TakePart Exclusive: “The Reckoning” Interview

One of the best films I got to see at this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival was Pamela Yates The Reckoning. The film tells the story of the first 6 years of the International Criminal Court and the struggles they faced (and still do) in becoming a widely accepted body of law. The journey of the court centers on ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo and the arrest warrants that are put out for Lord’s Resistance Army leaders in Uganda, Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga and the president of Sudan. It’s an amazing portrait of the complexities of both the world we live in and the systems that define it. Also of note is that the film will air on PBS’s documentary program POV on July 14th. Everyone should definitely mark this on their calendar and watch the film when it airs. Not only are the issues it presents horribly important but it is also a beautifully crafted film. If you need you a little convincing, the interview I did below with director Pamela Yates and Alejandro de Onís (part of The Reckoning’s outreach team) should be enough to prove the film’s importance and also showcase the change it will hopefully be able to create. TAKEPART: One thing that really struck me about the film was the look of it. So often films about human rights struggles are more about the issues and less about the look/feel of the film. But with The Reckoning I think you succeeded in making a film with important content but also a purposeful and quite beautiful look/pace. Can you tell us a bit about how you all decided to create that look? PAMELA YATES: We conceived of “The Reckoning” as a political thriller about international crime and punishment. I insisted on working with all the power of filmic artistry—carefully thought out cinematography that is beautiful, sad, epic; unifying music throughout the film that captures the emotional highs and lows, well written narration spoken by a soulful narrator, and always an emphasis on the victims and survivors at the center of this justice initiative. I believe that the most beautiful panorama of cinema is the geography of the human face, which is why there are so many close ups of faces “The Reckoning”. The audience feels like they are watching a movie rather than a news report, and I always show a way forward because I am an idealist. So while there may not be a happy ending, there is a bittersweet ending. Paco de Onís, Peter Kinoy and I (the team who made TR) are human rights activists and we aspire to make great art. The two are compatible. TP: When the ICC finally brings Thomas Lubanga to trial it is quite a relief. how did you react when they almost had to release him? PY: I was about to go to The Hague to film the beginning of the Thomas Lubanga trial when I got the phone call saying that they trial could be stopped and Lubanga released. It was a huge disappointment because I had been in the eastern Congo and met former child soldiers from Lubanga’s militia, and seen how it destroyed their young lives. But, in documentary filmmaking one is used to being thrown curve balls and having to react appropriately, flexibly. I know I control nothing, because these are real people and real situations. My feeling was that if the prosecution cannot make its case, then Lubanga would have to go free. But it was also a dramatic opportunity for me to follow how the Court would respond to this situation that it never faced before regarding evidence and rule of law. These are the moments that really test the mettel of the Court. TP: The ICC’s work in general seems to always be on shaky ground when it comes to global acceptance, what can a normal person do to support their work? Today, as I write this, Chile has become the 109th country to become a member state of the ICC. So there are two currents at play: one is that the Court is growing and becoming a real player on the world stage, a factor in the growth of global justice. The other is how effective can this new Court be? And that is up to us citizens of the world. The inspiration behind the film is that everyone get a general knowledge of the Court—told in a dramatic and emotional way in “The Reckoning”, and that they engage in the international justice debate. We have a 3 year audience engagement initiative, a web portal that can help viewers join the conversation and connects them to our outreach partners who are already part of the vibrant movement for international justice. It is http://ijcentral.com Join in! TP: Another thing that is really interesting is that the film reads like a historical piece but in reality the content is very current, with President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s arrest warrant being issued as recently as March. What made you decide to finish the film now instead of gathering more content or following some of the stories further? PY: I thought that the first six tumultuous years of the ICC would be a good starting point to make an engaging film for a general audience. Of course the climax of the film is arrest warrant for President al-Bashir of Sudan, but we have already updated the film twice, most recently for our PBS/POV broadcast. And in our non-linear, digital world we will continuously updating the film. And after 90 minutes on the edge, you will have learned a huge amount about an inspiring and hopeful new global justice institution. But the ICC is a beleaguered institution that needs our help. And as global citizens we can join in the conversation, engage in the debate only when we are informed. And that’s why we’ve also conceived a 3 year audience engagement and outreach campaign so that The Reckoning can be the flagship film, and by taking people on an emotional odyssey can then lead them to get involved with the international justice movement. Check out our outreach campaign at international justice central: http:ijcentral.org As part of our 3 year outreach campaign we are also creating 10-15 minute educational modules that will be free and online, detailing what we could not deal with in depth in the film. The first 3 modules are fascinating stories about unfolding current events. They will be: The Creation of the International Criminal Court, the Darfur case and Justice vs. Peace in Uganda. We are working with one of our outreach partners, Facing History and Ourselves, who will be writing additional study materials. TP: You went to a lot of dangerous places in the film, what was the most difficult part of going to these places and making the film in general? PY: It is incredibly difficult and dangerous to travel to conflict zones and still try to make a good film under those circumstances. But we had to go to the scenes of the alleged crimes or “The Reckoning” would not have been complete. I was always concerned for the safety of our crew. One of the Congolese militia leaders was arrested by the ICC and flown to the Hague while we were in the Congo, and he was from the town where we were based. So we braced ourselves for the reaction, but all remained calm. I was concerned for the safety of the people who agreed to talk to us on camera, because when there is no traditional of independent journalism, as was the case in the eastern Congo, people thought we were gathering evidence to take to the Court. That was the physical challenge, the intellectual challenge was how to make a film that takes place across 4 continents in 6 languages and make it into a coherent narrative. And that is where the brilliance of editor Peter Kinoy came into play. We decided that “The Reckoning” had to be told with the Court as the main character, in other words that the stories are told, the action is driven from the perspective of the Court. And Peter is a master at taking the audience on a harrowing odyssey while never confusing them. TP: Can you explain a bit about IJ Central and at what point got the idea for the film and at what point you got the idea for IJ Central and how they are meant to work together? Alejandro de Onis: IJCentral, in tandem with documentary film “The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court”, will be the core of a social network for global justice to combat the entrenched culture of impunity for crimes against humanity, implementing a multi-platform citizen engagement strategy using geo-located mobile phone SMS text messages, to build a worldwide constituency for the rule of law visualized on the IJC Map. Success will be an active global constituency supporting the justice mandate of the ICC, to prosecute perpetrators of the worst crimes, no matter how powerful. For example, using sms text messaging, high school students in Indianapolis, after seeing “The Reckoning” can text the head of the internally displaced persons camp in Uganda, Dennis Lemoyi who is seen in the film and have a two way conversation. They can also text former child soldiers, kids their own age, in Uganda and Congo. TP: Tell me more about your plans for the educational release of the film? AdO: For distribution in the educational realm, we distribute to hundreds of universities through the New Day Films cooperative, to public libraries through New Day Films and OverDrive, an online platform for public libraries, and to high schools through Facing History and Ourselves with a network of over 25,000 high school teachers and the Human Rights Watch High School Program,. In addition, the 3-year citizen engagement campaign will drive new constituents to IJCentral through screenings conducted around the world with our NGO partners and national/international television broadcasts of “The Reckoning”, and online delivery of the film and related media modules for activists and educators. We plan to make multiple language versions in French, Spanish, Acholi, Swahili and Arabic and make them available in the ICC’s situation countries—where the ICC as opened cases. Our measures of success will be the creation of a broad global database of international justice constituents that can be reached for calls to action in support of the ICC’s justice mandate, and a vibrant international justice social network with low entry barrier SMS text messaging at its core, allowing for a truly inclusive global community that supports the rule of law in conflict resolution, and strengthens the mandate of the ICC for a world with justice, peace and security. TP: What is your best case scenario for what the film will be able to accomplish? AdO: To create global awareness of the International Criminal Court, and an international grassroots base of support that will pressure leaders to cooperate with the ICC justice mandate to prosecute perpetrators of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. And to have these new constituencies created by the film become a driving force for universal ratification of the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC, so that we can take it from the current 109 countries to 192, including the U.S., Russia and China. The United States and US jurists have been such an important part of developing international justice from the Nuremberg tribunals through the creation of the International Criminal Court that we hope the national broadcast premiere of “The Reckoning” on July 14th on POV will get Americans excited about working on these issues ______ Photo: Professor Pilo inspects a skull in the killing fields of Bogoro, Ituri, eastern Congo. Credit: Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos

