The Wizard of Oz Series by L. Frank Baum

That's right, The Wizard of Oz was not the only book written about the wonderful land of Oz, it's a whole series with 15 books (at least 15 written by L. Frank Baum... his nephew took over the series after that and it's really not worth reading after the 15). After spending the last monthish reading this series here are a few things that struck me.

1) There are two types of books in this series. One type introduces new people into the land of Oz (this comprises most of the first half of the series), and the other type shows the characters fighting some evil force. All of the books deal with some misfortune, but a good handful have the people of Oz fighting the forces of evil and greed and destruction. If you want to go all academic (okay, okay, you talked me into it... I'll go there) you could look at the forces working to destroy the land of Oz and how they relate to problems in America at the time. Especially with greed... since Oz has no money and everyone loves each other it's a very good foil to the American capitalist system and how broken it was in the 1910s and 1920s when these books were written.

2) The land of Oz truly holds the answer to the majority of the problems in our world. How much better would the world work if there was no money and instead everyone was doing their best to help out their neighbors? People would go into professions based on their ability to help other people instead of the amount of money they would make. We would need very few laws because bosses wouldn't take advantage of their employees, businesses wouldn't take advantage of their customers, and individuals wouldn't take advantage of those around them. How much more would we be willing to give if we didn't question other people's motives? It reminds me of a story one of my professor's told towards the end of the semester last year.

There's a homeless man on the street asking people for money. One man stops, talks to the man, and gives him all the money in his pocket, a $5 bill, without passing any judgments on the man. Awhile later another man passes by, stops, talks to the homeless man, gives him $20 out of the $100+, but gives him a lecture on how he expects the man will only use this money to buy drugs or alcohol instead of food. Which man gave the homeless man more?

Although this story isn't the exact same as the situation in the land of Oz, I think that it shows the necessary step to achieve an Oz-like land--getting past our assumptions of people. If we could just quit assuming that every person is trying to take advantage of us, how much better would the world be? I believe that if we quit looking at people with suspicion they would rise to our expectations. And each individual would be happier because they would be looking for the good in people instead of the bad. The world could be a happier place just because we wished it so. You may call it wearing rose colored glasses in a dreary world, but I call it unpeeling the smog covering the world and revealing the techni-color landscape that is Oz.

Superfreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

The cover of the book calls this "The explosive follow-up to Freakanomics," but I think I definitely liked the first book better. That's not to say that this book isn't good... it is, but personally I liked the first book better.

In case you haven't read either book, in which case I suggest you get your name on the waiting list at your local library, these books are not about economics in the typical sense of the word. There's no discussion of "the economy" or how our spending/lending practices will cause trouble. Instead, these books take a few basic economic principles such as supply and demand and the trickle down effect and take a look at how they operate in our society. In some ways it feels like a sociology book more than an economics book... but it definitely doesn't feel like a textbook any way you look at it.

I don't really know how to talk about this book without having to get into a whole bunch of details, but one of the things I thought was the most interesting was the discussion on altruism and the environment. For a long time, sociologists/economists were doing experiments that proved people were basically altruistic, but they had one big design flaw in the experiments... the people knew they were being watched. When people didn't know they were being watched, they were decidedly less altruistic and behaved much more like what we would expect people to behave like. What does this have to do with the environment you may ask? Well, what doesn't it have to do with the environment? Basically what it comes down to is the fact that people won't change something that doesn't have a negative consequence for them (and even then people won't necessarily change). Which means (in my own opinion, not that of the book) that for individuals in a society to become more eco-friendly they need to either A) see the negative impact of humanities actions on the environment, take it to heart, and change their ways; B)have negative consequences set in place (either through laws with penalties being enacted or through a social ridicule program--such as that against smoking); or C)make the eco-friendly options cheaper.

