PBS Frontline -Bush's War
For those of you readers who have seen the Adam Curtis "The power of nightmares" Part 1 of this frontline presentation won't come as a surprise. But "
Bush's War" Not only tells the story of how and why the US public was lied to about WMD etc but how the war which initially was won went on to now a 5 year cluster fuck. A few new names to me at least Paul Bremmer, George Casey, is discussed and examined.
The show is easy to get as a torrent , or watch on line for free.
This documentary is all about the politics and deals which have been shaping out society.
Much like you cant talk about Nixon without Watergate, Its a sad story that you cant talk about Bush without mentioning Iraq. This documentary should help gain perspective on how why , winners - losers of this 5 year (and running) war.
Highly Recommended.
Bob Lee
Underbelly- Television as it should be.
Underbelly This show out of
Australian tv is a 13 part mini crime drama. The events of the story are actual and took place late 90's to early 2000's. The show is based on the book
leadbelly A very interesting AU news article about the show and its downloaders is
here The show is not unlike Soporano's except you add more sex, more violence . Forgot about typical crime boss show. This looks at the streets with an eye that anyone and everyone can be the boss for a while. While each episode tells a little more of the story, each one seems to focus on of the characters. Similar in a way to "Lost".
Reading the wikipeda on it, the show seems to be too rough even for Australia .
Check eztv.it or mininova.org to get your copy.. Don't expect HBO or Showtime anytime soon to get it..But if you life in France or Canada or the UK you can expect to see it anyday now.
This show rates up there with Life on Mars. Very watchable Man TV.
Bob Lee
The Cable Channel to Watch -AMC
It wasn't too long ago when HBO Started producing its own shows. A string of shows started coming out, each one better than the last. OZ, Sopranos, 6 feet under, Deadwood and so on.
Then about the time of Deadwood, out of the woodwork come FX, and Sci-fi with The Shield, Nip/Tuck and Battlestar Galactica, Then, when we looking elsewhere look Showtime takes the plung with Weeds and the now classic Dexter..
Well that was yesterday.
Mark my words, The cable channel to watch now is AMC. For me it started this season with Breaking bad. Part McGiver part Malcomb in the Middle and part Quniton Taritino
Doing a little more research on
AMC, they have other shows they have produced in the past year.. like
Mad Men (which I am just starting to watch) and others
While I am not going to give you my readers a summary of the shows, my point is only be to aware that something good is happening at AMC, andI for one Love it.
I recently learned that Showtimes popular series the Tudors is not an original showtime production, but rather a CBC .ca production out of Canada.
Canada and Australia productions are coming along. Regensis is back for a 5th season, as Au tv has gritty crime drama - Undrebelly which recounts actual gange events from 93 to 2001 in Perth. Its sort of like a Goodfella's down under.
Whatever you do, get your Tivo, or DVR or Torrents going and watch Breaking Bad.. You won't be sorry.
Bob Lee
Getting help. - Giving Help.
Recently I have become aware of the beauty of personal consultation. Over the past 2 months the
direct and
indirect lessons I have learned I hope to be able to share.
My experience started with a normal trip to my Gym (the downtown Los Angeles YMCA) Of the many services they offer to the members and community at large (most of which I must admit I don't participate in) One of the services is free sessions with a dietitian.
Talking with Katie Chapmon (the dietitian ) was everything I could have hoped for, and nothing I was expecting. I was expecting pre printed pretty charts with pictures of Vegi's Milk and Grain products and some idea of how much you are suppose to eat each day to achieve optimum heath.
As it turns out her approach had nothing to do with flip charts or counting calories, or even the new fad of just counting carbs. Her method was to listen to me talk about whatever food issues I thought I had. Slowly she would make suggestions to alter one aspect of my eating and seeing if I could make that change for a week.
We both agreed that I was create of habit, and trying to make mass / quick changes which didn't include the time it took to make it a habit would end in non successful outcome. I would be back to my old habits just as soon as I could.
This was the really interesting part.
Habits - while we tend to think of the word with the prefix of "BAD" has a entirely new and better meaning.
Humans (most of us are creature of habit) and knowing this gives us the ability to create habits we want. For me I find that If I do something for 2 weeks, it pretty much habit ! That goes for smoking, or eating whole grain breads. Your inner habit system does not know that you didn't want to create a smoking habit, nor does it know that you want to take vitamins every day if you only take them once a week.
For me I am now quite a bit stronger seeing that creating good eating habits are not hard. Not at all. All it takes is for me to eat as I should for 2 weeks.. and somehow like magic.. its programmed and my old eating habits just no longer seem to fit in my life.
On a related issue I have a close friend who has been dealing with some emotional and short temper anger issues for quite some time. He also fell into some professional help and after just a few sessions he is now seeing a happier life forward. Issues are still there, but working them out with professionals who have the combined years of knowledge of many lifetimes does seem to have a positive effect.
The personal message I am trying to relate here is that recently I have had a few good experiences with consultations, and that if you find yourself unclear about an issue, maybe a family member or close friend who knows you and wants to help is not the best person to actually give you advise that you can use. You might find like me that the better advise comes from people who do this for a living.
-Shames Plug time. As I mentioned above this all started on seeming random trip to my Gym (the downtown YMCA) The Y in my area not only swimming/ Basketball and workout machines personal trainers etc. They also offer discounts to Students and people who would like to benefit from a club but cant afford the normal 50$ per month dues. In addition I have come to learn they are very active in the community by sponsoring after school - preschool, and summer camp options for hundreds of kids here.
I see the youth groups running around the gym , in the summers, playing basketball on the nice courts, using the workout equipment. This sort of community activism does not come free, but some of the counselors volunteer supplies still need to be purchased. - here comes the plug..If you feel that the Federal Governments stimulus package which should be coming to you the first week of may in the form of check in the amount of 500.00 would be better spent by a community project - (which does help the economy by the way) Please, give Bethany a call At Stuart M. Ketchum Downtown YMCA
401 S. Hope St.
Los Angeles, CA 90071
213-624-2348
She would be happy to see your check - or any part of it you deem worthy put to good use.
Bob Lee
Zeitgeist Movie - or Z-Day March 15th 2008
Some of you may have read my end of year blog with my best of .. Movies for 2007. One of my best of the year is Zeitgeist the movie. If you don't know yet, the movie is a documentary which is now the most watched documentary on the net. with 70,000 downloads day . which is now million viewings a month.
These are impressive numbers indeed, but the message of Zeitgeist is more important than those numbers are indicating.
But for those of you who have heard of it and not found time to download it yet..March 15th is your day.
March 15.. is becoming known as Z-day. A day which movie houses all over the planet and putting on the movie in many cases for free and anyone attending will get a free DVD of the movie to take home and share with others.
I know myself I have shown it to 7 people, and those have either had some enlightenment because of it, or shared it again with others.
The movie is free to download or watch on line, or pay postage of 5.00 and you can order a DVD of it. This is not some sort of scam or pyramid scheme..Its a movie which claims to tell truths about our society, and our economy, government and religion.
Some of the concepts might be hard to take, so before you watch it just be aware you might get offended or walk away somewhat in disbelife..If nothing more the movie will be as well known at the secret, and might even surpass that in awareness.
Here is the listing of where the movie will be shown at public viewing on March 15.
