Review: Humanizing the Digital Age

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Communications, Information Society, Information Technology, United Nations & NGOs
Humanizing
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5.0 out of 5 stars First Rate Executive Level Overview

September 18, 2007

United Nations

First off, this book is available for under $20 in hard-cover at the UN Bookstore and other selected online outlets. For some reason the UN does not offer it directly, so a third party makes it possible to order with one click at an added cost that was acceptable to me.

This is a really important and helpful book for those of us that have been thinking about “Information Peacekeeping” (using information to deter and reduce conflict) and “Information Arbitrage” (converting information into intelligence and intelligence into wealth). Nine authors and the editor each contribute extremely well-written, well-structured chapters.

Highlights that I noted for inclusion in my new book, WAR AND PEACE in the Digital Era: Multinational Information Sharing & Decision Support:

ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) has created a new era. Jeff Bezos told the TED conference that we are at the very beginning of innovation in ICT, and I agree. In the Overview of this book we learn:

1) Transnational movements of information and financial capital are a dominant force in the global economy;
2) Worldwide financial exchanges outweigh trade in goods by 60 to 1;
3) ICT services are estimated to be 65% of the total gross national product of the world;
4) Informatics capacity doubles every 18 to 24 while communications capacity doubles every six months (this is one reason the Earth Intelligence Network emphasizes the need for 100 million volunteers to teach the five billion poor “one cell call at a time”);
5) Information that could have been transferred through fiber optics in one month in 1997 can now be transferred in just one second in 2007.

I would add to point five above that I am starting to see massive leaps in processing and machine-speed analysis, to the point that even ugly x-rays can be processed to a point ten times better than previously available to the human eye. This is going to change everything, including security, as a “smart network” helps isolate the anomalous for closer scrutiny.

The chapter on entrepreneurial perspective tells us that education is vital to spawning innovation and entrepreneurial activity, and cited Robert Sternberg (1998) in identifying Analytical Intelligence, Creative Intelligence, and Practical Intelligence as the “three abilities.”

To this I would add the observation that the five billion poor have neither the time nor the luxury of spending 18 years in an archaic educational system that is part child-care and part-prison. See must move quickly to make free education in 183 languages available to anyone with access to a cell phone, and we must redirect ALL of our discarded cell phones and computers, as the book suggests, to the less fortunate.

The sooner we connect the poor, the sooner they can create infinite wealth, and this has the salutary benefit of assuring the rich that their existing wealth is safe from confiscation.

Although I was aware of the World Information Summits, this book provides something I did not have before, a very convenient overview of the efforts by various parties to address the “Governance Deficit” through collaboration. I read the Brahimi Report; I admire what MajGen Patrick Cammaert did with the Joint Military Analysis Centers (JMAC), and believe that the UN System–as well as all Member Nations, are now ready for the next big leap forward, what I call the United Nations Open-Source Decision-Support Information Network (UNODIN).

For those that may not be aware, the UN has asked the Nordic countries to expand on the very successful Peacekeeping Intelligence course developed by Sweden in the aftermath of our peacekeeping intelligence conference there in 2004. At the same time, non-profit organizations are developing inexpensive reference materials to help anyone make the most of open sources of information and open software tools, including TOOZL, which fits on a flash drive.

The book concludes with case studies, among which I found the India case study most compelling. India now provides the bulk of the better call centers, and India-based “Homework Help” costs just $18 an hour. Imagine if we had 100 million volunteers, each fluent in one of 183 languages, and able to take calls from anywhere in the world, and use their Internet access to answer a question or teach “one call at a time.” C.K. Prahalad's book persuaded me that there is no higher calling in life than to help connect the poor to knowledge. This book is a superb beginning for anyone wishing to join this mission.

Other books I recommend:
Edutopia: Success Stories for Learning in the Digital Age
Promoting Peace with Information: Transparency as a Tool of Security Regimes
Peacekeeping and Public Information: Caught in the Crossfire (Cass Series on Peacekeeping, 5)
Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time

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Review: Edutopia–Success Stories for Learning in the Digital Age

5 Star, Education (General), Information Society, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
edutopia
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5.0 out of 5 stars Critical Starting Point for Global Transformation

September 17, 2007

George Lucas Educational Foundation

edutopia is a true gift to humanity from the George Lucas foundation. I consider the book and the DVD to be a superb starting pointfor the necessary global transformation.

