What might be funny, but is also true, is that what I was most impacted by in what I read in this book is how in some parts of the U.S., such as in Missouri, fast food companies like McDonald’s outsource to call centers hundreds of miles away. These restaurants don’t outsource jobs like creating the wrapper your Big Mac comes in, they outsource the job of the person who takes your order.

To say the least, I was completely shocked by this information, as I was with most of the other information “divulged” in this book, but that seems like Thomas Friedman’s goal in the work. I have to say, however, I’m not entirely convinced by all of his allegations, but only on the basis of, “How can it be as bad as Friedman describes and I don’t know about it?” Is this some plot by our government toward the success of initiating a one world government someday?

I like how Friedman organized the book, particularly how detailed he is in spelling out his argument in a chronological manner (”List of 10 World Flattening Forces”) on why the world is essentially being taken over by big corporations and how all of our jobs are being outsourced to foreign countries.

A good portion of the first quarter of the book – and many spots intermittently after – was dedicated to expressing just how much of the Indian population America supports with outsourced jobs, mostly with call centers. Friedman went as far as to say how much it means for Indian students studying in colleges to get jobs in call centers linked to American callers. Instead of studying for a law or medical degree, many Indian students work to get these jobs working for Americans. They go as far as to take classes on how to sound and act more “American” over the phone, and some even change their names to more “American-sounding” names to have a better chance of being hired at one of these call centers.

To me, that information alone disgusted me. I realize this book was published in 2007, but that’s only three years ago. We’re in an economic depression right now. I don’t care what anyone says. People all over the country are being laid off, while others can’t afford groceries and some can’t afford to keep a roof over their heads. All this is going on while the American system is supplying countries like India with jobs and money, and thus security. How can we afford this? How can these corporations continue to let this happen, or, rather, continue to make this happen? As Friedman points out, we can’t, but it’s not going to stop because “it’s all about the money, baby.”

And this is where Friedman’s fifth chapter comes into play: “America and Free Trade.” Here, Friedman suggests the idea of a ban on all outsourcing, and to put a stop to any ideas of wall-building or border boundaries. Instead, he talks of improving education and training, preparing American citizens to take on a global world, not just a national world. My question to this chapter is, “Isn’t that what we’re doing by outsourcing our labor?” Friedman doesn’t specifically mention what his idea of what “Americans must instead be prepared to compete on a global playing field” means. He simply states it, and that’s the end. It sounds a lot like a one world government to me.

For the most part, I liked Friedman’s ideas on how we can adapt to this unstoppable force that is globalization, as with such descriptions as his “synthesizers, explainers, leveragers, versatilists” (chapter six). These terms, mostly invented to drive his points home, are used to put a description on key point in what he thinks we should do as Americans to prepare ourselves and make ourselves ready for this already shaping event.

As with his “Great Synthesizers” explanation, Friedman goes into how we need to “bring together mathematicians and marketing experts” who can optimize search engines more efficiently, and how we need to “bring together bio-scientists and computer engineers” so that we can better map the human genome…etc. These are excellent ideas because pulling our best people together to come up with (in theory) some of the best and most efficient ideas on the planet will help us keep up with competition around the globe, and thus promote competition. We can’t just give in and let other countries step in and take our jobs from us, essentially, as Friedman suggest, though most of us aren’t even aware of it in the first place.

Chapter 10 really hit home for me when Friedman mentioned the statistics on China and how it’s making its way up in the world, and fast, overtaking Mexico as the U.S.’s number two importer in 2003. It made me think about how just about anything I pick up in my house has “MADE IN CHINA” stamped on it. And again, it brings that question to mind, the one Friedman pulls for in his writing, “What will it take for us to stand up and do something about this?” Why is China making most of our weapons, toys, packaging, etc? Why aren’t we making these things?

All in all, I think the message Friedman was trying to deliver in this work, or at least what I took away from it is that as people grow and become more able to get together and collaborate on tasks, issues, problems, etc., people become more able to compete and create with other races, cultures, countries, religions, backgrounds, languages, etc. This book, in my opinion, is a real eye-opener. It brings these issues to the table and puts them into perspective. It may not answer all the questions or provide solutions to all the problems, but it does suggest plausible solutions and promote the general idea of trying.

The award for leader in unwed mothers giving birth goes to Iceland, with six in 10 births among unmarried women. Following closely behind are Sweden and Norway. About half of their births are to unwed mothers.

According to the CDC, France, Denmark and the United Kingdom also have higher percentages than the United States.

Information like this shines a whole new light on seeing a woman go through sometimes five or six men on Maury before finding the baby’s real father. Well, maybe not.

This rise in unwed mothers giving birth has been happening since 1980, with the U.S. and 13 other industrialized nations experiencing a spike, a spokeswoman for the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics said.

Some rates have doubled and even tripled in some countries, though the rate has accelerated within the last five years.

Apparently, no one knows exactly why this rise is happening, but what’s for sure is that from a social standpoint, it’s becoming more acceptable.

One doesn’t have to be an expert to see that things have changed a great deal within even the last 10 years. Women are far more independent than they used to be and younger generations don’t feel as if they have to live under the same social standards that their parents did. Makes sense to me.

Differences do exist though, in how unmarried pregnancies are viewed by different countries.

In the U.S., single mothers are often on their own and are more likely to be poor and uneducated, experts have said.

According to Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington D.C., men and women in northern Europe often live together for long periods of time without tying the knot, and these relationships are often stable. Due to declining birth rates in European countries, Haub said, people are more concerned with making healthy babies than whether or not mothers are married.

Haub predicts that the total number of births internationally will decline, something that’s already taking place in European countries because of crumbling economies. However, he expects that current trends in the percentage of unmarried mothers will continue.

If these are the highest on the list of countries with the most unwed mothers, who’s ranking low?

The CDC reported that Japan had the lowest percentage of unmarried births, with just 2 percent in 2007, a number up 1 percent from the 1980 report.

Other countries saw spiking percentages, such as Italy rising from 4 to 21 percent, Ireland from 5 to 33 percent, Canada from 13 to 30 percent, and the United Kingdom from 12 percent to 44 percent.

According to the same report, the U.S. proportion of unmarried births rose from 18 percent to 40 percent in that time frame.

With the exception of Japan, it appears most industrialized nations are on the same birthing, ahem, playing field when it comes to unmarried mothers.

What happened to the good old Beaver Cleaver days when kids grew up with both a mom and a dad? Maybe the social standard on this subject is changing, but is it changing for the better? I’ve always heard that two is better than one, but maybe that’s changing too.