Intelligence (Public) – Page 31 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/02/202010/02/20

Review: Come Home America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, History, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Read Fire Side Chat Review–This is Supplemental

February 20, 2010

William Greider

Very rarely do I find reviews as lengthy as my own. Please read and appreciate the Fireside Chat review that is deservedly popular with readers. I first encountered William Greider while managing the international conference on “National Security and National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions,” and I realized that the way the US Government was mis-managing our democracy and our public commons was central to the demise of America. The two books I have most appreciated by him are Who Will Tell The People? : The Betrayal Of American Democracy and The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy but I have to remind myself that before I knew him personally I had also read and appreciated Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country as well as One World Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (Hardcover).

I like the “fireside chat” description of this book and am providing my own summary primarily for my own benefit and the benefit of those that follow all of my non-fiction reviews at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog where all of my reviews, in 98 non-fiction categories, are more easily exploited than here at Amazon (but they all lead back to Amazon.

QUOTE (1): We live in a country where telling the hard truth with clarity has become taboo.

QUOTE (7): From the birth of our nation, it was always ordinary people, pushing from the bottom against an entrenched status quo, that led to the most momentous changes in American life.
Continue reading “Review: Come Home America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country”

2010/02/202010/02/20

Review: A New World Order

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy, Diplomacy, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Priorities, Security (Including Immigration), Survival & Sustainment, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

For a Serving Elite, Genius–Out of Touch with Non-Elites

February 20, 2010

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Now that my own book INTELLIGENCE for EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability is at the printer am back into reading and really looking forward to catching up with the 25 books on my “to do” shelf. This one jumped to the top of the list at the recommendation of James Fallows, recently back from China and author of Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq among many other extraordinary books.

This might have been a four because despite the gifted genius of the author–I use the term with admiration–the book is out of touch with two thirds or more of the relevant literature and all the non-elite movements that are doing precisely what she advocates but DISPLACING governments.

HOWEVER, the recurring theme of multinational information-sharing and information-driven harmonization grabbed me by the throat. A handful of quoted phrases, generally citing others properly end-noted:

+ European agencies “are best described as ‘information agencies.' Their job is to collect, coordination, and disseminate information needed by policymakers.

+ “Modes of regulation based on information and persuasion…”

+ “Debousee also sees the European information agencies as network creators and coordinators.”

+ “In short, the ability to provide credible information and an accompanying reputation for credibility become sources of soft power.” She acknowledged here that non-governmental organization networks are doing this now, and that government networks need to do more of this.
Continue reading “Review: A New World Order”

2010/02/102010/02/10

Review: The Bhagavad Gita–A Walkthrough for Westerners

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Religion & Politics of Religion, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Speak the Truth, Lose the Anger, Be Part of the Whole

February 10, 2010

Jack Hawley

It took me fifty years to recognize the deficiencies of the command and control or top down elite-dominated model of governance, and to discover the spiritual and practical integrity of collective intelligence, openness, appreciative inquirty, deliberative public dilaog, and so on. It's taken another seven years to discover detachment from outcome, and that in turn set the stage for what I find to be the absolute essence of this book: speaking truth to power is half the battle, losing the anger is the other half. Harder to do than it sounds, this Westernized version of the Bhagavad Gita does help.

Here are the two paragraphs I pulled from page 129 and then 147 for intelligence (decision-support) professionals:

“Those who transcend the gunas are in essence watchers, beyond the worldly. Although constantly aware of the inevitable cycle of birth, disease, senility, grief, and so forth, they dwell above it all, and merely witness it.

My personal take on the above is that sacred dispassion is a prerequisite for both spirtual vision and professional integrity.

“Always tell the truth, Arjuna, and present it in as pleasant a way as possible. If you cannot do that, remain silent. If something absolutely needs to be said, you must uphold the truth, but find a way to do it that is gentle and obliging.”

Talk about one's life flashing past–A for truth, F for gentle. Something to work on in my last 20 years.
Continue reading “Review: The Bhagavad Gita–A Walkthrough for Westerners”

2010/01/232011/06/30

Review: The Global Mind – The Ultimate Information Process

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design

Hans Swegen

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Book, January 23, 2010

By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)

This book is available immediately from WHSmith. I recommend it without reservation, it is in my top dozen books on the World Brain – Global Brain -Global Mind – Collective Intellgence reading area.

Amazon seems to be deleting a lot of reviews from top reviewers, which I find quite annoying. Indeed, Amazon has become so unreliable, on top of being unresponsive to years of requests for simple changes (e.g. being able to access all reviews by a specific reviewer against a specific search such as “World Brain” that I finally created Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, where you can access all reviews in each each of 98 reading categories, all leading back to Amazon, but not dependent on Amazon.

