"No One Gets the Cupcake": A Review of Jay Martel's Channel Blue

Title: Channel Blue
Author: Jay Martel
Edition: Head of Zeus, Ltd. (Paperback, 2014)
Pages: 374
How I Came By This Book: Sadly, I no longer work in a library, but I still spend inordinate amounts of time in them. This book was found on the New Fiction shelf at my town library.

About the Author: I'm an executive producer and writer for "Key & Peele," a sketch show on Comedy Central. I've created various TV shows, written screenplays, gardened for Richard Nixon, and was once arrested for confronting Jeb Bush about Florida's death penalty program. I've also written comic pieces for "The New Yorker" and "Rolling Stone." Channel Blue is my first novel. For more info on Channel Blue and my writing, please check outfacebook.com/authorjaymartel. (from GoodReads)

Synopsis: Earth used to be Galaxy Entertainment's most lucrative show. The inhabitants of the Western Galaxy--the savviest, richest demographic in the Milky Way--just couldn't get enough of the day-to-day details of the average Earthling's life.

But now Channel Blue's ratings are flagging, and its producers are planning a spectacular finale. In just three weeks, their TV show will go out with a bang. The trouble is, so will Earth.

Only one man can save our planet from total destruction. And he's hardly a hero...

Review: Perry Bunt is a has-been screenwriter teaching screenwriting at a community college. He's broke, single, and bored, with only masturbation and the sight of his lovely student, Amanda Mundo, to break the monotony of everyday life. What he doesn't know is that he's about to become the most important person in the galaxy. Channel Blue is the story of an everyman thrust into an impossible position: he's the only sane person on Earth who knows that mankind is going to destroy itself in three weeks for the personal entertainment of trillions of viewers, which makes him the only one who can stop it from happening.

Unbeknownst to the 7 billion people on this planet, we're being watched. A lot. Our whole planet is Channel Blue, a conglomeration of thousands of television stations devoted to broadcasting the daily successes and foibles of humankind. Tuning in every second of the day is the rest of the galaxy, including the Edenites, an advanced form of human that has come to see entertainment as its highest priority. They delight in watching the "Earthles" fight wars, get gravely injured, or just all-around fail at life. And all of this has been happening without our knowledged. In fact, up until Perry Bunt stumbles into the wrong room in Galaxy Entertainment in an attempt to return Amanda Mundo's jacket to her, the only Earthle who knew about Channel Blue was a homeless man named Ralph, who hangs outside a convenience store. Unfortunately, for Perry, this one error in judgment will embroil him in a battle to save the world.

With ratings dropping, Galaxy Entertainment has decided to cut its losses and let Channel Blue go. In order to go out with a bang, the producers of Channel Blue put a series of events into motion--earthquakes, violence, a foiled airplane crash--that will eventually set off a spark in the Middle East, leading to all-out nuclear annihilation. When Perry discovers that this is the case, he sets out to save the planet by showing the galactic viewers that Earth isn't beyond saving. He becomes determined to prove that Earth isn't all violence and mindless stupidity, but his fellow Earthles don't make it easy for him. Every time he tries to do something nice, it backfires on him: he gets beat up; he inadvertently starts a religion; he gets locked up in a secret government facility and waterboarded.

As he and Amanda Mundo trip through these events together, their gaffes become a number one hit TV show: Bunt to the Rescue. The more popular the show gets, the crazier life gets for Perry, as the producers at Channel Blue up the stakes in order to up their ratings. In the middle of all of this chaos, Perry discovers a deep, dark secret that changes his view of the world forever. What will happen in the end? Will the Earth be saved? And will Perry survive to complete his mission?

Channel Blue is a hilarious comedy of errors in which the errors are not just Perry's--they're also our own. Martel satirizes humanity twice--we are both the watched and the watchers. He pokes fun at religion, politics, terrorism, nationalism. He takes swing after swing at our entertainment-obsessed, violent, and self-centered society. It's such a masterful piece of satire, with layer upon layer of scathing criticism veiled with non-stop laughter. The dual-criticism technique was new to me and it was extremely refreshing. In fact, it didn't quite click in my head that Martel is portraying us as the Earthles AND the Edenites until I sat down to write this review.

The plot is a bit twisty-turny, jerking the reader in a new direction every time it seems he or she has the novel figured out. It kept me guessing straight up to the end of the book, although occasionally I felt like I had whiplash from some of the more drastic plot twists. Martel doesn't make life easy for his poor protagonist, nor does he make it clear to the reader where things are headed. I definitely did not see the book going where it did when I started reading it, which is great. It's very rare that a book surprises me like that.

