, that intro had more 20 cent words in the first couple of pages. it’s just ironic that a book including as a major device of separating the haves from the have-nots was a new language (newspeak, reduced english that removes any possibility of thought or creativity). the same thing happens today and probably has for forever. it’s just another way to segregate society. this could go on and on, but why bother. pretensious assholes will continue to use big, flashy words to impress their friends and look down their nose at people they think are shit.

the only introductions should be written by the author. see h.g. wells for a good example. and read “the island of dr. moreau” if you haven’t. excellent. i think i’m actually going to be reading his “modern utopia” next. supposedly, it was part of orwell’s inspiration for writing “1984″.

it’s good book. read it. what more do i really have to say. most words can be replaced with some form of fuck anyway.

in my initial review, i only made a passing mention on population growth. in the final chapter, there’s a list of the 12 environmental issues facing humans. 11 and 12 are both related to population growth and third world to first world life style growth respectively. while all of the environmental problems are interrelated and all must be solved, you can’t discount that having a larger population doesn’t exacerbate all other problems. more people competing for limited resources greatly increases volatility. unfortunately, i can’t find the direct quote in the book. i should probably start reading with a highlighter.

more alarming to me, was this quote that i was able to locate.

my best friends in the third world, with families of 4 to 8 children, lament that they have heard of the benign forms of contraception widespread in the first world, and they want those measures desperately for themselves, but they can’t afford or obtain them, due in part to the refusal of the u.s. government to fund family planning in its foreign aid programs.

how depressingly stupid. even though i’m inclined to believe jared diamonds research, i had to find something further. i found one document from something called the guttmacher institute. here’s another article from the new york times (jggilbert:password if you don’t have a login).

the general principle seems to be abstinence is the only method of family planning as far as bush is concerned. brilliant. it, of course, worked so well in his home state where lubbock, texas has the highest rate of teen pregnancy. there’s a movie eventually coming out on dvd about lubbock. i believe the thing i saw about lubbock was on pbs. here’s a quote from the girl from the movie:

“Why so much sex in Lubbock?” said Shelby Knox, 16, who initiated the student effort to change the Lubbock curriculum. “There’s nothing to do. You can only go to the movies so many times on Friday night.”

so, from this rational, obviously it will work fine in the middle of nowhere third world country where there is even less to do. right? we’re creating a situation where we’re sending food and aid to poor countries that have the highest population growth rates in the world. i’m sure i don’t even slightly grasp the mechanics of how a third world country operates (corrupt government, a lot of poor starving people?) to be authoritative, but this seems obviously illogical. there’s another passage in the book (should have marked it) that talks about knowing when to give up particular societies values (especially religious). the president might want to look into a little self evaluation.

on the subject of lubbock, there was another bit in the article that stood out.

“…and local lore holds that the city has more churches per capita than any other in the nation.”

it doesn’t say it’s fact, but by being “local lore” it’s implied that the citizens want or believe it to be true. so from that, it would lead one to believe that they think themselves to be the most religious. what’s that commandment, “thou shalt not kill”? luckily, our own f.b.i. keeps crime statistics for the country. conveniently, lubbock is on the same page as both los angeles and sin city itself, las vegas. clearly, either of those 2 should have much higher crime stats than the epicenter of holiness. these are all in rates per 100,000 inhabitants. we’ll go for violent crime for starters. violent crime is defined as: “offenses of murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault”. lubbock, 1,051.6, l.a. 902.4, vegas 678.9. so, percentage wise, you’re telling me it’s more dangerous to live in lubbock? it can’t be? well, i’m sure since abstinence is working so well, “forcible rape” (isn’t rape by definition forced? whatever.) must be almost non-existant (yes, that’s sarcasm you detect or if not, your should be). lubbock 60, l.a. 29.3, vegas, surely vegas, nope, 40.1, all per 100,100 people. is the “bad parts of town” just segregated out of the l.a. and vegas statistics? the vegas stats are per inhabitant. that probably doesn’t even account for the number of tourists through there each year. you might even expect fewer reported rapes in lubbock due to the girl not wanting to be branded as a “slut” for having sex.

anyway, i’ve probably said too much already. here’s a couple of interesting links.

• worthwhile to review the u.s. entry from our own c.i.a. factbook. particular sections of interest might be “environment - current issues” and “economy - overview” (”two-tier labor market”).
• “frontline: the choice 2004” - excellent documentary that was being played repeatedly on pbshd leading up to the last election. you can watch it online, but it’s probably better on dvd. unfortunately, netflix doesn’t appear to have it. they do have some other frontline episodes though.
• this is a transcript from the second debate leading up to the 2004 election. i found it through question 17. i understand why kerry lost, but he would have had to try really hard to be a worse president.
• world’s smallest political quiz

this may have gotten a little of track. to get it back on topic, read the last section of the book.

i finally finished “collapse“. i can now move on with my life. it’s quite a long read at 525 pages of a very small font. is it worth reading? definitely. it could use a trimmed down version to reach a wider audience. i think a lot of people wouldn’t make it past the first 100 pages or less. the book is packed with facts. always good when you’re trying to make a point. it would be helpful to society in general if everyone would at least read the last section. it covers practical application of the previous 400 pages of research and analysis of civilizations, both ancient and modern.

