SONG OF SPARROWS

SONG OF SPARROWS from 2008 is yet another brilliant and moving film from Iran. Another in a long line of examples of what has become a somewhat surprising constant over the last twenty years: Iran produces excellent movies. If you liked last year's Academy Award winning Best Foreign Language film A SEPARATION, then you've already gotten a taste of it. For whatever reason, Iranian films bring something to the big screen that is rarely seen in filmmaking from any country today. Seemingly unconcerned with reproducing or competing with big budget Hollywood blockbusters, instead Iranian movies tend to be simple, sincere and authentic portraits of humanity with a realness we've not seen in cinema since post-World War II Italian films such as those by Roberto Rossalinni. Whether or not Iranian filmmakers are deliberately attempting to start their own version of 'Neorealism' or are even aware of the reverred style is not known for sure -- it certainly wouldn't be something they could admit freely under the tightly controlled and watchful eyes of the Islamic Republic's Minister of Culture -- as all Western art and entertainment including film and music is banned in modern day Iran. I myself had the honor of meeting with the Minister of Culture in his office in Tehran in 2008 to discuss a possible musical collaboration with famed Taar recording artist Hussein Alizadeh, and by the end of the meeting felt sadly dissappointed and quite sure that none such collaboration would be permitted under the current laws simply because I am a Western musical artist....

A Simple Prayer

Dear God please help and guide me to become the man I've always known I should be, that I've always hoped I could be and that you've always known I would be. Amen

What Will it Take for All of Humanity to THRIVE? Watch This Movie Now!

       Yep. Yours truly finally got the chance to sit down and watch some of the movie THRIVE that everyone has been buzzing about over the last few months. I must say right upfront that if this kind of thing just happens to be your "kind of thing" then, like myself, you aren't necessarily going to find anything new in this film. But you'll love it just the same. I myself can now sleep. For the first time since observing and predicting that we were shifting into a new age, one I started calling "The Personal Expression Age" in 2004 for the book bearing the same title, I feel like I have finally seen something that truly has the potential to push us over the edge. So yes, it's that important. Regardless of how much of it you may already know. It's a damn good flick. One that has the potential to turn into an even cooler movement, or even better help the many movements already in existence continue to grow and expand.  
      We already know who not so secretly (except to the masses) controls planet earth, that UFOs exist and are being hidden from the mainstream by the governing few, that the 9/11 attacks on the US were an inside job and a hoax perpetrated to start several wars for oil and Middle East dominance, that various free energy machines have existed since at least the early part of the 20th Century and that all you have to do is follow the money to see clearly that through surreptitious private banking cartels disguised as government treasury departments (The Federal Reserve), corrupt Big Oil companies, the so-called "world religions", medical schools and health insurance systems designed and controlled by giant pharmaceutical companies with ignoble intentions and a few very wealthy and powerful families (Warburgs, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Carnegies, et al.) and other power hungry groups (the British Royals, the Vatican) humankind is being controlled in a not so secret anymore pretend-democracy and has been for centuries. Cont.

Mike Wallace You Will Be Remembered and Revered For Many Years to Come

It's household news by now in the United States at least that 60 Minutes News Anchorman Mike Wallace passed away this past weekend. He hosted the show for more than 40 years and before that he was a host, announcer, journalist and even an actor since the mid-1950s. I personally have such a strong sense of Mike Wallace within me that it almost feels as though he is family, having grown up my entire life watching him every Sunday evening on television talk the tough talk and ask the tough questions that no one else dared to ask but we all dreamed we would if we were ever in such a position ourselves. Much like Peter Jennings before him, who lived just a few blocks away from us here in Manhattan and whose children went to school with a few of my close friends, Mike Wallace's passing marks another milestone in what appears symbolically like the death of real journalism. The kind Edward R. Murrow and even the less serious minded but equally sincere Jack Parr and Dick Cavett used to also represent to the world.

It is after all a new Age in Communications. Shock and Awe are the tools of today's journalistic trade, not honest journalism of value and integrity. There are reasons for this. Primarily the fact that due to technological advances, and the advent of the Personal Expression Age in general, we now face such an overwhelming abundance of information outlets and vehicles so numerous that the goal has switched from "quality and substance in news reporting" to "gaining the public's attention through any and all means necessary". This is more than unfortunate for us all. It is hard to discern what real news is anymore. But that's for another story later on down the road. For today, let us just remember that men like Mike Wallace and his colleagues at 60 Minutes did exist, and still do today. We will always remember their many great contributions to our lives through both information and entertainment.

Police Station Strip Searches Legal in the United States?

A recent question posed from an anonymous visitor:  "Doesn't everyone think that the only reason that the supreme court said it was OK for anyone arrested and taken to a police station in the United States to be strip-searched is so they can abuse the occupy people?!?"

     Though I'd love to agree with you, I would have to lean towards a more yes and no. The Supreme Court has had a relatively remarkable history of being surprisingly neutral in many cases throughout it's history. Though the historical stain caused by their (some might say) illegal and unconstitutional divergence from the election process by usurping the American peoples' power to choose the president by (s)electing GW Bush as the president of the United States themselves in the year 2000 is a dirty and deeply dug-in one; and perhaps signaled a change for the worse that we may never see shift back. As much as many feel that the Court shifts coyly left and right ala politics as usual between the two-party system that's taken over US government based on which judges happen to be registered Democrats or Republicans, they often come to uncannily fair and unbiased decisions on occasion.
      One could also argue that with the current threat of terrorism on US soil so glaringly eminent due to at least three overtly illegal invasions and deadly wars in foreign countries over the last ten years, that the need to be allowed to strip search anyone seen caught or suspected of any sort of trouble making is high right now, and maybe even downright necessary. This of course begs the question "just who started all this? Regarding the continuously increasing questionable event they refer to as 9/11. But regardless of who did what or how or when on that fateful day, the United States government's reaction(s) to it have caused more ammunition or "righteous just cause" for terror attacks against the US, in retaliation for these acts, than possibly any country in the history of human civilization. Thus "possible future terrorist attacks on US soil" seem more than just questionable, and rather more like downright definite. More a question of when rather than "possible?".
      If one views things with this in mind, from a more global perspective, historically looking forward in order to look back in time to the present day or near future, the United States seems to be acting quite lax in its stated attempt at "Homeland Security". Hence strip searches don't seem like that big of a sacrifice to make on all our parts if it might possibly prevent major damage or harm to a large majority of us or even a few. Granted, someone clearly American out protesting for the Occupy Movement shouldn't necessarily be treated like a suspected terrorist, no one "should" be. Except for the fact that so many "normal looking white Americans" have 'gone postal' over the last ten years shooting up schools and various other public places for no apparent reason and with no warning whatsoever.