The characters are caught up in a whirlwind, which means that their development is very plot driven. Perry and Amanda are obviously the two main characters and therefore are the most developed. But there are several other characters to look out for, including Nick Pythagorus, Amanda's nine-year-old boss, and Noah Overton, Perry's bewildered neighbor, who only wants to make the world a better place. There's even a special guest star. I'll give you a hint: "Thank you. Thank you very much."

I really liked this book a lot. I would definitely recommend it if you're a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or social satire in general. I'm giving Channel Blue 4 out of 5 Gabriels.

-Gabe

Posing for Charity

My fiancé and I are giant dorks who love to show each other stuff we've found on the internet. Occasionally these things are socially acceptable to share with the masses. The other day Don showed me a post he had found on Jim C. Hines' blog that I immediately knew I had to blog about.

Hines, a fantasy writer, is raising money for the Aicardi Syndrome Foundation in a rather unusual way: by taking photographs of himself posing in the ridiculous and hyper-sexualized manner of women on book covers. You can find some of these photos here, here, and here (with special guest poser, John Scalzi). You can also find a post about what we should be laughing about when we see these photos rather than what we might be laughing about here. As Hines himself says:

...if you’re laughing because you’re a straight guy and therefore must declare all male bodies brain-searingly ugly? If you’re laughing because you think a man in a dress is funny and should be mocked? In other words, if you’re laughing because of various aspects of ingrained sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other discriminatory nonsense? Then you’ve missed the point so badly it’s not even funny.

The point Hines is trying to make is a good one. We as a society tend to laugh at that which we find absurd...and we find the wrong things absurd. The media has shown us images of men in dresses (think Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, Work It, etc.) and told us to laugh at them. In a world where sexuality and gender expression are a spectrum and in which rigid gender roles are forced on us from birth even if we don't want them to be, the message from the media is that men should wear pants and suits and that only women can wear dresses and skirts and that any man who doesn't fall into those strict guidelines should be laughed at. Our pink/blue dichotomy is impressed upon us even before we're out of the womb and the media does everything in its power to keep us thinking of ourselves in an either/or sense--mostly for the sake of advertising products and measuring demographics, I'm sure.

Hines is pointing out the absurdity of the aforementioned ridiculous and hyper-sexualized poses that women are portrayed in on book covers. Science fiction and fantasy are ripe with examples of this, but they can be found everywhere. How many times have you seen a man lying across a car in a skimpy bathing suit or lasciviously licking an ice cream cone on a commercial? I'm going to guesstimate here and say the likelihood that you have is around zero.

Escher Girls, a tumblr blog designed to "archive and showcase the prevalence of certain ways women are depicted in illustrated pop media, specifically how women are posed, drawn, distorted, and sexualized out of context, often in ridiculous, impossible or disturbing ways that sacrifice storytelling," explores the issue even further than Hines does by ridiculing and attempting to correct illustrations of women that are featured in comic books, manga, and the like. Both Hines and Escher Girls realize the real thing to be laughed at is the way in which women are portrayed in the media.

We have sexualized women for ages, demeaning and degrading them and making them out to be objects rather than functioning members of society. Men, on the other hand, are portrayed as being strong, rugged, powerful...and irresistible to women. The repercussions of this reverberate throughout the world, leading to rape, abuse, disempowerment, and a feeling that men are the superior sex. Our language further perpetuates this false belief. Someone who is scared or weak is "a pussy." Someone who is bad at pitching is told they "throw like a girl." Women who are strong and in a position of power are frequently portrayed as "bitches" who have slept their way to the top while a man in the same position of power is seen as a driven, hard-working individual who earned his distinction. The gender gap isn't about the differences between men and women; it's an unfortunate byproduct of deeply-held and erroneous cultural attitudes towards women.

As Hines states, it is not just sexism that is the issue. Homophobia and transphobia are similar cultural issues that need to be dealt with. I am a member of the LGBT community and have faced harassment and ridicule. LGBT friends of mine have had even worse to deal with: violence, discrimination, neglect. They have been disowned by their parents or have at least lived in fear of that happening if their family were to find out. A lot of the problems that the community faces stem from cultural beliefs held about us that are perpetuated by the media and religious groups. There is a good reason why GLAAD called ABC out on its show Work It: it's yet another attempt by the media to push the "men in dresses are funny" meme. And it's gotten pretty old.

