Travels with my beard

After the 7 July London bombings could growing a beard completely change the way people treated a British Asian? There was only one way to find out. It was a week after 7 July and I'd just got on an east London bus. I was on my way to buy razors as I hadn't shaved for days.

A couple of stops later a middle-aged Rasta guy got on, sat down next to me and asked: "So how's it feel brethren?" "Erm, how's what feel?" I replied. "How's it feel now it's your turn to be bottom of the pile?" he said.
More From the BBC

Cornel West and Most Def with Bill Maher

Bill Maher with Professor West, Brother Mos Def and Nader.
A very funny episode about some of our important issues, ranging from religion and war to the Moon Landing and Big Foot.

General Idi Amin Dada

The documentary, General Idi Amin Dada was directed by Barbet Schroeder who also directed Koko. Idi Amin, this hefty Ugandan tyrant is certainly a charismatic and talkative fellow. At times he talks and talks and put the rope around his very neck, saying some very strange and stilly things to accommodate his appetite for power and attention.

More on Idi Amin and Barbet Schroeder from Criterion Collection.

The Power of Nightmares: The Phantom Victory

Part 2

Is the network of radicals in those far away places real or just an illusion.

THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER

Synopsis:
THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER, a documentary based on the book by British journalist Christopher Hitchens, argues that Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State and the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, was a power-hungry warmonger responsible for massive military cover-ups in Vietnam, Cambodia, and East Timor in the 1960s, as well as the assassination of a Chilean leader in 1970. The film includes interviews with historians, political analysts, and such notable journalists as the New York Times' William Safire--a former speech writer for Richard Nixon. In addition, it uses archival footage from the Nixon era, including coverage of events both in Washington and in Vietnam. With narrator Brian Cox guiding the flow of the film and keeping it tightly focused on its arguments, THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER is shocking in its political revelations and fascinating in its portrait of Kissinger. It was directed by Eugene Jarecki and written by Alex Gibney. Synopsis from Rottentomatoes

Check out:
Road to Guantanamo
Arundhati Roy's Come September

Fog of War plus 5 things from Errol Morris worth a second look

The Fog of War was release in 2003, immediately the work was recognized for its cleverness. The arrangement of the documentary is quite interesting. Morris interviewed McNamara, Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations for many hours, then arranged the film into 11 lessons which also happens to be the structure of McNamara's book: In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.

The Eleven Lessons:
1. Empathize with your enemy.
2. Rationality will not save us.
3. There's something beyond one's self.
4. Maximize efficiency.
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
6 . Get the data.
7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
10. Never say never.
11. You can't change human nature

Most of us heard the name or learn something or the other of Robert McNamara in a high school history class but to watch and listen to him feels exclusive, he is pure cunning, even though he is older and a little weaker. Much of the film will seem less informative to an older generation, but to many like myself who knew very little about the man the film would certainly be enlightening. The lessons can certainly be applied to our current situation with the war in Iraq. The catastrophe and victory can be explained by an occasional fumbling man who drives a Ford, or this once important old fumbling man can reveal to us who is responsible.

Many criticism can be placed on McNamara, however, if you have the time you should watch the film, it is an excellent example of the real cunning at work, both Morris and McNamara. More on Morris can be seen here, or on his blog for the NYTimes.

Five things from Errol Morris worth your second look:
1. Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?
2. Film is lies at twenty - four frames a second
3. Errol Morris on The Treatment with Elvis Mitchel.
4. Commercial for PBS: Photobooth
5. Gates of Heaven