Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As a long-time resident of the greater NYC Metropolitan area, I have been familiar with the work of John Stossel since his appearances on WCBS-TV as an in-your-face consumer reporter early in his career. I took notice when he moved to network TV after being hired by Roone Arledge, and continued to enjoy his reporting even though I sometimes disagreed with some of his premises. I then became a viewer of his specials which often questioned liberal orthodoxy with such catchy titles as "Are We Scaring Ourselves To Death?" I regularly found these to be both informative and provocative and was very pleased when he became the co-anchor of 20/20. I met when we both attended a conference several years ago; since then I have seen him once or twice a year at other events that we have both attended and regard him as a casual friend. We share a common philosophical outlook with regarding the benefits of free market competition rather than government regulation and generally agree concerning a wide range of topics. In this regard this book is no exception although there are a few areas where I disagree with his interpretation and commentary although none where I fault his facts. I very much enjoyed John's best seller, the autobiographical GIVE ME A BREAK (Amazon five star review 2/4/2004). As a disclaimer, I want to mention that my belief in the educational value of John's work (and its potential to be a catalyst for classroom discussion of the topics involved) has led me to also provide some modest financial support to intheclassroom.org, the organization which provides copies of John's programs and classroom guides to high school teachers interested in the material. As a further disclaimer, as a result our acquaintance I received an ARC (advance review copy) of this book; I do not believe that this fact influenced my review but reveal it in the interest of full disclosure. This book is both fun and informative; it is bound to evoke a wide range of emotions in most readers - anger, shock, disbelief, relief, incredulity, laughter, surprise and finally gratitude that we have honest reporters such as John Stossel and the real experts upon which he relies to help us separate the truth from both the simple falsehoods in which we commonly believe and the often malicious lies and scams to which we are all too often exposed. As John explains in his introduction, his investigative team consistently gets out their shovels and digs through a lot of nonsense and deception to discover the truth. And most surprisingly, every once in a while as they are looking for the pony in the pile of manure, they discover one - occasionally a popular belief concerning a controversial topic which has attained mythic proportions actually turns out to be true. The contents of this book cannot be summarized in any meaningful way. I believe that the most helpful information for a potential reader in addition to my general summary will be a discussion of how it is organized and then a few brief examples and a discussion of some general themes. There are twelve chapters, each of which is devoted to a particular topic, some of which are quite specific and easily defined and a few of which are quite general. They will all be familiar to anyone familiar with John's work, as they are topics whose various aspects have been repeatedly covered in his television broadcasts. They are 1) Clueless Media; 2) He and She (sexist myths and incorrect stereotypes); 3) Hating Business; 4) Monster Government; 5) Stupid Schools; 6) Consumer Cons; 7) Legal Extortion; 8) Experts for Everything (making nonsense plausible); 9) The Power of Belief (not about religion, but belief without evidence); 10) Our Health; 11) Perils of Parenting; and 12) The Pursuit of Happiness. These topics are followed by a brief conclusion in which John discusses his political philosophy, decries the state of much of what is considered political debate today, debunks the myth that he is a conservative and reaffirms his belief in the principles of our Founding Fathers. (These last few pages are basically a summary of the philosophy developed in his earlier book.) The dominant similarity among the chapters in the book is that these twelve topics are all areas where MYTHS, LIES AND DOWNRIGHT STUPIDITY are often prevalent. Each chapter examines several interesting myths, and there were far too many for me to choose just a few favorites. However, among those which I did enjoy were the discussions concerning how mouthwash often makes our breath worse, why antibacterial soap does little to help your health (viruses are usually a greater threat than bacteria and how you wash your hands is more important than what you use) and how laptop computers can reduce male fertility. In addition, the discussion of why premium dog food appeals to people but is not better for your dog was interesting if a little gross - dogs love udders and other byproducts which humans find to be repulsive. While most of the scientifically challenged myths mentioned above will probably not create much controversy among this book's reader's, John's willingness to challenge commonly held beliefs in such areas as economics, politics, the environment and government regulation will undoubtedly outrage many of those individuals whose "special interests" are being skewered. An example of these myths and his "truths" is that a higher minimum wage helps workers, to which he retorts that it "helps some workers, but hurts more". Even more controversial is a topic frequently in today's headlines and a source of heated political debate - the belief that outsourcing is a "crisis" which takes jobs from Americans. To which he replies "outsourcing creates American jobs". However, his most biting criticisms are reserved for his associates in the press and most acerbically for the politicians who want to both control our lives and perpetuate their power while claiming to be our friends. I was already familiar with the facts in his discussion of the lies perpetuated in the Congressional Record (which is in reality a non-record), whose falsehoods would be investigated by Congress if anyone else published it. I still nevertheless enjoyed his examples. Most telling, however, was his discussion of the myth that the average politician will fulfill his election-year term limit pledge; the single anecdote which truly exemplifies how they view themselves and their relationship to the individuals who elected them was the quote (you'll have to read the book to find out who uttered it) by a Congressman who sixteen months after explaining why he wanted to be a citizen legislator rather than a lifetime politician informed his constituents, according to an article in his local newspaper, that "he'd been talking with the Lord, who had absolved him of his pledge". Another aspect of the book which I enjoyed was the frequent use of highly descriptive terminology which strikingly illustrated the concepts which were being discussed. One example which vividly remains in my mind under the discussion of price controls and price gouging was the image of price increases during catastrophes performing the "vital task of economic triage". Another was the image of the "invisible fist" of the plaintiff's bar supplementing Adam's Smith's invisible hand of the marketplace. Other examples are Americans' "addiction to insurance" (surely much more dangerous than any addiction to oil) and the current "censorship by intimidation" so rife on college campuses today (to which Larry Summers certainly can testify). Finally, this is a book which also contains a lot of very helpful advice. John's chapter about child raising myths, written from his perspective as a parent, is very worthwhile reading; I wish that he had written a book with these helpful insights when I was trying to figure out how to raise my two daughters.( I found the description of how kids become "mother deaf" fascinating.) And everyone should find his investigation into attaining happiness and his discussion of the power and nature of forgiveness worthwhile. Of course, the fact that this book discusses a very diverse group of topics undoubtedly means that many readers will find some chapters very stimulating, some of little interest, and perhaps a few controversial. Furthermore, the book is basically a collection of a great many ideas organized around a few unifying themes. I found it satisfying to read one chapter at a time, rather than attempt to proceed too rapidly through the various topics. Since it does not have to be read sequentially, this is also the type of book that you can either randomly peruse jumping from myth to myth or simply go where your interests take you,. I really enjoyed this book and strongly recommend it for anyone with an open mind and an interest in how often widely held beliefs are incorrect. My one caveat is that there is undoubtedly repetitive material in here for readers who are familiar with the author's reporting and watch his programs regularly, but this was definitely not enough of a negative factor to affect either my enjoyment or my rating. Tucker Andersen