Ugly American

In the last chapter I read "How to Buy a Junior Grade", it told the story about a man, hired by the U.S. government, to help people raise their chickens in Cambodia. He went to a meeting between the Cambodian agricultural department and the U.S. foreign affairs. The man told the officials that all they needed was more chickens and better food, but the U.S. officials wanted to put in highways and buy the people mechanized farm equipment, which would cost millions of dollars. The man who helped the people with the chickens said that if their farm equipment was mechanized he would go back to the U.S. and write to every congressman about this idiocy. The U.S. officials didn't change their mind and the man quit. Before he left the country he was offered a deal to travel from Cambodia to the U.S. visiting India and France on the way back. He accepted the offer, but when he got back to the U.S. he couldn't figure out what to write to his Congressmen because he had forgotten about how angry he was.
I personally liked this chapter alot. It seems like this kind of thing happens all the time. The government thinks that they know what is right for everyone and won't listen to someone who knows what people need. To me it was very sad because the U.S. spent a buch of money on something that is not needed and wouldn't listen to a man who knows what the farming people needed in Cambodia.