An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems

• Publisher:   Simon & Schuster Audio
• Number Of Pages:  
• Publication Date:   2007-11-20
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0743569539
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780743569538

Have you ever wondered why some of the biggest problems we face, from illegal immigration to global warming to poverty never seem to get fixed? The reason is simple: the solutions just aren't very convenient. Fortunately, radio and television host Glenn Beck doesn't care much about convenience, he cares about common sense.

Take the issue of poverty, for example. Over the last forty years, America's ten poorest cities all had one simple thing in common, but self-serving politicians will never tell you what that is (or explain how easy it would be to change): Glenn Beck will. Global warming is another issue that's ripe with lies and distortion. How many times have you heard that carbon dioxide is responsible for huge natural disasters that have killed millions of people? The truth is, it's actually the other way around: as CO2 has increased, deaths from extreme weather have decreased. Bet you'll never see that in an Al Gore slideshow. An Inconvenient Book contains hundreds of these same "why have I never heard that before?" type of facts that will leave you wondering how political correctness, special interests, and outright stupidity have gotten us so far away from the common sense solutions this country was built on.

As the host of a nationally syndicated radio program and a prime-time television show on CNN, Headline News, Glenn Beck combines a refreshing level of honesty with a biting sense of humor and a lot of research to find solutions that will open your eyes while entertaining you along the way.

Glenn Beck's one of my favorite conservatives; he's always got something witty to say about just about any situation, especially if it involves the corrupt and/or misguided left, Wall Street, or the general lack of common sense in politically correct America. This book is Beck at his best; sometimes profound, sometimes superfluous but always very entertaining. Even though I'm more centrist than strictly conservative, I agree with 90% of his observations and the other 10%; I just get a kick out of them. Being entertained while being informed isn't such a bad thing. I like that concept. Although I think his previous work may be slightly more "significant" ("Common Sense", for example), this had a lot of satirical truths to satisfy my irreverent needs; that makes it good enough for me. Keep bringing it on, Mr Beck. This country needs an attitude adjustment, and the first place it could begin would be to quit being so serious about everything. Come on, lighten up. Life's too important to take it seriously. And if you're still supporting Obama, you haven't been paying attention.

I had no clue who Glenn Beck was, as I have never seen him on TV and though I have heard his name, I didn't remember anything about him. I was attracted to the title of the book and even more so the subtitle. I love reading non-fiction, but it needs to be practical and realistic for me to like it. Unfortunately, I felt this book wasn't very practical or realistic. I read the first 2 chapters, and then got to the point where he basically states that in order to have a successful marriage you need religion. If that was actually the solution, then why do so many religious people get divorced? At that point, I skimmed the rest of the book and gave it away to someone next to me on the airplane. After reading what I read, which was somewhat entertaining, though I wish I wouldn't have spent the money on it, I won't be watching or reading anything else from this guy. This book is certainly for a specific audience, which does not include me (politically independent, agnostic, 30's, open-minded and fairly realistic).

This is an extremely good, highly effective book, until the last chapter where Beck goes off the rails into nutland. Beck is a conservative radio and TV talk show host. In this book, he presents his opinions on a grab bag of America's problems and perceived problems, from global warming to divorce to Islamic extremism. With one exception, he is very, very good. He is funny, he is down to Earth, he is engaging and he knows what he is talking about. He is a star. The best way to appreciate his quality is to compare him to others of the same genre. Laura Ingraham leaps to mind for me. Beck and Ingraham have more or less the same opinions on most subjects. The difference is that Ingraham is usually angry and often harsh because of her anger. I thus find Ingraham hard to listen to. Beck, by contrast, is always light and funny. Beck is much easier to read that Ingraham, and, in my view, far more effective. But then there is that last chapter. Thus far in the book, all of Beck's views are pretty much standard issue conservative. He is not persuaded that Al Gore is right about global warming. He is against Big Government. He sees a connection between pornography and the rise in divorce. All good so far. But in the last chapter he tries to explain why so many Presidents have tolerated so much illegal immigration from Mexico. And here he goes off the reservation into nutland. In today's conservative world, there is a line between mainstream conservative and nutcases. The line is in the phrase "North American Union." If you have never heard of it, or do not believe it, you are a regular, sane conservative. If you have heard of it, and believe in it, you are a nut. The so-called North American Union, for those who have not heard of it, is an alleged super-secret plot by the super-elites to sell out America by secretly uniting Canada, America and Mexico into one super-country, in which the Constitution will be swept away and we will be ruled by secret police in black helicopters. The loonier of the loony tunes think that the North American Union already exists, but it so secret that we do not yet know how we are being ruled by the super elites. Beck tries hard to stay away from the total fruitcake side of the theory. He does not say that the North American Union already exists. He confines himself primarily to factual statements, which is that there are people who advocate a North American Union. BUT this attempt not to sound crazy fails. The entire idea is nuts and paranoid. Lets just state the obvious, shall we? Number one, a North American Union could not have been created without any of us knowing about it. That is just crazy. Number two, a North American Union could not be created without going through either a treaty process or an amendment to the Constitution. Number three, if Canada, Mexico and the US were united, the United States would be by far the largest and most powerful part of the new nation. We would not lose our independence to them; they would lose their independence to us. Which is one of the many reasons that the idea is going nowhere. Neither Canada nor Mexico would ever voluntarily join a North American Union and so end their own independence. The North American Union, in short, is a fantasy. It does not exist, and it never will exist. But, in contemporary political discussion, the phrase is a good code word to identify lunatics. By devoting a whole chapter to this subject, Beck completely destroys his own credibility. If he will believe this, he is just one short jump away from believing that the Apollo Moon landings were faked, that an international cabal of bankers runs the world and every other piece of paranoid conspiracy theory craziness running around loose. It is a shame. Beck has so much talent as a writer. He has so much going for him. But, right at the end, he had to pour gasoline all over himself and then start playing with matches.

The Good The ideas that Mr. Beck express are well thought out and he adds his a bit of humor into the problems that America is facing and how we can change it. I could clearly imagine his voice as if he were sitting across the room, or if I were listening to his radio program. The Bad The Problem with this book is that it wasn't really made for my Kindle 2. The ideas seem to jump (as with his A.D.D. moments), which is where I'm assuming would be next to the paragraph that I'm currently reading. The other problem with the book is that it is very difficult to see the pictures and read what words are in them (way to zoomed out). Maybe this is a problem that can be solved with something on the Kindle, but as of now I haven't found it. Overall I found this book to be enjoyable and even though I was unable to read the humorous pictures at certain parts of the book, I would still suggest it to others. I am only taking one star off the book for the formating and how it is displayed, otherwise I would give it 5 stars.

If you want to read this book for a few good laughs or to have a good reference for conservative talking points it will probably serve you well. But the book is promises to take a no-nonsense look at the issues and Beck, unfortunately, isn't the man with all the answers. That probably isn't surprising since we shouldn't expect one man to be an expert on every contentious issue, but we might expect one to pretend to be to sell books. The bottom line is that Beck didn't do his homework, doesn't have enough training in economics or statistics to deal with most questions in social science, and seems to beg the question on most issues. He writes like a man who takes a side and then searches for evidence to confirm his beliefs, ignoring things he doesn't like or that make him rethink his position. This is typical behavior in debates and can be good fun, but since the book is premised on overcoming these very basic fallacies it gets 1 star.

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