Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 18 – Public Intelligence Blog

“Ving” Rhames Phenomenal, Movie of Raw Life and Real Hope,

May 10, 2010

Ving Rhames

From Wikipedia in English: Irving Rameses “Ving” Rhames (born May 12, 1959) is an American actor best known for his work in Pulp Fiction, Don King: Only in America, and the Mission: Impossible film series.

I put that up there because for me he will always be one of the main actors in Entrapment (Special Edition) where he very strangely has not received the credit he deserves as a supporting actor.

I am glad that all the Christians like this movie, but for me is is not a Christian movie per se, but rather a movie about raw life, the contradictions and challenges, and more often than most people realize, the unexpected openings for salvation and a new direction. The end is gripping, it can inspire tears.

Ving Rhames is the lead actor here (as he was in the sequel to Kojak as a series) and I would very much like to see him featured in other movies. Solid as a rock and that refers to his mind and his presence, not his body.

Absolutely recommended for viewing by anyone, not just families, and especially anyone who thinks they are “stuck.” Taking a line from Human Target: The Complete First Season, “You're not as stuck as you think you are.” BRAVO.

As a gesture of respect, and with a tip of the hat to Wikipedia where his entry is one of the better ones on substance, here are the three Mission Impossible movies he appeared in, the only person besides Tom Cruise to have this honor:

Mission Impossible – Ultimate Missions Collection (Mission Impossible / Mission Impossible II / Mission Impossible III)

Also see him with John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.

2010/05/102010/05/12

Review (DVD) Human Target–The Complete First Season (2010)

Culture, DVD - Light, Reviews (DVD Only)

Male Star is Solid–Ready for Prime Time Movies, May 10, 2010

Mark Valley

I had no idea this was a television series when someone loaned me the DVD, nor am I completely used to the idea that I am seeing stuff before it gets released on Amazon–but glad that Amazon allows those of us so privileged to add comments now instead of waiting for the material to be shipped from what is obviously a delayed system.

The star of this TV series is every bit as good as the best of the James Bond actors, and I give him very high marks for combining a physical presence with a mental calmness and a human touch that is rare in this kind of setting. His two co-stars are superb as well, and I for one am absolutely ready to see his trio offered in a prime time movie and then some.

2010/05/072010/05/07

Review (DVD): The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

5 Star, Culture, DVD - Light, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Reviews (DVD Only)

cover dvd men who stare at goats — Amazon Page

Five if you are former CIA or SOF, rest of world will not get it

May 7, 2010

George Clooney, Jeff Bridges

An extraordinarily talented and experienced international law enforcement officer watched this on loan from me before I saw it, and hated it. Now that I have watched it myself, I understand–if you have not been deeply engaged with CIA and all of its idiocyncrasies including remote viewing, acoustic-kitty, the pigeons that came before Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), and then over to SOF (Special Operations Forces) where “unconventional” had to go covert to survive the straight-leg generals with no clue, you will simply not appreciate this movie.

DanD nails it–this is satire and also a brilliant documentary of what can only be decribed as a well-intentioned long-running Goat F..k. The movie is a collage of several different real initiativces including the First Earth Battalion (I knew a couple of the principals, decades ahead of their time); the Peace Warrior initiative, and of course Remote Viewing, the CIA's notorious MKULTRA and LSD for unwitting victims, and so on.

At one point in the movie the two principal actors are discussing the remorse–the angst–over having used his power to actually kill a goal, and the other guy pops in with “Silence of the Goats.” That just about sums it up–this is, for someone steeped in the well-intentioned lunacy of the past–a perfect five, and I have to believe that the world-class actors that decided to do this did it knowing that it would be misunderstood by many, but a real hoot among the veterans of the seventies and eighties.

The only thing not in here, certainly worthy of a sequel to this movie, is extra-terrestial encounters, leveraging extra-terrestial technologies, warnings from extraterrestrials [humans now being in a state of quarentine for being stupid squared], and the exotic, wasteful, and generally hilarious methods used to keep Area 51 and related projects “secret.”

2010/05/072010/05/07

Review (DVD): Cecilia and Bryn at Glyndebourne – Arias and Duets (2000)

5 Star, Culture, DVD - Light, Reviews (DVD Only)

cover dvd cecilia and Bryn — Amazon Page

Lovely in every way, including unlisted Magic Flute after the flowers

May 7, 2010

Cecilia Bartoli, Bryn Terfel

I am not an opera expert, but I like opera and I especially like duets, and that is why I ordered this knowing little of the stars.

The other reviews are more expert, for me this was a hit on voices; on beautifully timed focus on specific instruments and specific musicians contributing to the larger event (a third of the DVD); and finally, not listed and after the flowers, an “unscheduled” duet, Mozart's Magic Flute, Pan Pan…etcetera.

I will certainly use this totally satisfactory offering to search for “more like this.”

2010/05/06

Review: Surviving the Toxic Workplace–Protect Yourself Against Coworkers, Bosses, and Work Environments That Poison Your Day

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Leadership, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Worst Case Stories, Depressing, But Relevant, May 6, 2010

Linda Durre

Disclosure: the publisher sent me this book after asking for permission to do so, and I agreed to read and review the book. Then I got a job that took me overseas and I am just now catching up with my commitment on this specific book.