This honestly started out as a post bringing awareness to Hines' efforts to raise money for a good cause. And I urge you to donate to it, obviously. But what started as a simple "Hey, here's something interesting" post has become a way for me to discuss what I think is a huge problem in our society today: othering. We see the world as "us" and "them." If "they" are different from "us" then we dehumanize them by laughing at them, hurting them, conquering them, trying to keep them from having what we have. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, and the like are all ways of othering, of keeping all the power and money and whatever else we desire away from "them."

The issue isn't with the people being othered; it is with the people doing the othering. This country (and every other country) needs deep societal change in order to push forward toward equality. The only way that we are going to be able to provide safety, success, and a loving environment for all is to take a look at our prejudices, whether we know we have them or not, and to change ourselves. Our beliefs are not our own--they are influenced by the media, the government, religion, our parents. They are pushed upon us at an early age and it is up to us to break out of them and to start thinking for ourselves. They are socially driven but can be individually altered.

How are you working towards changing your own beliefs? How are you trying to break out of the social status quo?

-Gabe

Gilded Age 2.0: A Review of Chrystia Freeland's Plutocrats

Title: Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
Author: Chrystia Freeland
Edition: Penguin Press (Hardcover, 2012)
Pages: 330
How I Came by This Book: This was on the "New Acquisitions" shelf at the library I work at. As income inequality is an issue near and dear to my heart, I obviously had to check it out.

About the Author: Chrystia Freeland is the digital editor at Thomson Reuters, following years of service at the Financial Times both in New York and in London. She was the deputy editor of Canada's The Globe and Mail and has reported for the Financial Times, The Economist, and The Washington Post. Freeland's last book was Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution. She lives in New York City.

Synopsis: There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Alarmingly, the greatest income gap is not between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, but within the wealthiest 1 percent of our nation--as the merely wealthy are left behind by the rapidly expanding fortunes of the new global super-rich. Forget the 1 percent; Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at breakneck speed.

What's changed is more than numbers. Today, most colossal fortunes are new, not inherited--amassed by perceptive businesspeople who see themselves as deserving victors in a cutthroat international competition. As a transglobal class of successful professionals, today's self-made oligarchs often feel they have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Bringing together the economics and psychology of these new super-rich, Plutocrats puts us inside a league very much of its own, with its own rules.

The closest mirror to our own time is the late-nineteenth-century Gilded Age--the era of powerful "robber barons" like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Then as now, emerging markets and innovative technologies collided to produce unprecedented wealth for more people than ever in human history. Yet those at the very top benefited far more than others--and from this pinnacle they exercised immense and unchecked power in their countries. Today's closest analogue to these robber barons can be found in the turbulent economies of India, Brazil, and China, all home to ferocious market competition and political turmoil. But wealth, corruption, and populism are no longer constrained by national borders, so this new Gilded Age is already transforming the economics of the West as well. Plutocrats demonstrates how social upheavals generated by the first Gilded Age may pale in comparison to what is in store for us, as the wealth of the entire globalized world is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

Cracking open the tight-knit world of the new global super-rich is Crystia Freeland, an acclaimed business journalist who has spent nearly two decades reporting on the new transglobal elite. She parses an internal Citigroup memo that urges clients to design portfolios around the international "Plutonomy" and not the national "rest"; follows Russian, Mexican, and Indian oligarchs during the privatization boom as they manipulate the levers of power to commandeer their local economies; breaks down the gender divide between the vast female-managed "middle class" and the world's one thousand billionaires; shows how, by controlling both the economic and political institutions of their nation, the richest members of China's National People's Congress have amassed more wealth than the net worth of all the members of all three branches of the U.S. government combined--the president, his cabinet, the justices of the Supreme Court, and both houses of Congress.

Though the results can be shocking, Freeland dissects the lives of the world's wealthiest individuals with empathy, intelligence, and deep insight. Brightly written, powerfully researched, and propelled by fascinating original interviews with the plutocrats themselves, Plutocrats is a tour de force of social and economic history, and the definitive examination of inequality in our time.

Review: As a language geek, it's always fun for me when I can bring that knowledge into this blog. In my perfect world, everyone would multilingual and would be as excited about grammar as I am. This isn't my perfect world. I bring this up because the word "plutocrat" gets thrown around a lot and there are probably a lot of people who are unaware of its meaning. In the ancient Greek "ploutos" means "wealth" and "kratos" means "power." Therefore, the word "plutocrat" roughly means "power through wealth." Chrystia Freeland's timely book about those who have gained power through wealth is an excellent source of information for those of us who are curious as to how the super-rich got that way, what they will do to hold onto their wealth and power, and what this could mean for the rest of us.

