Credibility of John Perkins´accounts.

http://www.economichitman.com/pix/veracitymemo.pdf

Totally Essential: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

After I watched his interview on the documentary "Lets make money", I also read his book "Confession of an Economic Hit Man. Its probably the only inside report of a so called EHM, an Economic Hit Man, who work for the American government, yet get hired and paid by big international construction companies. Their task is to overestimate the economic growth of underdeveloped countries, thus encouraging them to take higher loans from the IMF and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development  who are under US control, aiming to modernise their infrastructure and industries, yet ending up hopelessly indebted to the US, debts they will never manage to pay back to the USA, who then ask for favors in return, votes in the UN, Oil, anything that is solely in the interest of the US and what Perkins calls the "corporatocracy" (as opposed to what we believe to be a democracy), the closely tied alliance between banks, global companies and governments.

I must say: I was shocked! This is not some conspiracy mumbo jumbo but the absolutely credible first hand report of a high profile economic adviser who sat together with politicians and heads of state and not only planned but helped to execute the modern and subtle blackmail and overthrow of countries like Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela etc. I unveils connections in modern day politics and economics I even haven´t dreamed of.

Also it is really well written and reads like a thriller, yet is totally unpopulistic. It´s a sincere confession of someone whose conscience got more and more strained and called for a turn .

I urge everybody to read this excellent book. It´s in times depressing to see how things work that ordinary people like me haven´t the faintest clue of. How evil and with twisted and sick morals the US pursue their "manifest destiny". Frightening and awakening!

The alternative Nobel Prize, awarded by http://www.rightlivelihood.org/

http://www.rightlivelihood.org/

"For every other side of the coin there is another side of the coin."( Japanese proverb)

"Begin in the beginning"

On Eart Wind &Fire´s latest album ILLUMINATION I found the inevitable piece of rap in the song  "Elevate". But what I found really creepy was the part before the girly started rapping: Spoken word! (With just EWF´s stringlike voices humming in the background.)
My hopes that this great pretender of meaningfulness died out with slam poetry. I once accompanied a black girl during slam poetry, playing meaningful chords to meaningful words while people nodded their heads in utter bliss finally hitting on the axioms of life.
The problem in slam poetry is time trouble. Say something meaningful NOW! What you get is almost always a bonmot of eastern kitchen philosophy, with a defty pinch of black poetry kitsch (slam poetry to me always seemed a black thing), like "meaning, there is no meaning, everything is nothing, life, death, it´s all the same!"
But here they are again, elevated into the song Elevate, no time trouble whatsoever. So the girl preaches: "Begin in the beginning, move to the middle, then to the end, (then a little "huh" ), beginning and the end is the same place, birth, life, death! Keep moving, yo´! "
Yet, since I like Earth Wind& Fire so much, maybe I should reconsider and start with a fresh view on those words. Maybe I never digged deep enough. So with great hope to save you from spontaneous paralysis I shout out: Keep moving, yo`!

BREAKING BAD, the best TV-series I have seen so far.

Walter White  is a weary high school chemistry teacher with a bad mustache, a middle-aged, suburban drone. Until he's diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

This sets him free. Or free enough to get into the crystal-meth business in order to raise enough money for his wife and cerebral palsy-afflicted son (RJ Mitte, nicely smart-alecky) to live on after he croaks, and for him to have a few thrills while he's at it. Walt partners with grungy teen meth-head Jesse (Big Love's Aaron Paul), who's trying to launch his own tweak factory. With Walt's chemistry expertise, they cook up primo ice that attracts both profits and murderous enemies. (summary entertainment weekly).

Humour likes to pack things up that are not related.
The way this is done makes the humor succeed or fail. The framework of this series is all dramatic: diagnosed lung cancer,  rescuing a marriage and family, and, as eye candy for the viewer, the claustrophobic drama of suburban existence in all it´s beige not-aura. The diagnosed lung cancer makes the hero a tragic hero, or almost, since it´s television and there is hope for a twist that can turn the sinister prophecy away.
And now this chemistry teacher secretly devises a plan and embarks into the world of crystal meth business. Keeping in mind what I said about how humor works, this crash of civilisations is a stupendous pairing for such depth of humor, that one is bedazzled over and over again: How?!?!, while at the same time it never leaves the shadow of tragedy.
The depiciton of both milieus is so well observed in detail and feel, and the main actor ( Bryan Cranston as the Chemistry Teacher) plays so formidably, that the viewer is willing to follow the  two heroes into the most ridiculous situations.
The excellent writing by Vince Gilligan  provided enough unforeseen twists and turns to always keep me salivating for the next episode.
c

Rodger Eberts Blogspot on Ramin Bahrani "the new great American director"

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/03/the_new_great_american_directo.html

Movie: Goodbye Solo

"Two actors. One from Africa. The other who was a bodyguard for Elvis. Who but Ramin Bahrani would find these men and pair them in a story of heartbreaking depth and power? Bahrani is the new great American director. He never steps wrong. In "Goodbye Solo," he begins with a situation that might unfold in a dozen different ways and makes of it something original and profound. It is about the desire to help and the desire to not be helped." (Rodger Ebert)

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

(credits to ViMe @ FICS)