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New sites for gadget nuts: Gdgt and Retrevo

Gdgt, a new site co-founded by Peter Rojas (founding editor of both Gizmodo and Engadget) and Ryan Block (former editor in chief of Engadget) is opening up today. It is--surprise--yet another gadget site, but it's quite good, and more useful to real people than the gadget porn sites these two editors came from. It's a community-driven site, wiki-like in features and general atmosphere, so it's the site's users that will make it succeed or fail. Meanwhile, the new version of Retrevo (previous coverage), another tech product site, launched on Monday of this week. It's a more sober site, useful but not as exciting as Gdgt. It's more of a buyer's and owner's resource. Gdgt: By geeks and of geeks "It's the gadget site we always wanted," Rojas and Block say about their new site. Conceptually, it's quite simple, and potentially powerful. Users on the site pick the products they have, want, or once had, and write up quick reviews of them if they like. It's social, it's fast, and if the product you want to write about isn't in the database, it's pretty easy to add it. If you're looking for solid advice on a product--how to fix it, if you should buy it--the community could provide value. You'll be able to see what users are saying about products and dive into discussions about particular features. If you like researching what the people who are really passionate about their gear say, this will be helpful. But the people who get the most out of Gdgt will be product geeks and fanboys who like chatting about toys. The service has a very high social component. You can follow people, friend them, get alerts when your friends write reviews or respond to yours, and so on. There are also free-floating discussions about product companies, and "feature" stories (blog posts) by the editors that will serve as jumping-off points for community chatter. It sounds like an straightforward concept, but Gdgt wins points for execution. It's fun to use. It's fast (at least the unloaded beta I tried was) and most of the pieces are where you expect them to be. Those that aren't (like the site's preference for using product model numbers instead of more popular brand names) will likely be fixed based on user feedback. I admit I do have issues with sites that encourage people to define themselves by what they own, and Gdgt definitely does that. There's a tacit game of one-upsmanship in the "I have" list. But if you do have the gadget bug and see no issue with feeding it, I think Gdgt will end up being a great place to hang out. Gdgt is as much about products as it is about their fans and owners.(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET) Retrevo: Get in, get info, get out In contrast, the new, recently launched version of Retrevo is designed to "make the shopping journey simple and enjoyable," an anodyne pitch if ever there was, but attractive, no doubt, to people freaked out by the idea of buying a digicam or a flatscreen. Retrevo has an AI core that gathers up product review and pricing data from numerous sources (including CNET), to present overall recommendations on products. What's new is its Farecast-like feature of telling you if the product you're looking at is at its peak of popularity, or heading toward or away from it, plus indicators telling whether users like it, and if it's a good value or not at the moment. If you trust the Retrevo machine, it provides good info to reduce buying anxiety. A new automated "product catalog" also gathers up information on entire categories of products and puts into a catalog-like format that's supposed to be comfortable to users. I found the information on the catalog pages poorly organized, however. The site will now also telegraph the essentials it knows about products to you via Twitter if you send it a query, which is potentially useful if you're in a store and curious about a product you're looking at on a shelf, and if you don't care if all your Twitter followers see when you query the Retrevobot. Another handy feature (which I don't think is new) is an electronic "shelf" for keeping product manuals. Retrevo has a nice library to stock it from. This should make it easier for you to part with your money.(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET) If you're a gearhead, try Gdgt for fun and community, but don't skip Retrevo when you're looking to make a purchase. And to keep me employed, be sure to check out CNET reviews as well. Thank you. Disclosure: In past jobs at Red Herring and Ziff-Davis, I have worked with people now at both Gdgt and Retrevo.