The dust has started to clear from the financial crisis of 2008 and with that clarity comes a startling realization: we the people are no better off now than we were at the height of the crisis. Republicans want to throw all the blame at President Obama, but those following the bailout and other aspects of the global financial meltdown who aren't drinking the Republican Kool-Aid can see that those at the top of our economy are doing very, very well indeed. Anyone with a grain of sense in them can recognize a pattern when they see one and I'd like to think that I have a grain of sense. Global financial crisis + bailouts to banks and industries rather than to those of us on Main Street (which was a Bush initiative that Obama carried out no matter how many people want to call it "Obama's Bailout") + concentration of wealth at the top = continued financial strain for the rest of us.

Freeland's Plutocrats explores the world of the super-rich, the billionaires who hold more financial and political power than they should, with an approachable writing style, humor, and an eye towards the Gilded Age. Drawing on history, economics, psychology, and personal interviews, Freeland paints a startling portrait of wealth and privilege around the world. Even an informed reader will be shocked by some of the revelations in this book, as well as by the attitudes of the super-rich. They really do see themselves as being separate from the rest of us and from the interests of the countries in which they were born, raised, and made a fortune.

Examining the lifestyles of the rich and the powerful, Freeland draws conclusions that highlight the danger we are all in of falling victim to the unchecked power and greed of CEOs and other earners of astronomical income--people who will risk capital to the detriment of society all in the hope of becoming even more rich. Anyone who lost their investments or their life savings or their job after Wall Street's meltdown can attest to the perils of a world in which the rich are unaccountable. And yet, because of their own desire to be rich and living the high life, many people affected by the financial crisis are more willing to buy into conservative notions of the danger of raising taxes on high-income-earners, the so-called "job creators," than they are to demand that those who fly in private jets and wall themselves off in large houses away from the troubles of the world should have to pay back into the society that helped them to become wealthy in the first place.

Freeland shows how the super-rich blame everyone but themselves for the financial hardships of the last four years and how they view themselves as being above the mundane issues of everyday Americans (or Indians or Chinese or wherever they are from). She gives evidence of their lack of loyalty to anyone but themselves and of their lack of understanding/concern about what they are doing to everyone else in the pursuit of that next car/house/jet/vacation. She tells of millionaires (and billionaires) who feel that they aren't making enough, giving credence to Plato's ideas about the tyrant--a tyrant is never satisfied with what he has and is always going to the next level of excess looking for happiness and never finding it. The tyrants of our age are the plutocrats and those just below them who desire to be plutocrats. Freeland's interviews and anecdotes about the super-rich prove that. And their constant search for happiness in excess will bring further hardship to the rest of us.

I highly recommend this book. If nothing else, it may sway you away from your support of the "job creators" by realizing that they aren't there to create jobs but to make money for themselves. Once the lower and middle classes in this country--and elsewhere--are informed about what is actually being done behind the closed doors of board rooms and in the lavish mansions of the upper crust, we might actually be able to have reasonable discussions about how to move forward in such a way that the middle class isn't hollowed out and the poor aren't left with no way to clamber out of the pit of poverty they have been thrown into. If you walk away from this book with anything, I hope that it is with a feeling of indignation and a determination to stop the cycle of income inequality that is plaguing this nation and the world.

I'm giving Plutocrats five out of five Gabriels.

-Gabe

Teach a Man to Fish: Cultural Illiteracy and the Decline of the Informed American

I need to talk about this or I will explode. Truly. The idea for this post has been kicking around in my head ever since a person who shall remain unidentified told me that President Obama wants to put tracking devices in our heads. "No he does not," I replied, rolling my eyes at what some people will believe. The response: "Yeah, I read about it on the internet."

Or maybe it started before that. Maybe it started when people started talking about Death Panels. Or the Mayan Calendar. Maybe it was the first time someone said to me, "Global warming can't exist because it's snowing." Or when I found out that a girl from my hometown had insults hurled at her while she was standing in line at the grocery store for sending a letter to the editor of our newspaper explaining that America was not founded as a Christian nation. Or a million other moronic things that I have had to hear over the last 26 years.

