The Tao of Pooh Book

I picked up this book because it seemed so charming. The author took the stories and characters of A.A. Milne and juxtaposed them with the Taoist teachings of people such as Lao Tzu.

Pooh as western Taoist starts off interestingly enough but halfway through it I came to the realization that it was making me want to just read the actual Milne, who was frankly probably a genius writer. Those were great books with great characters, each with their own type of intelligence.

Then about two thirds through the book, it just becomes insulting. The author is against pretty much anything useful. Rather than believing in the give and take of Ying and Yang (or any other name it may go under) he's against intellectuals who are secretly foolish for trying to figure anything about the world, against people who work hard and care about their jobs or contributions (again that's just foolish), people who enjoy sports or exercise...heck he's against leaving your house or caring about the rest of the world. I understand the idea behind the Busy Backson rant, but is there no middle ground at all?
The idea of the Indian American culture being superior to that of the almighty Puritans is used as an example, which could be built upon in several interesting ways, but instead the author chooses to illustrate how everything that came after was just silliness without supplying a single idea about how it could be done better...yet useful.

At one point he actually uses the example of (paraphrasing here) turning on the T.V. news to hear "`Thirty thousand people were killed today when five jumbo airliners collided over downtown Lose Angeles" *click* Stop worrying about everything and go about life. Listen to the birds chirp, they will tell you more about the world." ---wait, we shouldn't care about thirty thousand humans being killed in a horrific accident?

I am in no way an expert on Taoism, but unless everyone who IS finds that idea posing as a representation of their philosophy to be offensive, I want nothing to do with it. It isn't enlightened to go around hating everything while doing nothing. And I'm sure the author realizes this since he spends so much time writing best-selling books.