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Interview: Greg Anderson, Sunn O)))

Photo by Jon Kristiansen Greg Anderson isn't very concerned about entertaining crowds. This is surprising coming from a musician who fronts Sunn O))), a band that strives to capture as much of the live aesthetic as possible. But Anderson and partner Stephen O'Malley would rather make air vibrate than eye contact. As the main man behind Southern Lord Records, Anderson tells us about his vision with Sunn O))) and relationships with collaborating artists on new album Monoliths and Dimensions. Interview by Jess Blumensheid You did a unique release package for this new record, where instead of sending promo copies on CD, you only sent out vinyl. Why is that? The main reason we did that was to make a statement about the way that people listen to music, especially journalists. If you're going to write about music, you should have a good stereo to listen to music on. I've noticed these days, people who are calling themselves journalists are people you're handing out promos to [and] are just popping it into their computer. The computer is not the place to listen to music. The small speakers are not able to properly translate the frequencies that are on our record, especially a lot of the subs and low end on our record. A lot of times when you listen to music on your computer, you're distracted, you're doing work on your computer, so you're not really paying attention to the record. But with vinyl, you're forced to interact with [it]. You're physically putting it on and lifting the stylus up and putting it onto the record. You can't just skip around as easily as with a CD. We wanted people to listen to it from start to finish. If you're going to be writing about music and putting your opinion out there for the public to digest, you should listen to it in the way that the artist intended. What has been the reaction so far? It's been really positive. We wanted keep this off of the Internet as long as possible. These days, a lot of the excitement and the surprise of the new album by an artist is ruined because you can download and hear it two months before it comes out. We had this idea of looking back when we first got into music and we were really excited about music. When the new Slayer record came out, you really didn't have any idea of what it was about or what they were going to try next. You went to the store the day it came out. You were excited. You had never heard it before. It was a whole new experience. We wanted to try to inject some of that back into the album release process. Monoliths and Dimensions has a very different sound compared to Sunn O)))'s earlier releases. How was the creation process different for this one? There are a lot of different players and contributors, and that is what definitely contributes to the outcome of the record. We went into the recording of this record really the same way when recording our other records, where Stephen and I are in the recording studio working on ideas and creating the music. But on this one, we did that, and then we gave that music to other collaborators to basically expand on. Like Eyvind Kang, we gave him our basic tracks and he listened to them, and he wrote music and composed a score for a string section to play and a horn section to play. It was kind of like this multi-dimensional or multi-layered process. There's a foundation or core that Stephen and I have created, and then somebody else adds to it. Like on "Big Church," for example, the women's choir that was recorded — the music was actually a reaction to the guitar part that Dylan Carlson had tracked for that piece. And Dylan's piece was based on what Stephen and I had tracked. Big Church (excerpt) Other than the broad usage of different instruments, there's quite a list of contributing artists on this album. Why is that? There were a few basic things that we talked about, and a few things we wanted to accomplish. One was working with different instrumentation, working with some different acoustic instruments, with horns, with choirs. We actually [tossed] around the idea of working with a gospel choir. That didn't work out. But the Vietnamese women's choir is what we ended up going with and tracking. We played a lot of shows with Attila [Csihar] on vocals and also Oren Ambarchi on guitar over the last couple of years. There were a lot of things that happened during those live performances that were really special. We were hoping that we could go into the studio together and try to work on some of those ideas that we had worked on in a live setting. This was the first time that we actually done an in-studio, in-person recording with Attila and with Oren. They've been on several other recordings, but it was all done through the mail. Stephen and I would create. We [would] finish a track and then send it to either Attila or Oren, and then they would add their contribution to it and then we would end up mixing it. There's no real face-to-face contact, there's no that sort of energy bounced back and forth between the players when it's live because it's done through the mail. This time, we're going to do this together in the studio, and I think that's part of the idea of trying to have more of a live feel to it rather than not done in person. There's a lot of real subtle nuances that happen when you're in a room with somebody. Tell me about the last song, "Alice." It has little riffs and lighter tones, like a solemn jazz tune. The track is named after Alice Coltrane, who is an artist that Stephen and I are huge fans of. I find her music to be really inspiring. The idea of the track was to create a piece of music that had the heaviness, ominousness, and darkness of some of our other music. It was a little bit more subtle and [is] a track without massive amounts of distortion. We wanted to see if we could create a piece of music that was still dark and heavy without our usual "crutches" to fall back on. Alice (excerpt) How important is tone to what you do with Sunn O)))? I think that for me it's about the end result. It's like building a house with a shitty foundation. If you have a shitty foundation, it's probably going to fall down. If you have a good tone, the end result of the piece is going to be enriched by that. It's hard for me to define or express tone. It's something that's taken me and Stephen a while to develop, find tones that we really like. I like warm, rich, big-sounding tones. On "Alice," the guitar tone [is] not overly distorted and has more of a chiming, ringing sound to it that you would not hear on our other songs. To me, it depends on what the piece of music calls for. It can be different things. Even that realization is something that's new for us, and I think it's really exemplified on this record — finding different tones to create a piece of music or to express different emotions rather than just a super-loud, roaring guitar through a stack of amps. You mentioned in a New York Times feature that wearing robes and becoming immersed in fog helps you distance yourself from the audience, allowing you to perform better. How important is it for you to interact with your audience? I actually try to not be concerned with how the audience is reacting to the music because that could potentially take me out of getting into it myself if I'm concerned about a reaction. It's really challenging music, so I realize it's not something that everyone is going to get. A lot of people, when they're confronted with something very unfamiliar, their first reaction is to recoil and reject it. I'd rather stay focused with the music and stay in tone with the other players, and hopefully I'm able to get into a space where I like, which is to block out a lot of stuff. It can be a transcendental experience. One of the interesting things about wearing the robes and playing with the amount of fog that we use [is] it creates this anonymity among the players. More often than not, I've played a show and 20 minutes later go out into the audience, and people have no idea that was me playing up there on stage, which is cool because it takes away the ego or the personality and makes it something more ominous or bigger than the person. To me, that's what Sunn O))) is about. It's not about Stephen and I and our egos. It's bigger than that. Photo by Gisele Vienne From my experience, people either hate or love Sunn O))). how do you feel about that? I'm satisfied that people are reacting at all. I think I'd rather have a band that evoked an extreme reaction in people. To me, it's really extreme and intense music, and I put a lot of myself into it. I really appreciate when people have a strong reaction, whether it's positive or negative. Honestly, I'm not disappointed or sad when I hear that somebody hates our band. I think it's interesting that we've had that impact on somebody. I realize that what we're doing is really challenging and it's not for everybody. It's experimental music. That's the nature of it. It's not meant to go down easy. How concerned are you about reading press? I read some of it. The main reason I'm doing the label is I really like turning people on to the music. I like to see what their reactions are. But at the same time, with the Internet especially, it can really be detrimental. I've had instances where bands have been slammed in reviews, and they've taken it really personally and let it affect their making of the art. I think that's terrible. With the Internet, it's a blessing and a curse. There's too much information and too much opinion out there, it becomes overwhelming and hard to decipher what's credible or real and what's not. Is Sunn O))) still following the rubric of "the only rule is no rules"? In some ways. As the group has progressed and more records have come out, [and] different opportunities have come our way, there is a little bit more structure. We try to keep minimal expectations and not limit [ourselves] with boundaries or rules. That makes it boring, like every other band I've been in with my life — same with Stephen — bands that are traditional and structured where you practice four hours a day, three days a week, working your ass off on songs and you hope to go on tour and hope to make a record. We didn't want to fall into those traps. Links MySpace Southern Lord Records Band page at Southern Lord