jared diamond’s claim is to be a cautious optimists. however, there would have to be drastic changes before i think i would share his optimism. for starters, get a competent president who has the long term interest of the country as a top priority and by the “country”, i mean all demographics. kanye west’s comment that “george bush doesn’t care about black people” was interesting and ballsy, but incorrect. george bush doesn’t care about non-rich people. it was just a coincidence that practically all the people in new orleans were black. george w. bush’s answer to climate change and environmental issues is more research. i would submit this book as all the research required. the question of global warming is irrelevant in respect to weening everyone from fossil fuels as it’s not sustainable in the long term and the local pollution is easily visible. the debates over it just allow the administration, other politicians and corporations to delay action.

a somewhat ironic aspect of the book is that jared diamond lives in los angeles, which he uses as an example in the last section. people there on average commute 60 miles a day to work. that’s insane. however, it’s a direct result of unplanned urban sprawl. atlanta and miami are similar. birmingham will eventually get there on the present course of inaction. you cannot hope to have good public transport or efficient transport when your city is scattered all over the place. while london has good public transport, i wouldn’t say that the central city is really arranged in the most desirable way. we need to start from scratch. unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen. the only real hope is the design principal of transit villages. a system where a car is not required additionally can speed adoption of new technologies. the largest problem with moving from gas powered cars, aside from an apparently non-existant alternative, is that if there was an alternative energy source, it would take for ever to adopt it. equally, what would happen to all the existing combustion engine cars. a proper solution should attempt to provide a retrofit for existing cars that doesn’t require buying a new car. shockingly, we don’t see that because the only companies starting to promote alternative fuels are car companies. they sell cars. they see switching to alternative fuels as a gold rush equivalent to the music industry when people switch from tapes to cds.

anyway, what do you do? according to diamond, a large part of the responsibility lies with the consumer. we are a mainly market driven economy. the important factor is placing the pressure in the proper place at the retail vendor. sitting in a tree so it won’t be cut down doesn’t do anything, but get a lot of press for someone being a moron sitting in a tree. it even hurts the cause further by re-enforcing the “tree hugger” stereotype, literally. it may be a small p.r. issue for the specific logging company in that area, but no one outside the area will even know or care what the company is. furthermore, no one directly buys lumber from a logging company. except home depot, lowes, etc. that’s where you apply the pressure because they can apply pressure to the logging companies. you don’t have a demonstration at a gold mine, you picket in front of tiffany’s. as mentined in the book, these companies are reacting due to pressure to preserve there “good” name.

two specific industry groups mentioned in the book are the forest stewardship council (logging) and the marine stewardship council (fishing). these groups defined international standards that are audited by 3rd party certified companies to ensure long term sustainable industries. so, when you’re buying lumber or fish, look for their certification (assuming it exists). supposedly, home depot stocks f.s.c. lumber. m.s.c. is apparently sold by whole foods and sainsbury, neither of which are in birmingham. young’s, the company that makes admiral’s pie, apparently uses m.s.c. fish though no information appears to be available on the packaging.

another thing is to evaluate your driving/commuting situation. fuel efficient cars are better, ditch the s.u.v. and move closer to where you work. obviously, these are easier said than done. however, a large portion of an issue may be of perspective than actual barriers. i still can’t get over the woman at the public transport rally in birmingham who questioned whether or not she should have to move across the city nearer to her job than have to ride the bus an hour (it may have been more) each way to work. the answer, is obviously yes if you want to do something else with that time. maybe use that time to read a book for your own intellectual enhancement. as a comparison, the trip from my flat to craven cottage takes ~40 minutes on the tube. the equivalent bus trip would be an hour longer according to the transport for london trip planner. it’s 8.6 miles and 19 minutes from angel tube station to putney bridge tube station by car according to google maps. probably longer with traffic. i suppose i have a point somewhere. i realize everyone can’t telecommute or live 5 blocks from where they work. however, you have to trade your time for that. things could always be better planned (or at least planned), but it seems that unfortunately we can’t start from scratch. it will also always be the case that real estate nearer to city centers will be more expensive. i’m increasingly beginning to think that a couple of large companies in birmingham should just abandon downtown and build a new city center in chelsea or something and actually plan it. that’s what happened in london with canary wharf. i just have decreasing hope that downtown birmingham will ever actually turn around. for starters, they need to quit bitching about the neighborhoods (homewood, mountainbrook, vestavia, hoover, etc.) not getting on board with public transport and realize that until you can travel around downtown without a car, you aren’t going to be able to convince anyone it’s a good idea to take a bus or train from the suburbs. i haven’t been checking lately, but they’ve probably screwed up the railroad reservation park too.

is it possible to create a “good part of town” that doesn’t depend on the flawed parameter of how much money you have?

this is way of track and should probably be edited, but i don’t really want to. definitely needs more paragraph breaks.

the bottom line is that people should start with their own backyard. sure the federal government is incompetent war-mongerers, but why are you depending on the federal government anyway? start with your local and state governments. start with yourself.
one last thing, population growth was a huge part of the collapse of former civilizations. the goal should be zero population growth, but it goes farther than that because it’s the per-capita environmental impact. the world supposedly couldn’t even support the situation where all third world citizens lived a first world live style. for this reason, things like social security or economic models that depend on population growth have got to go.

hopefully, no one read all this rambling all the way through. just go checkout “collapse” from the library and read the last section. you can then decide if you want to read the previous sections.