Personally, I think that option A is the most effective because you're getting people to actually care about the cause which means they'll care more about being eco-friendly in all aspects of their lives, but it's a slow, winding road and you'll never get everyone to see your point of view (especially since the majority of people don't have the luxury of time or money to care about how their decisions impact the environment or themselves). Option B just leads to a lot of laws, which I'm against because I don't think that making laws is that effective. Which leaves Option C... making it economically advantageous to be eco-friendly. As someone at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder right now, I think this is the best way to enact massive change.

Think about it this way. You're the owner of a chain of grocery stores and you've just been convinced that the number of plastic bags used by customers in your store is solely responsible for global warming, so you'd like to encourage people to quit using so many disposable plastic bags for their produce and to carry all their purchases to their car. The most effective way to get people to re-use their bags or to use sturdier cloth bags is to start charging them for each new disposable bag they use. If you were going to be charged $.10 for every bag you used, you'd be a lot more likely to spend $1.00 to buy a cloth bag to carry your things in because you would see a return on your investment relatively quickly. And this isn't just a hypothetical situation... in the Midwest there's a grocery store chain called Aldi who charges for every bag used, and you know what? People will do anything they can most of the time to not have to buy one of their bags. They either bring they're own bags or they'll use the boxes that the cans and other packages come in so that they can save that $.30 or $.40 per trip. I doubt that every customer in the store cares about being eco-friendly, yet most of them are participating in an act that is eco-friendly. What if more businesses worked like this?

So, back to the book. Freakanomics and Superfreakanomics are great books to get you thinking about things. Some of their statistics and arguments are a little out there, but the authors' intent was to get you thinking about the world around you in a different way. I think they definitely achieve this in a way that is accessible to the masses. At least I find these books to be entertaining.

P.S. If I'm going to reach my reading goal I have 354 days left to read 121 books (including the books I'm currently reading.

P.P.S. I just won another book from Goodreads Firstreads! This one is called Attila and it's about Attila the Hun... I'm pretty excited!

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

I know I said I wasn't going to read a book I didn't own until I finished reading all the books I did own, but when the wait list for a book is two months, you read it when the library tells you it came in. That being said...

This was worth the wait. Three Cups of Tea is the heartwarming true story of Greg Mortenson's mission to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan to provide a secular, nonextremist education for every child. And I think that's what sets this book and this cause apart from others. Mortenson has found a way to connect an already worthwhile cause to America's fight against terrorism. He argues that many of the extremist come from extremists schools funded by extremist groups. If we really want to fight terrorism, we need to provide an alternative education that doesn't force American values or knowledge on this population.

Mortenson's cause and approach to fighting terrorism and poverty really caused me to pause and reconsider how Americans "solve" problems. The American government throws billions and billions of dollars in aid money without it really doing much long-term good. Where as Mortenson with a few thousand dollars (he estimates it costs about $20,000 to build and fund a school) can change the mindset of an entire village for a lifetime. What if we took that approach to solving problems both in the world and in our own country. Instead of offering unemployment or welfare, give grants for people to be able to continue their education and still provide for their families that way people without any usable skills can afford to get training (whether that means taking a few computer classes so they can be a secretary, going to vo-tech to become an auto mechanic, or going to a university so they can get a degree) and people who may have outdated training can take a refresher course. What if, instead of sending tons of food over to starving nations, we sent more agriculture specialists over to help local farmers find foods that will grow in their areas that provide adequate nourishment?

And I think the thing I love the most about Greg Mortenson's mission is that he allows himself to only focus on education. He doesn't go into a town, bring them all-new Western style clothes, lots of food, and modern amenities. He goes into villages where people have asked him to come, employs the local men to build a school out of local materials, employs a school teacher and then leaves (well of course he keeps tabs on the school). He avoids contaminating the villages as much as possible with his Western ideals (although one could question how Western his ideals are since he spent most of his childhood in Africa).

Bottom line: read this book if you haven't already. I've read a lot of reviews where people say they don't love the writing style, but this book isn't about the writing. It's about the message. And in my opinion, the message is one everyone needs to hear.