A former student, now an adult, stopped by and gave me a copy of of On Creativity by the late and controversial quantum physicist David Bohm. Thumbing through quickly, On Creativity had an air of consilience to it that I think I will find enjoyable, though I am not sure I will agree with Bohm’s conceptions of thought and mind. At least, the book should challenge some of my preconceived opinions.
Thus, making it useful.
Via Shlok, cutting edge thinker, strategist and amigo John Robb has launched a new site, add it to your daily “must read” list or blogroll:
What Resilient Communities .com does
How do you take control of your life in an increasingly unstable world?
- Decide. Right now, your success is akin a cork on an increasingly turbulent ocean. Change that. Make the decision to take control of your future. This decision requires a change in mindset and perspective.
- Act. Take steps to actively reduce your dependencies and gain degrees of freedom. Learn how to produce what you need at a level that meets or exceeds what you currently buy. Learn how to make an income either locally or online in a way that has meaning and substance.
- Align. Network with other people that want control and meaning in their lives too. Learn how to build or join online networks with the people who have the expertise to help you become resilient and/or share similar goals. Learn how to raise capital from that community to fund projects — or — how to build the online network required to design and build useful new products or services.
- Community. Build, join, or move to a local community that’s dedicated to building a resilient future. A community that isn’t dependent on a global system run amok or vulnerable to disruptions. A community that you can trust. A community that rewards your contribution with reciprocal loyalty. Learn how to form a community that’s worth living in and how to propel that community into a stable, bountiful future.
The goal of this site is to help you with every step along that path.
All In: The Education of General David Petraeus by Paula Broadwell, with Vernon Loeb
The official biography of CIA Director General David Petraeus, by Harvard researcher Paula Broadwell, has long been anticipated in the .mil/COIN/NatSec/Foreign Policy communities and blogosphere. I can hear pencils scrawling furiously away in the margins even as I type this post. 🙂
Broadwell, herself a reserve Army officer, West Pointer, Harvard grad, doctoral student at King’s College War Studies Department , and by all accounts, an impressive up and coming individual, had very extensive access to her subject – allegedly, far more than the official Army historian assigned to General Petraeus’ last command. Given the subject is General Petraeus, the precarious state of American policy in Afghanistan and 2012 as a circus of political excess, All In will be one of the few “must read” books this year.
And, I must commend Miss Mrs. Broadwell highly here, she will be donating 20 % of her net proceeds to help wounded veterans.
That said, in terms of reaction to this book, there will be blood.
Reviews of All In will afford the opportunity to tear the scabs off of the well-worn COINdinista/COINtra debate and rub salt in the exposed wounds – I for one am especially looking forward to reading future back to back reviews by Carl Prine and Thomas Ricks and Abu Muqawama vs. Colonel Gian Gentile. In the mainstream press, the opportunity for newspaper columnists to get in gratuitous potshots against figures like Presidents Bush and Obama, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Stan McChrystal and numerous others or grind partisan axes will be too tempting to resist, regardless of how relevant these remarks are to Broadwell’s biography of Petraeus. The looming specter of draconian cuts to defense budgets will also add to the rancor of the discussion of the book within the defense community.
Somewhere in that debate will be the book Broadwell actually wrote and within the book, perhaps, we will come to see David Petraeus. Or not.
Get your popcorn ready!
Right now, I am deep into reading the superb George Kennan biography by eminent diplomatic historian John Lewis Gaddis but All In is definitely next on my list.
And it will be reviewed.
[ by Charles Cameron ]
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Zenpundit is a blog dedicated to exploring the intersections of foreign policy, history, military theory, national security,strategic thinking, futurism, cognition and a number of other esoteric pursuits.
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