Let me state this all for you right now:

• What you read on the internet isn't always true.
• Death Panels don't frakking exist.
• The Mayan Calendar is just the latest in a long history of "end of the world" scares.
• Global warming doesn't mean that it won't snow in the winter.
• And FYI, America wasn't founded as a Christian nation.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, this is what I really want to talk about today: cultural illiteracy. Cultural ignorance. Cultural blindness. Call it what you want, we here in the States are suffering from a woeful (and, in some cases, voluntary) lack of information and understanding.

We are constantly bombarded by media reports and blog posts and politically-charged statements designed to stir up people's emotions and make them think, act, or vote a certain way. What they aren't designed to do is inform people or make them think for themselves.

What's worse is that we have been cowed into being mindless consumers of products, television shows, magazines, and the like. We have been nudged into believing what we see, hear, and read without being encouraged to find out the truth for ourselves. We have fallen into the trap of thinking that catching the newest episode of crap like Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo is far more important than picking up a book. We don't trust newspapers and yet we'll devour anything that's spewed at us from CNN or FOX News without question.

Americans can't explain how their government works. They can't concentrate on anything longer than 140 characters. They buy into sensation and hype rather than calm, rational, reasoned arguments. They are saddened by the death of a movie star, but don't bat an eyelash when they hear (if they hear) that tens of thousands of people have died in the Syrian clash. They'll even argue that it doesn't matter, that it doesn't affect them, and that they don't care what happens to other people. Oh, really, Mr. or Mrs. I-Followed-the-Royal-Wedding-More-Closely-Than-My-Own?

Right, because rich white people getting married is so important.

The people around me are far more likely to be able to tell you who their favorite celebrity is dating than they are to be able to tell you who their congressman or woman is. They can recognize singers or athletes on sight, but they can't name scientists, humanitarians, or civil rights activists.

And don't get me started on books. Everyone and their grandmother has read 50 Shades of Grey, Twilight, The Da Vinci Code, or whatever Nicholas Sparks crapfest has just come out. Ask them about titles of actual worth and merit and they'll look at you with a blank stare. Ask them to name the last non-fiction title they've read and you'll either hear "non-fiction is boring" or (gods-forbid) "I love Glen Beck." Gag me with a spoon.

People are actually walking around bragging that they don't read, don't follow the news, don't vote, don't...whatever. If you really think that those are things to brag about, then I really hope that you also don't complain about "the state of things today." If you can't inform yourself, you have no right to sit there and talk about how bad things have gotten. Your pride in your own ignorance, your refusal to be an informed citizen completely takes away your right to have an opinion.

Some people might read this and think that I'm being harsh. Damn right, I am! If you tell me that you believe something because you saw it on the internet or because you heard it from a friend, I'm going to ask you if you've looked into the issue. I'm going to ask you if you've done any research. If you tell me no, then I'm going to judge you. And I think I have a right to. We are living in an age where information is freely available in many forms, where you can easily find out what opposing viewpoints are saying, where you can form an informed opinion based on different facets of an issue.

Don't tell me you don't have time. Skip the latest episode of whatever craptastic TV show you want to watch and put on a documentary. Put down the romance novel you're reading and pick up a book on a topic you don't understand. Turn off CNN or FOX and turn on NPR or BBC or Al-Jazeera and find out what's going on outside of your bubble and what the rest of the world is doing/thinking/feeling/going through.

There's a whole big world out there, folks, and it doesn't look like this.

I'm calling for parents, teachers, politicians, and regular old individuals to encourage their children, their students, their constituents, and themselves to become informed. We've been living in a society where we've been handed fish for so long that we've forgotten how to fish. We've stopped thinking for ourselves and have let others think for us for far too long. Teach a man to "fish." Teach yourself to "fish." Become informed. Have an opinion based on fact rather than emotion. Don't depend on what you see or hear. Think for yourself!

We need to teach cultural literacy, critical thinking skills, and the beauty and benefit of fact vs. feeling. If we just buy into what we're told without thinking, we end up looking like complete idiots on national TV. I'm appalled that, as a nation, we spend more time researching which computer we're going to buy than we do researching issues and candidates and other things that actually matter. We're "informed consumers" of all the useless products that we buy, but we aren't informed consumers of information.

You can think that I'm being ridiculous or over-the-top or blowing things out of proportion. That's fine. I'm not, but that's fine. As long as we continue to pretend that ignorance is bliss or that it isn't an issue, we will continue to be uninformed and unlikely to make changes in our behavior. Think about whether or not you want to be one of those "dumb Americans" that people always talk about or if you'd actually like to be seen as someone who is open, informed, and able to talk about something without looking like you've spent the last fifty years in a bomb shelter.

