Date: September 18, 2005

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner

The theme was "U.S. Western Literature." Other nominees for this meeting were:

• The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
• The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
• The Mustangs by J. Frank Dobie
• The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
• Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

• How do the water problems of the West effect us in the East? Why should we care?
• Should water rights be decided by a different method, given the fact that most of the existing rights were acquired through less than honest means?
• What is it in the human (American?) psyche that loves large engineering projects? Was it just a 20th-century phenomenon or have we moved "beyond" this desire?
• After reading this book and learning how the government actully decides matters of water management, will you ever trust government decisions again?
• Does this book reflect the adage that 'power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely'?
• Are they stupid or evil? Are we in this situation with regard to water in the west due to shortsightedness or due to evilness?
• Besides the pork barrel trade, how could Congress keep approving these projects?
• So what do we do? Is breaching the damsn and emptying Los Angeles and Phoneix the only solution?
• Would John Wesley Powell's vision of watershed and land management have made things better? Or just different?
• How could the general citizenry allow such ridiculousness to go on for so long?
• Should we curtail growth in the West as Reisner implies? How?