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What will define this year's trading deadline?

For my Midweek Insider, I offered a primer to this month's build-up to the July 31 deadline for non-waivers trades. It seems that we condition ourselves sometimes to think that every July is drag-out, knock-down crazy, but that's not really the case. As a matter of fact, if you go over the past five years, you can track the "storylines" that emerged, if you will: 2008: Drag-out, knock-down crazy. CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, Manny Ramirez (and Jason Bay), Ivan Rodriguez, Ken Griffey, Jr., Rich Harden, Xavier Nady and Joe Blanton get traded. 2007: The Rangers rebuild, trading Teixeira, Eric Gagne and Kenny Lofton. Not much else of interest occurs. 2006: The Yankees wait out the Phillies until the acquisitions of Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle become purchases, rather than bona fide trades, while Duaner Sanchez's decision to go out to eat, rather than order room service, has long-reaching ramifications for the Mets. Not much else, though. 2005: Boooooring. When Kyle Farnsworth is the biggest name, it's a dud July. 2004: Drag-out, knock-down crazy. The four-way deal involving Nomar Garciaparra. The huge Marlins-Dodgers trade that came to define Paul DePodesta's time as Dodgers GM; notice that it worked out pretty well for the Dodgers. Steve Finley to the Dodgers. The Yankees traded Jose Contreras for Esteban Loaiza. The Mets, deluded into thinking they can make the playoffs, acquire Victor Zambrano (can't remember for whom) and Kris Benson. Conclusion: There are a lot of trades during the years in which there are U.S. presidential elections. Seriously...right now, it looks like it could be slow. The economy, it appears, will define this trade period. There are only a handful of teams completely out of it, and the best, potentially available player from that group _ Jake Peavy _ is on the disabled list. Teams that are still in the race, even marginally, are going to be reluctant to draw the white flag, you'd think, because, since fans have less disposable income, will they be more less likely to purchase tickets for a club out of the race? And on the flip side, how many teams will be willing to take on a lot of money? You saw how the Yankees wouldn't even take on the entire $800,000 that Eric Hinske is owed. As I noted in my story, even this close to the deadline, you just can't anticipate what sort of developments will emerge. Like Manny's rebellion last year. Like Sanchez's taxi cab accident in '06. It's always a fun month for fans, no matter the results. Greetings from a super-secret location! A college pal is getting married up here, so no live games for me for a few days. On the drive up here yesterday, I listened to the bottom of the eighth of Mets-Brewers, and you could sense the tension in Howie Rose's and Wayne Hagin's voices. Hey, right now, any win is a big win for the Mets. On the flip side, John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman sounded rather relaxed as the Yankees beat the Mariners again. It turns out that Alex Rodriguez isn't done, after all, Wally Matthews writes. From listening to him speak this past week, he's trying to make it very clear, very publicly, that he needs to get some rest for the duration of the season. Andy Pettitte finally pitched well at home, meanwhile. Speaking of trades, Mark DeRosa is already out a few games with a left wrist injury. Good move by baseball expanding the All-Star Game rosters by one spot Thanks to the IMDb for the photo.

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Michael Shermer - Science, Skepticism and Libertarianism