First off, this is the most comprehensive treatment I have ever seen and the typology that the author developed is very–VERY–scary on multiple levels, including recognizing myself in multiple categories including Socially Clueless, Angry, Rescuer, and Obsessives. Bummer.

I found the book absorbing. Although each “chapter” is really closer to a four-page blurb, there is nothing wrong with the typology, the substance, or the intentions of this book.

At best it should make most people grateful they do not work in a toxic environment. At worst it could be a wake-up call for those who have put up with extraordinary abuse, have come to think of it as normal, and might find this checklist approach to toxic environments helpful.

For me the best part of the book was the end where the author itemizes a number of class action law suits that have led to big wins for some groups, but sadly only have decades of litigation and decades of loss.

The stark reality is that both governments and corporations have forgotten that their mission includes the nurturing of their employees and the communities that host their offices. Ethics has gone down the tubes, and corruption at all levels is the norm. From where I sit, the healthiest route right now is to simply disconnect, move to Seattle, or Portland, or Alaska, and start over. If on the other hand you are a CEO, are being “born again” and want to get it right, then this book is a good introduction to the professional that can help your company get back on the right side of goodness.

Some other equally depressing books:
Rage of the Random Actor: Disarming Catastrophic Acts And Restoring Lives
The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead
Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class – And What We Can Do about It (BK Currents (Paperback))
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back

On the bright side:
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence
Reflections on Evolutionary Activism: Essays, poems and prayers from an emerging field of sacred social change
Revolutionary Wealth
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

2010/05/062010/05/06

Review: Corruption and Anti-Corruption–An Applied Philosophical Approach

6 Star Top 10%, Corruption

Beyond Six Stars: Superb Foundation Work–Should Be Translated, May 5, 2010

Seumas Miller, Peter Roberts, Edward Spence

Corruption is the pervasive, pernicious, pathological, preemptory, and predatory commonality within the ten high level threats to humanity as identified by the United Nations High-Level Threat Panel and published in 2004 in A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change; and is also responsible for between 20% and 40% of the lost resources of all kinds across the twelve core policy areas as inspired by the UN but identified by the Earth Intelligence Network (501c3) dedicated to creating public intelligence in the public interest-and especially “true cost” intelligence. (E.g. Exxon did not make $40 billion in profit in its recent high year–that was stolen from current and future generations because Exxon externalized $12 in costs for every gallon of gas that it sells for $4). See INTELLIGENCE for EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability and also, for the underlying hope factor, Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace.

This book is beyond six stars–it is righteously constructive, useful, concise, focused, relevant, and despite some heavy trails in the middle, a joy to read for anyone who believes that there is plenty of wealth for all, we just need to stop corruption in all its forms. Lawrence Lessig, I have been told, is committing the rest of his life to eradicating corruption–his latest book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy is particularly recommended because I am discovering, as he has, that HYBRID is going to be the core concept for the 21st Century. To take a very specific example, the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) has helped the Government of Guatemala put more people in jail (over 130) in relation to corruption and illegal armed groups, in four years, than the rest of the UN and I suspect INTERPOL and EUROPOL as well. It is a HYBRID organization with uniquely effective capabilities, a “son” of the United Nations but not part of “the” United Nations. I personally believe that it represents the future of multi-layered multi-stakeholder governance, still respecting the national government as the core actor, but bringing to bear transnational resources, autonomous investigative and analytic capabilities, and ultimately engaging all of the stakeholders including the oligarchs and the labor unions, so as to address the totality of a nation's problems starting with poverty–what the UN is now calling “Deliver As One” integrated holistic mission analysis.

Here is my summary of this extraordinary book and I repeat, this needs to be translated into Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, and ideally Malay, Turkish, and several other languages as well. It is a completely different book from Overcoming Corruption [ISBN 0956478808 and strangely not coming up in the Link Feature.] I venture to suggest these two books as a starting point for a new wave of regionalization and transnationalization of anti-corruption campaigns.

Continue reading “Review: Corruption and Anti-Corruption–An Applied Philosophical Approach”

2010/05/042010/05/05

Review (DVD): The Messenger (2010)

5 Star, Communications, Culture, DVD - Light, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Philosophy, Reviews (DVD Only), War & Face of Battle

Worthy of Serious Viewers, May 4, 2010

Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster

I take with great seriousness some of the critical reviews, but on balance have to come down in favor of five stars and an enthusiastic recommendation of this movie and its actors. While I know little of current military casualty notification procedures, over-all this movie resonates with my own past as a Marine Corps infantry officer (40 years ago) and I found several things compelling:

1) America does not see enough of the down side of war. From 935 documented lies by the Bush-Cheney Administration to stark ignorance and corruption as the Obama-Biden Administration sells out to the military-intelligence-industrial pork complex, to the absolute and utterly immoral concealment from the public of the actual number of amputees including many many multiple amputees and the rising number of suicides, I find the disconnect between the public and reality to be catastrophic.

2) For me, these two characters are portrayed superbly, in detail. In my own life as a former spy we were obscenely proud of having the highest rates of alcoholism, adultery, divorce, and suicide in the US Government, and I have 19 professional suicides and 1 personal suicide in my life to date. The depth of the pain felt by those who survive was well-portrayed here.

3) The humanity of the protagonist and of the surviving widow, and the nuances of how that developed, were fully developed and expertly acted. This movie held my attention in detail for the duration.

Category: Reviews (Books & DVD)

Review (DVD): Saving God (2008)