Obama gets out of war business?

In today’s New York Times US-President Obama said: “I don’t want to run auto companies. I don’t want to run banks. I’ve got two wars I’ve got to run already. I’ve got more than enough to do. So the sooner we can get out of that business, the better off we’re going to be.”—– So does Obama refer now to the auto, the bank or the war business?

What do you think?

BTW: If you have any input on who to interview, what other topics to cover in our documentary THE THAW OF WAR and/or research please leave us a note here.

What to do in times of crisis?

I don’t know. Is it just me or do you hear the war drum beat harder as well?

Many press commentaries compare the years 1929 and 2009 – both years of economic crisis. Both culminating into a World War? We will not let it come this far. I hope. But for now there’s the war in Iraq, then the drones in Pakistan, social unrest in China (and soon in your backyard?), chaos in Afghanistan, North Korea launches the next rocket and now the pirates in Somalia.

For the media the pirates stand for great headlines, powerful imagery and stories on a grand scale. At least for a while. But what beats the war drum is not so much what they report but how they do it. In the western media the pirates are presented as deadly and greedy, disrupting peaceful civilian sea transports for money. But to the Somalians these are not pirates but coast guards.

At least according to this interview with Somalia born rapper Knaan. I have no means of proving his comments right or wrong. But I found them new and coming from a different angle. And looking at things from different angles does help in times of crisis.

BTW our research for our doc THE THAW OF WAR continues: If you have any other different angles or input on who to interview, what other topics to cover and/or research please leave us a note here.

Are we at risk of a nuclear attack?

Imagine. You’re in Japan. It’s August 6, 1945. You are in Hiroshima on a business trip. An American B-29 drops an atomic bomb on the city. You witness the apocalypse. You get burned but you survive and return to your hometown. Nagasaki. And three days later it’s apocalypse again when the second atomic attack in human history is launched. And you survive again.

This is exactly what happened to Tsutomu Yamaguchi, now 93 years old. He just has become the first person certified as a survivor of both atomic bombings by the United States.

Researching for our documentary film THE THAW OF WAR we found that the risk of us witnessing something similar in our lifetime is growing. Peeps who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s remember how aware we were made of nuclear annihilation. But now it doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s radar so much anymore.

Disaster-medicine expert Irwin Redlener reminds us the threat is still real. He looks at some of history’s farcical countermeasures. But he kicks off with the big question: ARE WE AT RISK OF A NUCLEAR ATTACK? Redlener’s presentation is part of the TED series, which I think is just brilliant and worth coming back over and over again.

BTW: If you have any input on who to interview, what other topics to cover and/or research please leave us a note here.

Genocide is not enough?

Why do we humans still engage in war although the next global confrontation will end civilization as we know it? One of the central questions in our doc THE THAW OF WAR.

In our research we’re going back in history – way back – in order to find out how evolution has its share in this. And it certainly does. There are clues that our “team aggression” is something we inherited from our ancestors. And we still act by it on a daily basis.

And I stumbled over something else: It’s very likely that we humans had our share in the extinction of the Neanderthals. This would make the Neanderthals the very first species we “modern” humans annihilated in our history. At least that we know of. So genocide is not where we draw the line? We also go for “specicide”?

I added a video about DID MAN KILL NEANDERTHALS. One thing in this video: Towards the end they talk about determining the genes of Neanderthals. Since they put this video online this process evolved. The Max Planck Institute in Leipzig now completed a first rough draft of the Neanderthal genome just a month ago. The genetic evidence suggests that humans and Neanderthals are very similar, but that the two species probably didn’t interbreed.

By the way if you want to listen to something your and my ancestor has possibly “specicized”:
Using 50,000-year-old fossils from France and a computer synthesizer, a science team has generated a recording of how a Neanderthal would pronounce the letter “e.”

This film is your film.

Just got back from Berlin. Got a lot of writing done on a feature film which will also be war themed. Seems like I’m not parting with this subject anytime soon.

I wanted to put the word out: As you know we are currently researching for our doc THE THAW OF WAR. Now since our efforts are as big as they can be – we want to open it up and ask you to be part of it. Meaning I would absolutely appreciate any hint you might have. So hit me up with thoughts that might cross your mind over the next months regarding people you think would make great interview partners, research topics you think should be in the movie etc.

And I just found this interesting piece of film here: As US and the UK forces struggle for a way forward in Afghanistan, John D McHugh’s unique film from one of the US military’s most dangerous outposts shows just how western forces are losing ground to the Taliban.

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