This book is extraordinary in that is directly connects information to DNA and makes an absolutely fascinating case for how every single atom on the planet is an information element, and all of the atoms in the whole are the Global Mind.

There are no notes, and normally this would set me off, but I found the personal reflections of this author so utterly extraordinary that I can not find fault on this point.

Other books I recommend along with this one:
World Brain (Essay Index Reprint Series)
Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Emerging Worldwide Electronic University: Information Age Global Higher Education (Praeger Studi)
The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
The Tao of Democracy: Using co-intelligence to create a world that works for all
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

AA Mind the Gap — Vote and/or Comment on Review

2010/01/232010/01/23

Review (Guest): The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick – And What We Can Do About It

5 Star, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Education (General), Environment (Problems), Intelligence (Public), Science & Politics of Science, True Cost & Toxicity

Amazon: O’Brien turns to accredited research conducted in Europe that confirms the toxicity of America’s food supply, and traces the relationship between Big Food and Big Money that has ensured that the United States is one of the only developed countries in the world to allow hidden toxins in our food–toxins that can be blamed for the alarming recent increases in allergies, ADHD, cancer, and asthma among our children. Featuring recipes and an action plan for weaning your family off dangerous chemicals one step at a time, The Unhealthy Truth is a must-read for every parent–and for every concerned citizen–in America today.

Via Email: Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It is a remarkable, readable, galvanizing book about the effect of unhealthy food on our kids.

Robyn O¹Brien has been called the Erin Brockovich of the food industry. Some of this information is not new, but Robyn has brought it together in a credible (she¹s has an MBA), comprehensive (she¹s a gifted researcher), compelling way that includes her own personal story.

She has also started Allergy Kids Foundation, whose mission/goal is to create universal food allergy awareness and to inspire parents to learn to identify the existence of and protect the health of their children with food allergies.

As the first independently funded food allergy organization, AllergyKids highlights previously undisclosed research addressing the recent introduction and engineering of allergens, proteins, food additives and dyes into our food supply and the impact that these novel proteins, chemicals and allergens have on the health and well being of women and their children.

In the last twenty years, the new childhood epidemics of allergies, asthma, autism and ADHD (also obesity and cancer) have increased dramatically:

+ 400% increase in allergies,
+ 300% increase in asthma,
+ 400% increase in ADHD
+ and an increase of between 1,500 and 6,000% in the number of children with autism-spectrum disorders.

2010/01/232010/01/23

Review: Global Mind

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Education (General), Education (Universities), Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks)

Extraordinary Book

January 23, 2010

Hans Swegan

There are no notes, and normally this would set me off, but I found the personal reflections of this author so utterly extraordinary that I can not find fault on this point.

Other books I recommend along with this one:
Continue reading “Review: Global Mind”

2010/01/232010/01/23

Review: The Emerging Worldwide Electronic University–Information Age Global Higher Education

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Education (General), Education (Universities), Future, Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Extra-Terrestrial), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks)

The Original Surveyor of Distance Education and Virtual Learning

January 23, 2010

G. Parker Rossman

My original review of this book seems to have vanished into thin air here at Amazon.

G. Parker Rossman and his book came into my life just after I started the international conference on “National Security & National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions,” and both the book and the World Brain discussion group that he co-founded were extremely influencial in my recognition that the ultimate outcome for a re-appreciation of open sources instead of secret sources was a global networked “world brain.”

From my point of view, he was the first serious scholar to comprehensively begin documenting what could be learned online, and the first–at a time when fewer than 10% of those who could afford a computer were actually online–to really begin outlining the possibilities for both distance education and virtual learning.

It was as a direct result of his influence through this book that Gottfried Mayer-Kress spoke to the conference in 1997 on the topic of the World Brain, and that was when the entire modern Open Source Intelligence movement took a decisive turn away from helping the US Government get a grip on reality, and toward connecting and empowering all multinational sources of information for the good of all.

I have listed both this author and Gottfried Mayer-Kress in the World Brain line-up that runs from H. G. Wells through Vannavar Bush to today's proponents for Collective Intelligence, the World Brain, and a Global Game in which we all play ourselves and all of us have access to “true cost” information in all languages all the time.

Here are ten other books I recommend with this one, I have reviewed and summarized all of them:

Continue reading “Review: The Emerging Worldwide Electronic University–Information Age Global Higher Education”