Michael Shermer is one of the most well-known skeptics in America, working for decades to advance the scientific outlook in society. He is a contributing editor and monthly columnist for Scientific American, and is the host of the Skeptics Distinguished Lecture Series at Caltech. Since his founding of the Skeptics Society in Southern California and Skeptic magazine, he has appeared widely on TV and radio on shows such as 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, Oprah, Unsolved Mysteries, and many more. He is the author of many books, including Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown, and Why People Believe Weird Things. His most recent book is The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Michael Shermer discusses skepticism and its possible relationship to libertarianism. He argues that what some organizations define as “humanism” are actually positions that have nothing to do with humanism, but with Marxism and social democracy. He talks about why he has begun speaking out more about libertarianism as a leader in the skeptical movement. He admits that he may be more of a moderate libertarian than some others who defend that political and economic perspective. He talks about tensions within libertarianism as regards national defense, and what he sees as the need for national armies after 9-11. He explains which came first for him: libertarianism or skepticism, and talks about the influence of Ayn Rand on his intellectual development. He argues that Ayn Rand is still relevant even if her view of human nature (that people are basically selfish and that there is no such thing as altruism) upon which her economic theories are based is not born out by recent developments in cognitive and evolutionary psychology. He talks about Adam Smith, and how this year is the 250th anniversary of his first book, A Theory of Moral Sentiments, which presents his views regarding people’s natural propensity for empathy and sympathy. He defends free market capitalism despite what some consider recent wholesale failures of the market, and criticizes Alan Greenspan’s betrayal of free market ideals. He attacks the current economic system which engages in corporate welfare and “economic tribalism” for being “capitalist in profits but socialist in losses.“ Other topics he touches on include the gold standard, tax revolt anarchism, income redistribution, and how he would prefer religion and the private sector to help the poor as opposed the government providing for the welfare of the economically disadvantaged. He defends the growing disparity between the super rich and the very poor, and the position that most poor people in the West deserve their lot in life due to their own bad decisions. He talks about his book The Mind of the Market and why people believe weird things about money. He explores the implications of the burgeoning fields of behavioral economics and neuroeconomics for his libertarian position. He describes the basic elements of evolutionary economics, a field he has pioneered. And he defends the position that skepticism should not remain apolitical — instead, he argues that skeptics should apply their skepticism to religion and God, pseudoscience and the paranormal, and also economics and politics. http://www.pointofinquiry.org/michael_shermer_science_skepticism_and_libertarianism

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Redefining Our Economy and Wealth

