Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

The World Is Flat - A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century - first written by Tom Friedman of the New York Times in 2005. has already been updated and expanded! Amazing that that can be done, and so easily.

I’ve been immersed in Tom’s flat world pretty much ever since receiving it as one of my favorite birthday presents this year. He is one of my favorite writers ever - clear, concise, direct, simple, a good collector of and teller of stories, a great thinker with a panoramic view. His From Beirut to Jerusalem, written in 1989, should be re-read today as we watch video of the Israeli and Hezbollah conflict reducing Lebanon again to rubble.

The Lexus and the Olive Tree is a precursor to The World, and presents Tom’s first understandings of the incredible shift that humans, governments and businesses are in. Two books I’d like to see from him would be one about the environment and how we meet those needs as the world is flattening, and the other using his vast knowledge of the Arab / Muslim world to describe that landscape / humanscape for us.

His columns in the New York Times are not to be missed, and are the primary reason I subscribe to TimesSelect. I finally could not bear the stacks of unread Times stacking up, and the trees whose sacrifice was not being honored by at least reading them. So I subscribe to the online version, and can get my hit of Tom on Wednesdays and Fridays for an annual fee.

When The Lexus and the Olive Tree came out, I was so blown away that I wrote a 20 page paper about it for friends. That was 1999. Now, with The World Is Flat, I’ll be blogging it - one of the phenomena that is flattening the world and empowering all of us.

Stay Tuned!

I thought I would continue my series of movie reviews, since grandson Patrick Keegan and I saw Pirates of the Caribbean last night.

Not quite as great as the first one - and a real set-up for the third - which I understand will begin filming shortly - but a rollicking good time, nonetheless!

Lots of fabulous images from ancient realms are included: the kraken, feared leviathan, from the Bible and other cultures, resurrected here until the battle between its horrific self and Cap’n Jack; a powerful voodoo priestess with her minions and technologies from times past; the Flying Dutchman with Davy Jones and his crew - all done so well, archetypal images throughout - the huge organ and stained glass windows in Davy’s quarters, for instance. The stuff that many dreams - maybe nightmares - are made of.

Wild and wonderful scenes of the heroine standing up to all kinds of bad guys, several of whom are very, very bad. Her brave father, even after his wig was gone. A bar fight in Tortuga - great fun. And in many ways the story of the first time a corporation set public policy - when the English crown supported whatever the East India Company wanted to do.

Cap’n Jack himself swashbuckled and schemed his way through the entire movie and faced redemption against the kraken at the very end. And we don’t know yet whether he achieved it. Altogether a very satisfying film. Give yourself a summer treat and go see it!

A must see - Al Gore’s new movie An Inconvenient Truth. Really all around good: clear and well presented science, a more personal side of the relaxed and helpful Al Gore, interesting and useful graphics, well edited and presented.

And pretty darned scary. Turns out that what the current administration has been telling us, and the media has been repeating - that there is dissent in the scientific community about whether or not global warming is happening - is just not true. The scientific community is of one voice - global warming is real, and escalating.

Some of the scary information concerns how fast some of these changes are happening / can / will happen over the next 10 to 15 years. Remember the movie The Snows of Kilimanjaro? There will be no snow at all on Kilimanjaro by 2020. Our own Glacier National Park will have no glaciers before 2030. And let’s not even talk about the polar ice caps and Greenland, and what their progressively faster melt is doing to sea levels and creating warmer ocean water - remember Katrina, getting bigger as she hit the warmer than normal Gulf water?

Al leaves us with lots of hope - pointing out simple and small steps we can take, which will add up to an easing situation. Not one big thing, but lots of small changes, and the threat will begin to recede. Do you know - I didn’t - that since the US led the way on the banning of flurocarbons, the hole in the ozone layer has begun healing. This time, it doesn’t seem to be Washington, DC that is leading us - the individual states, and individuals in those states, are taking healing steps.

Go see the movie, pick what you want to help heal - and get busy.

P.S. One side benefit will be watching our economy grow as companies invest in and create new technologies as we urge them along - and watching the dollars we send to the Middle East for their oil shrink. Without those oil dollars, those countries are much more likely to educate and use the brains and skills of their women - a win-win for everyone!

P.P.S. And then go see Prairie Home Companion - a real treat of a movie! You’ll come out smiling! A great way to get your popcorn fix….