Chapter Nine discusses a dozen promising practices that work:
01 Peer Instruction
02 Cross-age tutoring
03 Bringing local experts into the classroom
04 Multi-age classrooms
05 Cooperative learning
06 Class-size reduction
07 Team teaching
08 Looping (teachers stay with same students for several years)
09 Block scheduling
10 Schools within schools
11 School teams
12 Community service

This is a superbly crafted multi-media teaching tool that every teacher, parent, and administrator will learn from and be strengthened by.

My only disappointment is that the book's sponsors and authors focused so narrowly on just the USA and how the wisdom in this book might be applied within our existing academic and vocational infrastructure. My own focus is on the five billion poor who do not have the time for 18 years of rote education. Simply by subsidizing cells phones and creating a global network of 100 million volunteers using Telelanguage.com, we could offer free education to the five billion poor, and our own population, “one cell call at a time.” Education is the only way we can create stabilizing wealth–this excellent book set its sights too low.

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Review DVD: Joyeux Noel (Widescreen)

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, DVD - Light, Reviews (DVD Only), War & Face of Battle
DVD Joy Noel
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5.0 out of 5 stars Conclusively shows we can stop war

September 17, 2007

Lucas Belvaux

I respectfully encourage all serious reviewers to avoid the video review option. The video review sacrifices both rapid scanning of diverse views, and the ability to create added value from automated text search.

I am adding this DVD to my list of Serious DVDs, while also using the product link feature, which I like very much, to connect you immediately to other DVDs I recommend.

The DVD is made even more powerful by being based on a true story, how a German opera singer was reunited with his wife in order to sing for the Crown Prince, then took here to the trenches and started singing such that the Scots responded, then the French, and ultimately they agreed to a local cease fire for the night.

This movie has to be viewed to appreciate the depth and reality of its message.

Other movies that have impressed me with their messages of insane war and possible peace:
Why We Fight
The Fog of War – Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
Peace One Day
Tibet – Cry of the Snow Lion

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Review: Getting a Grip–Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Culture, DVD - Light, Democracy, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
Getting a Grip
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5.0 out of 5 stars Frances Moore Lappe for Vice President!

September 17, 2007

Frances Moore Lappe

Frances Lappe Moore has my vote for Vice President–2008 *must* see the Republic “get a grip.”

This book will be handed out to 250 individuals representing Foundations, United Nations elements, other Non-Governmental Organizations, and US military leaders who are focused on Stabilization, Reconstruction, Humanitarian Assistance, and Disaster Relief. I met the author in the process of putting the four-day program together, and feel very fortunate that she will be speaking to these leaeders who will be discussing nothing less than how to redirect 1 trillion plus a year through the creation of compelling decision-support on the ten destabilizing threats, the twelve policies from Agriculture to Water that must be harmonized, all to the end of helping the eight major players avoid our mistakes.

This is a brilliant Nobel Peace Prize level of work, and I note with interest that the author has received the “Alternative Nobel,”the Right Livelihood Award. She will be the first person to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Earth Intelligence Network and Transpartisan Policy Institute.

This book can read and appreciated at multiple levels from strategic to tactical. I list some other books below, but this book is now at the top of short list of books important for all time. If I could make a wish, it would be that every American voter read this book and share this book and enter into the active listening active dialog mode that the author outlines in clear terms. In combination with Reuniting American and with the Naitonal Initiative for Democracy, I believe that we have a real chance of taking about the power and implementing the author's program.

Frances Moore Lappe as Presideent, and The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen as Vice President, with a Transpartisan Cabinet that includes great leaders from all political parties; that produces a balanced sustainable budget before election, and that DEMANDS an Electoral Reform Act prior to November 20008, is in my view totally possible, totally credible, and quite certain of restoring America the Beautiful.

I've read and favorably reviewed other books by this author, and the supplemental readings I suggest below, but this specific book is a gift to all of us, and all the more likely to be appreciated now that we have all experienced the naked immorality of Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency and the complete ineptitude and lack of moral courage of the Democratic-led The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy) where every Senator and Representative is impeachable for Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders.