For a long time now, I have been in agreement with the idea that Global Warming is by far Humanity's greatest problem and challenge of the 21st century. In truth, however, it is not. Global Warming is the greatest problem caused by the mother of the vast majority of our problems: Growth Capitalism. Indeed, we will not solve global warming without first solving its mother. In a growth capitalist society, we must define economy as the way in which a society distributes limited goods and services to satisfy limitless wants and needs. Our society must teach us and train us to believe that we have limitless wants and needs in order for growth capitalism to work: the great idea that "You can never have too much money". In fact, we do not, naturally, have limitless material wants and needs. For example, I have fairly elite tastes. I want to eat delicious, high quality, healthy foods. I want a super fast computer. I want a brand new Prius, fully loaded. But I don't want to eat too much, I don't want more than one PC or more than one car. I want a beautiful, well built, environmentally friendly home, but not a mansion. People who think they want 5 Ferraris, a mansion and 3 vacation homes, etc. have, essentially, been brainwashed. It is happiness and health that they want and they have been taught that these things equal happiness and health but, in fact, we know for certain they do not. I will admit that it is, perhaps, impossible to satisfy everyone's limited wants and needs but I know that they are still limited and that we are wealthy enough to completely satisfy many people's and most of others. We measure the health and wealth of our economy in growth capitalism by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP per capita. This is supposedly a measurement of the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in a given country. The problems with this measurement are many. When we produce products that do not improve our health and happiness and are even detrimental to them, we still increase the GDP. When I purchase more food than I need and let it rot in my refrigerator before I throw it out, I increase the GDP. When people are more unhealthy and need more health care, we increase the GDP. When we go to war, we increase the GDP. And, perhaps most importantly, when we work 40-70 hour weeks rather than 20 hour weeks, we increase the GDP. Therefore, this is a horrible measurement of the wealth of an economy. The simplest and truest definition of economy is "human ecology". If we use this as our basic idea, efficiency, health and many other important factors get factored in that are never considered in our current method of measurement. I would like to propose a quantitative measurement of human ecology. First of all, social scientist often measure what is called a subjective happiness rating of a given society. Basically, they do a poll asking a sample population how happy they are, maybe on a scale of 1-10. Similarly, medical scientists and researchers do population wide ratings of heath that take into account things like rates of disease, life expectancy, and much more. I propose that we measure our economy, our human ecology, by multiplying the subjective happiness rating, squared (SHR^2), the objective health rating (OHR), and the total population and then dividing this product by the GDP: SHR^2 x OHR x Population ------------------------------- = Gross Economic Health GDP Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I must be crazy, I'm turning everything upside down, how could I possibly divide by the GDP? Well, it's really simple. If we have our people healthy and happy using little resources we are maximizing the value of those resources. Dividing by the GDP pushes us to find that perfect balance of using what we really need and want. It doesn't make much sense to use too little resources leaving people unhealthy and unhappy. However, it also doesn't make sense to use more than we need to make people happy and healthy. The reason that we square happiness is because it's probably the most important factor. If we have to use significantly more resources to obtain a less significant happiness gain, I think that is worth it, so we square happiness. The type of society social scientists have found to have some of the highest subjective happiness ratings were hunting and gathering societies and civilizations tend to have the lowest. There are many reasons for this but I think the most important one is that hunters and gatherers worked less than 20 hours a week leaving so much more time for socializing. Happiness is achieved by having strong relationships, intimate relationships, a support network, a sense of purpose in other people's lives, a sense of community, etc. Individual happiness has little to do with the individual and a lot to do with the people in that individual's life. In our society, you may not be happier if you work a less than 20 hour week because most of the individuals in your community are not and you end up spending much of your extra time alone, viewed by others as lazy. Hunters and gathers worked to produce what they really needed and wanted: food, art, homes, music, clothes and much more. Nevertheless, not much energy was put into producing things like homes. A simple, easy to build home would do. Doing valuable work is also an important happiness factor so when, in our society, you have a job where your work seems to benefit others a lot (in terms of their health and happiness), you tend to be a lot happier than when you work long hours to produce junk that people don't really need. Today, it may seem that hunters and gatherers aren't so healthy but that is because the only ones left live in extreme conditions where no one else wants to live. Millenia ago, with their physical exercise, their diverse diet of about 25% animal foods and 75% plant foods, their happiness (which itself contributes to health), etc., they were, perhaps, very healthy. Today, their extreme environments coupled with various outside influences leave them both less happy and less healthy. Although I believe that hunting and gathering is the way of life human beings evolved to live in, I am not suggesting that we somehow become hunters and gatherers or that that's even possible or that that's even the best thing. I am only suggesting that we learn what we can from them because their human ecology was very, very strong. So let's take some examples of our Gross Economic Health. Country A will be "developed" modern country as will Country B. Country C will be an underdeveloped country, and Country D will be a hunting and gathering society from millenia ago. GEH will only make sense relative to other GEHs. I'll be using 1-100 scale for SHR and 1-1,000 for OHR, and Purchasing Power Parity GDP. 40^2 x 400 x 150,000,000 Country A: ---------------------------- = 13.7 7,000,000,000,000 65^2 x 750 x 25,000,000 Country B: --------------------------- = 82.9 1,000,000,000,000 20^2 x 250 x 100,000,000 Country C: ----------------------------- = 28.6 (This seems very inaccurate and will be discussed 350,000,000,000 later. Clearly, Country C should be the lowest) 85^2 x 550 x 25 Country D: ---------------------------------- -------------- = 662.3 150,000 (tough to measure GDP of H&Gs) So, this gives you an idea of a first try at measuring GEH. That's all this is, a first try. Country C came up with a higher GEH and yet people are suffering there. Perhaps, since much of their work is unpaid or underpaid, their GDP is not reflective of the human resources they use. Also, since things are much cheaper there, this may also distort the GDP. My only conclusion is that something is wrong with the GDP. As you can see, my idea is rudimentary. Perhaps the OHR should be squared and/or the SHR should be cubed (this would make Country C our lowest GEH which it should be) or maybe more weight needs to be given to either OHR or SHR. Perhaps the average work week (or total work hours, not average) should be a factor in the denominator (but work is already factored into the GDP). Maybe this number should be subtracted by a factor that measures the decline or increase in the health of the environment and the amount of natural resources. I'm not even sure GEH is the right word (maybe Human Ecological Value or something else). Wiser minds than mine can figure out the details. But I know that the basic formula is how we need to start viewing our economies. Now, think about if I am a business man selling a product with this formula in mind. I'll ask myself, does my product increase my customer's health and/or happiness using minimal resources? If it does, I am contributing to my economy. If not, maybe I need to come up with a better product. What if I am some other worker? I'll ask, how much of a positive effect is my work having on other people's lives? If it's not improving people's lives much, maybe it is time to find another job. My time is valuable and I want to use it wisely. What about if we are deciding to import a product from far away? Is this product improving our lives so much that it is worth spending the resources to import it? Is there no local product that works almost as well? If so, then let's go ahead and import it. You see, this formula can apply to so many aspects of our material world. An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting would be most valuable by this formula: using little resources (a room and a few people's time), they increase the health and happiness of alcoholics dramatically (by helping them not drink). We could use this formula to decide whether it's better to treat drug addicts or imprison them. What kind of economic system uses this measurement (as opposed to growth capitalism)? How do we change our system and to what? Well, I don't want to leave it completely up to wiser minds to decide but, for the most part, I must. I'm still thinking about it but I certainly need help. I will say that I do believe in competition in many aspects of life. I believe in egalitarianism and equal opportunity but I do not believe in complete economic equality. I believe that nobody should have 1,000 times more goods and services than someone else in the same society (or 100 times as much or, perhaps, even 10 times as much). But I do believe that some must have more than others. If I was the best hunter in my hunting and gathering society, I would have more prestige and respect and may get a small amount of more or better material things. You see, competing for leadership, love, respect, prestige, etc. will produce a better society with a higher GEH. Indeed, the reason people compete so hard for money is because our society tells us that the amount of money we make determines our value as a person. If money was only a means of buying material things (and not a means to prestige) and if material things were not seen as being all that great, then we could have some monetary system and still have a society striving for a high GEH. Growth capitalist societies are the first societies in human history in which greed is a virtue. Indeed, in all other societies, greed is a sin. When ever people say, capitalism is the only system that works, I say, "How the hell does capitalism work?" It really, really doesn't. It works to make us slaves. It works to make us shop rather than socialize. It works to make us wasteful. But it doesn't really work for anything positive. And now, more than ever, we need to change it. Why? Because global warming will destroy us in a matter of decades. Growth capitalism is like cancer: it grows until it destroys its host, which is the earth. A society aimed at achieving the highest GEH would be like an organism in a natural ecosystem or like hunters and gathers in harmony with their environment, sustainable, happy, healthy, etc. The urgency is real. I need your help. Tags: Economy, economics, capitalism, growth, global, warming, climate, change, health, happiness (all tags)

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"Coraline" Director Henry Selick on His Latest Film