-Gabe

Anthrax and SARS and West Nile, Oh My!: A Review of Marc Siegel's False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear

Title: False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear
Author: Marc Siegel
Edition: Hardcover (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005)
Pages: 246
How I Came By This Book: Back when I was working on a book about blame in society (which didn't pan out, although I get tempted from time to time to go back and work on it again), I got this book out from the library.

About the Author: Marc Siegel, M.D., is a practicing internist, an associate professor at the New York University School of Medicine, and a Fellow in the Master Scholars Society at New York University. He is a columnist for the New York Daily News and Tribune Media Services, a member of USA Today's Board of Contributors, and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Family Circle, and the Washington Post. Siegel has appeared regularly on the Today show, The Early Show on CBS, FOX News Channel, ABC News, CNN, and NPR.

Synopsis: Life today for citizens of the developed world is far safer, easier, and healthier than for any other people in history. Modern medicine has all but wiped out may diseases that once were common killers. Science and technology have given us countless devices that protect our bodies from injury, secure our property, and warn us of impending disaster. And modern intelligence gathering can pinpoint threats to our domestic security as they arise. So why is an epidemic of fear sweeping America?

The answer, according to nationally renowned health commentator Dr. Marc Siegel, is that we live in an artificially created culture of fear. From the anthrax panic to the SARS "epidemic," from "official" rumors of bioterror to Orange alerts to West Nile virus--the media continually bombard us with breaking news of yet another super-bug, terrorist plot, or natural disaster that's about to wreak havoc. Most of the time the disasters never materialize. But even if they did, the odds that any of us would suffer harm from them is infinitesimally small--especially when compared to the much greater risks of dying in a car accident or from coronary heart disease.

In False Alarm, Siegel identifies three major catalysts of the culture of fear--government, the media, and big pharma. And, with the help of fascinating, blow-by-blow analyses of some of the most sensational false alarms of the past few years, he shows how those big three fearmongers manipulate our most primitive instincts--often without our even realizing it--to promote their political agendas, boost their ratings, and sell their products.

In his role as a dedicated healer, Siegel offers his prescription for inoculating ourselves against fear tactics. He shows us how to look behind the hype and hysteria and helps us to develop the emotional and intellectual skills needed to take back our lives from fearmongers.

Review: Unless you were in utero at the time or lived under a rock, you experienced the atmosphere of terror that characterized the years 2001-2008. You may have been one of those people who feared that you'd be the victim of a terrorist attack (despite living in North Dakota) or one of the ones who dutifully (and, pardon the insult, dumbly) slapped some Saran Wrap over your windows with duct tape because the monkey-in-chief President Bush told you to do so. Maybe you wore a surgical mask to protect yourself from SARS, West Nile, Bird Flu, or whatever the disease-du-jour was. Or maybe, just maybe, you actually sat back and said, "You know what? This is ridiculous. What the hell are we all doing?"

Written in 2005, False Alarm explains why we all should have been like that last group of folks. Much like The Culture of Fear, Siegel shows how various entities within our society perpetrate fear of dangers that are either virtually non-existent or are highly unlikely to affect us. He also highlights actual dangers that are downplayed by society (cigarettes, for example). He talks about things like 9/11 from personal experience and tells anecdotes about people he knew who were consumed by fear about things that they heard about in the media. He also discusses the danger of putting too much stock in what the government and pharmaceutical companies try to sell you as being real, imminent threats.

There was a lot about this book that was fascinating and useful information. I had a few quibbles, however, that I need to address. First and foremost, what is it with authors who don't cite their sources?????????? (Yes, all the question marks are necessary.) While he provides a list of sources in the back according to chapter, I would have loved to have known, via footnotes, what information came from what source. Secondly, as much as I appreciated some of the personal anecdotes, a lot of the time it felt like he was going, "This is what I did and I'm super-awesome and the best doctor ever. Cower before me mere mortals." Okay, so that last sentence is a bit much. But you get the idea.

As someone who counts herself among the group of people who looked at how crazy everyone was getting and said, "Woah, slow down there. Stop Saran Wrapping your house and start thinking for yourselves," I appreciate books like this, books that show the reader how little they know. I think that when a book makes you go, "Huh, so that's the real story, eh?" it brings people a step closer to being able to stare an incorrect story on the news in the face and say, "You're not fooling me." Despite it's flaws, False Alarm does that. If only people would pick it and books like it up, maybe we'd have a better informed public, one that is less inclined to believe hype and hyperbole.

I'm giving False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear four out of five Gabriels.

-Gabe