Other books I recommend:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents)
Escaping the Matrix: How We the People can change the world
The Tao of Abundance: Eight Ancient Principles for Living Abundantly in the 21st Century (Arkana)
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People

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Review DVD: The Hawk Is Dying

5 Star, Culture, DVD - Light, Reviews (DVD Only), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
DVD Hawk
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5.0 out of 5 stars Ignore the lesser reviews–one of the most compelling films I have ever enjoyed

September 17, 2007

Paul Giamatti

This movie is truly extraordinary, and the principal actor, who also starred in Big Fat Liar (Full Screen Edition) combines brilliant acting with a very capably trained hawk to provide one of the most satisfying 90 minutes of “tuning out” that I have enjoyed in some time.

Sure, this movie has every corney bit from the special child to the sexed up teen-ager to the idiot father that ran, but it kept my complete interest throughout. The hawk, and the man, came of age together, the man found love, and the hawk soared.

This is a GREAT movie.

Some others featuring animals as wildlife that I have enjoyed:
Dances with Wolves (Widescreen Edition)
The Edge
Black Beauty
The Snow Walker
A Man Called Horse

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Review DVD: Schindler’s List (Full Screen Edition)

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Reviews (DVD Only), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
DVD Schindler
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5.0 out of 5 stars So many good reviews, just adding my perspecitve and recommendaitions

September 9, 2007

Liam Neeson

Of the hundreds of DVD's that I own, this is the only one that has a deep moral legitimacy and a deep moral message. There are many other DVDs about good people like Gandhi, good efforts like Peace One Day, about herorism and so on, but this one DVD is my most treasured and the one that I watch at least twice a year.

Here are other DVDs in the goodness vein that I recommend:
Gandhi (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition)
Peace One Day
Woodstock – 3 Days of Peace & Music (The Director's Cut)
Tibet – Cry of the Snow Lion
The Snow Walker
Santana: Hymns for Peace – Live at Montreux 2004 [HD DVD]

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Review: War of the Flea–The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare

5 Star, Insurgency & Revolution
War of the Flea
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5.0 out of 5 stars On Sale at Home of US Special Forces

September 8, 2007

Robert Taber

First published in 1965 and recently re-issued, this book is written by the only American who was with Castro instead of the CIA at the Bay of Pigs. In retrospect, and given that the anti-Castro Cuban exiles used their CIA training to assassinate John F. Kennedy (see Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History, this American is clearly a just man and a wise man.

There are two bottom lines to this book:

1. No indigenous people have ever lost, in the very long run, to foreign occupiers. See also The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People

2. The win-win for both democracy and capitalism is to do away with unilateral militarism, immoral capitalism, and predatory “false” democracy that embraces dictators rather than publics. See Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy; Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions; The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project); Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror; and Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025, among others.

The author ends the book with three recommendations for US foreign policy that I for one happily adopt:

1. Abandon all forms of military assistance

2. Declare an Economic “New Deal” for the Third World starting in South America and the Caribbean and Central America.

3. Embrace the Revolution, and live up to our Constitutional ideals of justice and liberty for all.

The author packs numerous pearls of wisdom, firmly rooted in ground truth, into this book.

1. Governments assume they are legitimate when they are not, they assume a monopoly on force while ignoring crime. Legitimacy and morality are strategic assets that most governments have abandoned. Cf. The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century.

2. Terrorism has been the logical asymmetric response of the poor and down-trodden since time immemorial. The author points out the hypocrisy of Israel, which was founded on the basis of terrorism against the people, claiming that terrorism targets non-combatants, while we ignore the fact that the US Air Force bombs entire villages of non-combatants without a second thought.

3. Class war produces the conditions that spawn successful revolutions, which the author is careful to define as those revolutions that have or can acquire popular support. The corruption at the top, and the poverty at the bottom, eventually collide.

4. Guns are the least important tool of the guerrilla (and all of the guns are provided by the occupying power or the illegitimate military). Guerilla operations are a state of mind, a spreading awareness of the possibilities of ultimate invincibility, firmly founded in root legitimacy.

5. The author points out the two fallacies to avoid, both heavily characteristic of current US operations in Iraq:

a. Revolutions and insurgency are NOT a conspiracy, e.g. Iran may be aiding the insurgency in Iraq, but at root the insurgency is home grown and will continue until the US is driven out.

b. Counter-insurgency is NOT about tactical “methods.” The long war is about the will and rights of the people everywhere. As General Smedley Butler, USMC concluded, War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It

6. The author is a gifted writer. He points out that conventional armies are burdened by a dependence on bases and “things” (vehicles, weapons systems) while the guerilla is “liberated” by their poverty, able to move past roadblocks by simply walking in the jungle 100 meters to the left or right. Conventional forces focus on patrols and real estate. The guerilla focuses on the message and the public.

