Reddit reviews Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace - One School at a Time

I can't really speak from my own experience, but from military buddies I have it seems like whatever good we're doing may be undermined whenever a drone goes and offs a handful of kids.

If our foreign policy was just carried out with daggers, I think we'd be in a pretty good place overall... but it's not, and so the innocent people who die might be outweighing the good that's done in terms of infrastructure and everything else.

What's depicted in Three Cups of Tea certainly makes a huge difference, but from what I can tell our military and governmental actions along those lines are outweighed by the accidental innocent deaths.

And the shit like the trophy killings that just broke this week.

>The US swallowed these cups of tea to justify its imperial aims

>Mortenson's feet of clay expose far more than one fantasist: they also reveal a lot about the naivety of Americans concerning the world and their role in it.

Uh...

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Amazon UK ranking for "Three Cups of Tea" - #182

Amazon US ranking for "Three Cups of Tea" - #233

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Ignorant anti-American, holier-than-thou, hypocritical Guardian writers. It was a great try though, Madeleine Bunting, and I'm sure that your editors agreed with you that once you'd pinned it all on America the fact checkers could head out early.

The idea that it was a fantasy for Americans only is ridiculous. As a percentage far more Brits I know were familiar with CAI than Americans, and what's more they (left-wingers who I'm sure love the Guardian) were all actively supportive of Mortensen and CAI as an alternative to what the Americans were seen as doing (drones). The accusatory tone of this article is bullshit unless you believe that the book was only read by Americans and that Americans were the only ones with interests in Afghanistan.

Bunting will probably get a bunch of article hits and a raise, though.

If you're really interested in that part of the world... you might like to spend some time reading more in depth about what life is like on the ground, there. These are two good books you might want to check out: 1 and 2

And keep following the Al-Jazeera youtube channel.

I don't think that things are as black and white as you make them out to be, BraveSirRobin.

This is a terrific idea. I might suggest that you sponsor schools instead of hospitals. I think the most deserving charity is Greg Mortenson's "Central Asia Institute" that constructs secular schools in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The schools provide secular educational alternatives to Saudi-funded radical madrasahs. The institute builds schools for $25,000 and the schools are constructed with free local community labor and on community donated land. The schools often focus primarily on girls educational issues.

The official CAI website

Donation Page

Greg Mortenson on Wikipedia

Central Asia Institute on Wikipedia

Book: "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson

Book: "Stones into Schools" by Greg Mortenson

Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Rein

http://www.threecupsoftea.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Cups-Tea-Mission-Promote/dp/0143038257

I received this book as a birthday gift, and haven't stopped loaning it to friends since I finished reading it myself. It's intriguing, insightful, and inspiring. The life he's lived strikes me as a non-fiction version of the classic Hero's Journey.

Barbara Tuchman was brilliant writer of history.

Albert Camus was a brilliant absurdist philosopher and novelist.

Jared Diamond has written some brilliant books at the intersection of anthropology and ecology. Another good book in this genre is Clive Ponting's A New Green History of the World.

Gwynne Dyer is an acclaimed military historian turned journalist on international affairs who has written a number of very engaging books on warfare and politics. His most recent book Climate Wars is the ONE book I would recommend to someone, if so limited, on the subject as it embodies both a wonderful synopsis of the science juxtaposed against the harsh realpolitiks and potential fates of humankind that may unfold unless we can manage to tackle the matter seriously, soon. Another great book on climate change is Bill McKibben's Deep Economy.

For social activists interested in ending world hunger and abject poverty, I can recommend: Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom; Nobel Prize winning micro-financier Muhammad Yunus' Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism; UN MDG famed economist Jeffrey Sach's End Of Poverty; and Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea

For anyone of Scottish heritage, I heartily recommend Arthur Hermann's How The Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It

For naval history buffs: Robert K. Massie's Dreadnought.

Last, but not least: Robert Pirsig's classic Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Enjoy!

my GPS

or...

an alternative suggestion:
I just read "Three Cups of Tea".
(TCT on Wikipedia)

Please take a picture of a teacher teaching girls, everywhere you go.

You can do something about it by donating to charities that support girls' education in Afghanistan. Last week I gave $25 to The Asia Foundation's Afghan Girls' Education Fund. National Geographic is matching donations at this time :)

Afghanistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world and one of the largest disparities in literacy between men and women (source)

Girl's education reduces child mortality rates, increases womens' independence, increases equality, leads to increased women's rights, and increases the probability that her children are educated (Reference - PDF)

I recommend these related books:

Half the Sky

Three Cups of Tea

Stones Into Schools

I don't believe that all of Islam is that way. Tell him to try reading 3 cups of tea sometime.