Editor's Note: Henry Selick is the director of several acclaimed films including The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and most recently, Coraline. (He also created visual effects for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.) Below, he shares a behind-the-scenes look at how the movie Coraline came to be. --Leah Intro So the Coraline DVD is coming out on July 21st, in three different flavors--plain vanilla, with sprinkles, and dipped in blu-ray--and I was invited to do this “guest blog” for Amazon. It’s a one-shot deal, no updates or follow-ups, and my orders are to tell the home-viewing audience something they don’t already know. I figure if I say enough, there’s bound to be something you haven’t already learned on the internet or in the ads or from seeing the film at the movie theaters. Here goes: Firsts Coraline is the first animated feature from LAIKA in Portland, Oregon. It rains a lot in Oregon and it rains a lot in Coraline. This is not a coincidence. Coraline is the first stop-motion feature to be conceived and shot in stereoscopic 3D. Coraline is the first feature film I wrote the screenplay for, adapting Neil Gaiman’s exquisite novel. Coraline is the first all stop-motion feature that I’ve directed since The Nightmare Before Christmas. Time Great stop-motion animation takes an insane amount of time to create--the puppets in Coraline were reposed and photographed between 12 and 24 times per second of film. So in one day, an animator can produce just a few seconds of finished footage; in a week, a team of 17 animators can produce a minute; in a year, an even larger team produces a little over an hour. Nothing came quickly on Coraline. Neil Gaiman first gave me the pages of his yet-to-be published novel back in late 2000. I loved it right away and took it to producer Bill Mechanic, convincing both Neil and Bill to give me a shot at writing the screenplay as well as directing. Coming from the 100-monkeys-at-100-typewriters-for-100-years-to-write-a-Shakespeare-sonnet school of writing, my adaptation took a while to get working. It takes 22 months from conception to birth to produce a new baby elephant. The gestation for the Alpine black salamander can be three years. Coraline beats them both with a total of eight and a half years--two years to write the screenplay, three years to find a studio and a distributor bold enough to make a spooky film for kids, and three and a half years to actually make the movie from green-light to release. As Neil likes to say, it took just long enough to get things right on Coraline. An explanation: If Coraline had been green-lit right away, it would have been a live-action film. Our producer was stuck in a deal where he wasn’t allowed to make animated films. If Coraline had been green-lit right away, I wouldn’t have had time to develop my filmic vision. When I decided to make Coraline’s hair blue, I’d lived with the project long enough to know it was the right color. If Coraline had been green-lit earlier as an animated film, it would have been made in CG, since CG animated features had totally dominated ever since Toy Story. If Coraline had been green-lit earlier as a stop-motion animated feature, we couldn’t have shot it in 3D since the newest digital projection systems had not yet been put into any movie theaters. If Coraline had been green-lit earlier, I wouldn’t have worked on Wes Anderson’s Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou where both my lead creature maker and I were exposed to one of the first 3D printers. We used a later version of this device from a company called Objet, to expand the range of facial expressions in Coraline miles beyond Nightmare, and James, and Corpse Bride. Finally, if Coraline had been green-lit earlier, we wouldn’t have been able to work with LAIKA because that animation studio did not yet exist. Any other studio would have forced the film to be horribly sanitized and compromised. And without LAIKA, we wouldn’t have hooked up with our distributors, Focus Features/Universal. Why I Love Stop-Motion There was a debate about whether or not Coraline should be CG versus stop-motion early on at LAIKA. We even did a side-by-side test, thinking of using CG for the real world, and stop-motion for the fantasy world. The test only proved that we should choose one technique for the whole film and, with the help of Travis Knight, one of our lead animators on Coraline (and now head honcho at LAIKA), we opted for stop-motion. Phewwwww! The animation in Coraline is so smooth at times that some people think it might be CG. But it’s not; it’s all real puppets bathed in real light standing on real, miniature sets; puppets that were manipulated a frame at a time by the best stop-mo animators in the world. Both hand drawn and CG animation involves the creation of key poses for an entire scene and having an assistant animator or computer create in-between images. There is the ability to change sections and re-time the shot and make all sorts of adjustments. But in stop-motion, the final animation is an actual performance by the animator through the puppet, coaxing it to life a frame at a time. There is a voice actor to guide mouth shapes and timing, there are story sketches and pose tests and even rough rehearsals, but when a final shot is launched, it’s just one animator and their puppet crossing a tight rope across a chasm. Mistakes are made and fixes must be improvised as the performance unfolds, and you can sense the kinetic energy of the animator’s hands touching and reshaping the puppet in every frame. It’s slow and hard to do but there is still an amazing kick in the pants when you play your shot back and see the miracle of something willed to life by your own hands. It’s like the dream of all children, that their most beloved toys come to life and speak to them and share their secrets. An Army of Experts So what did it take to bring our main character in Coraline to life? We started with the Coraline in Neil’s novel, a character and tale inspired by his two daughters. In writing the script, I brought my own influences into the mix, including my big sister, Linda, who, when we were kids, led a mission to find a hidden well by an abandoned mansion. She also fell down a dry well in the snow once (Mr. Leg, our next door neighbor, pulled her out). My niece, Stephanie, was an inspiration for how young girls talk and think and move. Dakota Fanning read an early script of mine when she was nine. She began to influence how I thought of Coraline. Later, when we recorded her for the voice, her performance had a huge effect on the timing and expressions of the character as Coraline was animated. I worked with three different character design artists, two sculptors, and a battalion of puppet fabrication and facial animation experts to build the Coraline puppet. Next, our supervising animator and leads helped define her poses and walk and gestures, then they and all our fantastic character animators brought her to life a frame at a time in scenes sketched out by our story department, in worlds designed and built by our art/set department, bathed in real light and photographed by our lighting and camera dept, edited in our editing dept and cleaned up in visual effects. Inspiration, Coincidence, Advice, Secrets The idea for the Other Mother’s spooky doll that resembles the kids it’s spying on came from something I saw in the obituaries. An old lady had died who’d been a child-star in the days of silent movies. There was an old publicity photo of her holding a doll that looked and was dressed exactly like her. One of my favorite films of all time is Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. The scene in Coraline where old Spink and Forcible perform "Sirens of the Sea" is an homage to the scene in Munchausen where a stunning, young Uma Thurman reenacts Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” painting. I read that Terry told Ms. Thurman to look directly into the lens in the scene to unsettle the audience. We had normal pets when I was a kid, like our boxer dogs Mugs and Eric, and we had unusual pets, like seahorses, raccoons, a chipmunk, and a baby alligator. Twice in my life, maybe three times, I’ve gotten big red dragonflies to land on my fingertip. I once stunned a big blue one with my fishing rod when I was a kid and brought the still-living creature home to study. I looked it up in my bug book to find I’d accidentally knocked its head off. Coraline wears a dragonfly barrette and makes origami dragonflies that come to life in the Other World. Another bug that fascinates me is the praying mantis. Rudy Kugler gave me an egg case in 4th grade that hatched out a hundred little mantises I put on my mom’s rose bushes. Near where I used to live in California, there’s a big metal sculpture of a praying mantis (eight feet long) on the roof of a gardening store. I thought it could make a great tractor design and so I put one in “Coraline” for the Other Father to drive. Twice, I’ve found mantises outside the studio, one on my car and another, especially fierce one, by the smoker’s area door. Guess all that cigarette smoke made him angry. We were well into production and I was looking for a visual ticking clock for when Coraline plays the game to find the ghost children and her parents. A gorgeous lunar eclipse occurred one night, and we all went outside the studio to watch it and bingo--there was the answer. The button-moon eclipse turned out to be one of the most memorable images in the film. When I first read Neil’s novel, I really liked the idea of button eyes but wasn’t sure how they’d work visually. So, I got our son George, 3 at the time (five years later, I recorded his voice for the ghost boy), to lie still on his back, close his eyes, and let me place some black buttons on them. He looked wonderfully creepy. After my mother, Melanie, read the Coraline novel, she reminded me that I used to sit in the kitchen for hours when I was 4 or 5 telling her about my other family in Africa, with other parents, where we had adventures with dangerous wildlife. She says I was very convincing. I was living in California when I wrote the first drafts of the screenplay for Coraline. With Neil’s encouragement, I was making some changes to the book, including setting the story in the U.S. I really wanted to keep the downstairs neighbors--actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible--British, so I picked Ashland, Oregon because they have a Shakespeare festival there. Two years later, I was approached by LAIKA Portland to come up and work for them. I agreed, and brought Coraline with me, eventually making the feature for LAIKA in Oregon. Ever since, I’ve felt that whatever state or country I had set Coraline in is where I would have ended up making it. Glad there’s no Shakespeare Festival in the Gobi Desert. I was always pitching my screen story for Coraline to my family over the years, and showing character designs and artwork to them for feedback. I also had a few film business friends read my script for input: Liz Bird told me I’d made Coraline’s real parents much too likeable and there was no reason for her to run away; director David Fincher suggested I arm Coraline with a chain saw to fight the Other Mother (but I resisted the temptation). I’ve always thought of Neil Gaiman as the cat in Coraline. He’s very wise, dryly humorous, and superior in a cat-like way. He has a great voice and I considered early on having him voice the cat. In re-setting the story in the U.S., I felt I needed more ethnic range in the characters leading me to the marvelous Keith David. Sorry, Neil. The two movers at the beginning of the film are based on real brothers Joe and Jerome Ranft, big guys who used to get asked so often to help people move on weekends that they had T-shirts printed up with “Ranft Brothers Movers” on them. Joe was one of the greatest story artists of all time and was head of story on Nightmare Before Christmas and Toy Story and many other features. He was a huge, sweet brilliant storyteller and artist with a demented side that was hilarious. He died in a car accident a few years back. Jerome, his younger brother, is one of the greatest sculptors working in animation today with a decidedly cruder sense of humor than Joe. I love both of these guys a lot. And Now, for the Close Well I’m all blogged out for now. Hope you enjoy the Coraline DVDs and all the extras we’ve crammed onto the 2-disc Blu-Ray Hi-Def and 2-disc Collector’s Edition DVD. There’s even a 3D version of the film included so you can have a stereoscopic experience right there in the privacy of your own home. Over…and…OUT. Learn more about the making of Coraline:

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The Inbound Marketing Race: Where Do I Start?

Where do I start? Many marketers standing at the starting line of inbound marketing ask themselves this question. So did Laura Neufelder in a forum thread on InboundMarketing.com. One of the best pieces of advice Laura received came from Alyce Lindquist, another inbound marketing rookie. "I recommend learning by immersion! Start small, but just start," wrote Alyce. Here are some of the other insights I found in the forum: Focus on Buyer PersonasCreate a mental picture of your target audience and its interests, hobbies and activities. Where does this persona live? What does she or he like to read? Such questions will guide you in creating the right content for your readership. As David Meerman Scott wrote, targeting the right buyer persona is a determining factor in your online marketing initiatives. "Developing a good understanding of the customer will do a lot to help you refine and focus your re-design to appeal to things they might like or would be looking for," commented on the forum thread Steve Early. In the end, identifying buyer personas will define not only your website redesign and content creation, but also your product promotion strategy. Analyze Existing PagesWebsite analytics is one of the first factors marketers should consider when starting their online marketing campaigns. Before you change anything, Simon Mason wrote, check the inbound links on your existing pages. "Otherwise you could lose all the linkjuice you are already getting," he noted. By monitoring the analytics for your existing pages you will know what has worked for you in the past and how to expand it. This is especially helpful in determining a successful keyword strategy. Thus, you can optimize your site for the low-hanging fruit and produce great ROI. Blog Consistently Get your employees passionate about blogging and have them start writing remarkable and regular content. In order to engage with potential leads, industry leaders and other bloggers you need have a blog that encourages conversations. "Without interesting content to link to, you'll just be sharing other people's content on your network which is important for growing it, but it won't get you traffic," wrote Brian Rogers. What will get you traffic, however, is the quality and consistency of your blog posts. Create a regular blogging schedule and make sure authors are following it. This will create a sense of anticipation in your readers and encourage other thought leaders to interact with you. Follow Best PracticesIn order to become a good leader, you have to first be a good follower. There are different industry-specific successes that you can learn from. Adapt best practices to your marketing initiatives but make sure you keep your own voice. Companies such as the Roger Smith Hotel and Whole Foods are great examples, and demonstrate different approach to successful inbound marketing. Observe their strategies and decide if they can work for you, too. Photo Credit: Jon_Marshall Inbound Marketing Kit Learn more about inbound marketing and how to combine blogging, SEO and social media for results. Download our inbound marketing kit. Become a Fan on Facebook Get inside info and advance notice of HubSpot's free marketing webinars, ebooks and more. Click here -->

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(Not) Being an American

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The Legitimacy of Identification

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