7. The guerilla is a voice, a message. The fact that the guerilla exists means that the political process has FAILOED. The primary asset the guerilla has is not a weapon, but their relationship with the community of people within which they survive.

8. The author believes that in the era of globalization, the laboring class has been empowered but does not fully realize its power to carry out a legal general strike, to demand labor unions, to not consume products whose “true cost” is onerous.

9. The guerilla is militarily weak but politically strong and economically dangerous. I continue to marvel at the idiocy of Dick Cheney in seeking to capture Iraq's oil and intimidate Iran (Persia) while ignoring the fact that ten oil pumping stations in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, if blown up, can take oil to $200 a barrel overnight.

10. Three conditions are cited as being necessary for a revolution:

a. No other alternative.

b. Cause is compelling.

c. Possibility of success.

11. A general strike by the public can follow an armed insurrection, or stand on its own as a clear signal to the government that it has lost its legitimacy and authority. I cannot help but feel that the United States of America is today badly in need of a legal ethical general strike by the public that continues until Dick Cheney resigns from office and Congress declares an end to our unilateral militarism around the world.

12. The essence of guerilla warfare is to take the profit out of oppression and occupation (colonialism, corruption by corporations) with a clever strategy that is clearly and publicly enunciated, and popular as well.

13. Time, space, and will favor the people over any occupying force. Occupiers lose twice:

a. Their presence provokes anger in the people.

b. They supply the insurgents with all the arms, ammunition, food, and other supplies needed (this is one of two dirty little secrets of the US occupation of Iraq; the other is that we have returned 75,000 of our honorable men and women to America as multiple amputees who are not being well served by the Veteran's Administration).

14. US *talks* about hearts and minds but *spends* only on death and destruction. We are still not serious about global stabilization & reconstruction, humanitarian assistance & disaster relief.

As I put the book down on the flight back from Tampa, I thought to myself that this author is completely correct in pointing out that terrorism is of, by, and for the indigenous people, and it is neither deviant nor apart from the fabric of the society it seeks to save. The author also points out that terrorism is vastly less costly than conventional war in every sense of the word: dead, wounded, collateral damage, destruction of infrastructure, and financial as well as moral cost. The author makes it quite clear that the USA is in *denial* when if fails to understand that an insurgency is a civil war, not a conspiracy or communist or terrorist inspired “conspiracy.”

The latter half of the book provides a series of truly absorbing and sensible “lessons learned:”

1. Algeria taught us that urban areas can be occupied and dominated by torture, but at a cost so huge that the occupying government is weakened politically and economically. Cheney remains in denial on this point.

2. The three “failures” of indigenous revolution in the short term:

a. Philippines, government combined social work with amnesty and land grants that took away the basis for revolution among the Huks.

b. Malaysia, the insurgents lacked a rural base with its own food production capability, and could be isolated.

c. Greece, the guerillas lost contact with the public and lost militarily by engaging conventionally.

The author cites Sun Tzu in pointing out that there is nothing “modern” about terrorism or warfare. It is all based on deception and competing claims to legitimacy. He lists six conditions for a successful revolution in his conclusion:

1. Valid popular grievances
2. Sharp social divisions (or ethnic)
3. Unsound or stagnant economy
4. Oppressive or illegitimate government
5. Moral leadership within the guerilla movement
6. A foundation on the truth rather than lies

For the 27 secessionist movements in America, the author notes as have others that anytime an empire is engaged in a far-off debilitating military campaign, internal secessions are easier to accomplish.

In my view, the USA is clearly vulnerable to precision sabotage of the kind that Peter Black, Winn Schwartau, and I discussion in the early 1990's. We were ignored, and today our infrastructure is ten times to a hundred times more likely to collapse from its own decrepitude that from “enemy” action. The two “mainstream” political parties are so corrupt they have run American into the ground (Cf. Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It

I may never be Director of National Intelligence, since I am predisposed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and that is best gotten with the 96% of the information that the secret world refuses to notice. However, if I were, we would have three objectives and three objectives only:

1. Terminating all dictators through buy out plans they cannot refuse.

2. Ending all corruption by any government, organization, or individual.

3. Providing free connectivity and free on demand education in all languages to all people, with hundreds of millions of volunteer tutors able to education the five billion poor “one cell call at a time.”

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