James M. Flammang, author of 30 books (including
six for children), is at work on several more,
including the title described below.

An independent journalist since the 1980s, Flammang
specialized in the automobile business. During
2016, he turned away from cars and into more vital
topics: work/labor, consumer concerns, and especially,
the emerging outrages of the Trump administration. His
website, Tirekicking Today (tirekick.com) has been
online since 1995.

Introduction

Section I: Work
1. Our Biggest Myth: That there’s a job for everyone who wants to work
2. Needed Now: Jobs, Not Careers
3. Voluntary Slavery
4. Hate Your Job?
5. Career Paths: Shouldn’t “None” be an option?
SIDEBAR: Is All Work Virtuous?
6. New Ways to Look at Work
7. Reject! For some applicants, job search is futile exercise
8. Job Search Shouldn’t Be a Career in Itself
9. Job Troubles Stem from Other People
10. Missing: Jobs That Count
11. Nonsense Questions
12. Future Work
13. Work and Pleasure: Can they really coincide?
14. Ten Steps to a Sensible Workworld

Section II: Money
15. Fat Paydays: Sorry, greed is not great
16. Money Isn’t Everything: It’s nothing at all
17. Credit and Debt
18. End Poverty Now!
19. Greed: The Guy Who Started It All
20. Surprise! Some of us like to pay taxes
21. Healing for Profit
22. Whatever Happened to the Guaranteed Income?
23. Why So Many Banks?

Section III: Identity
24. Heroism: Courage vs. Cowardice
25. Our Era of Self-importance
26. Wimps and Geeks
27. Fashion (Non)sense
28. Am I Gay?
20. Making of a Man
30. Celebrity Worship
31. Big Boobs for Small Minds
32. Curious Rebellion: Tats and Piercings

Section IV: Politics and Law 33. Democracy R.I.P. 00 SIDEBAR: U.S. Bill of Rights
34. Boo! Yikes, it’s a Socialist!
35. Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Immigrant?
36. Immigration and the Right to Free Travel
37. Second Trial, Without the Rules
38. “Get Out of Jail” Cards
39. Is Lady Liberty Weeping? The beauty of the law, vs. the sad reality
40. Everyday Offenders

Section V: Consumption
41. Stuff: Why do we need so much?
42. Shopping as Pastime
43. The Nonsense of Ninety-nine
44. Overload!
45. Lesson Unlearned: How to Say “No”
46. Wretched Excess
47. Customer Review is Always Right, Right? Wrong!
48. Members Only: Why must we join up, just to make simple transactions?
49. Artificial Life
50. Quantity Trumps Quality
51. Product Endorsements

Section VI: Communication and Technology
52. Is Everybody Blogging?
SIDEBAR: Antisocial Media
53. Technology: Sorry, but so much of it is Boring Kid Stuff
54. Drowning in Drones
55. Sell, Sell, Sell
56. Popularity Takes Precedence
57. Face it, Facebook: Some of us don’t “like” anything
58. Love it? Not!
SIDEBAR: Unsociable Media
59. Content and its Discontents
60. No Cell, Please: We decline to communicate
61. Online Everything
62. What’s So Vital about Video?
63. TV Censorship
64. Ads that Say Nothing ... or that know too much
65. PR and Publicity
66. Sloppy Syntax and Lazy Language

Section VII: Pastimes Good, Bad, Indifferent
67. Leaving Reality Behind: Drug use, enjoyment, and abuse
68. What’s So Funny about Drinking?
69. Sports: Notes from a Non-fan
70. Travel: Real World or Artificial?
71. Video Games: Exercise for the thumbs ... but the mind?

Section VIII: Sex
72. Adios, Eros
73. Welcome, ED!
74. Sex and Romance
75. Regular Guys
76. Is Porn Pornographic?

Section IX: Transportation
77. Are You Really What You Drive?
78. Aging Adolescents on the Road
SIDEBAR: About Those Speed Limits ....
79. Fast Cars, Big Cars
80. Mass Transit: Time to Take It Seriously
81. Fuel-efficiency: Needed Now, More than Ever
82. What Happened to the One-car (or no-car) Family
83. Auto Financing: Gateway to an Installment-plan Life
84. Why Do We Put Up with Traffic Snarl and Congestion?
85. Are We Really Ready for Electric Cars? Or, is driverless driving the answer?

Section X: That’s Life
86. Life’s Purpose
87. Perfecting Life, Digitally

Epilogue: Oddities vs. Absurdities

About the Author

Click here for Chapter Outline of Absurdities

Click here for Overview of Absurdities

Click here for excerpt from Section III - Work: Our Biggest Myth