I'll start with films, George Clooney is not just a pretty face.
Syriana by the writer of the movie "Traffic" (and by the production company clooney and friends have built) is made to give you nightmares. Not for the faint of heart (it has some graphic brutality) but gripping, enlightening, and chilling. Very very good.
Good night and good luck (another one of clooney's films) is quite good as well. A black and white historical recreation of the McCarthy era in America and Edward R. Murrow's role in bringing intellect and patriotism together into reasoned discourse. Almost hard to follow sometimes just because the newsmen were actually erudite on TV. I think the closest we have today to someone of Murrow's ilk is John Stewart.
I also just recently saw a show on pbs that looks to have been produced by a company set up by Murrow's sidekick, Fred Friendly (clooney in the movie). The show was called "In the Balance," it was the best example I've seen of a true "gaming" of a serious issue by the participants that would actually have to cope with disruptions in public life. I wish public servants were required to watch this, and take part in this sort of simulation as a pre-requisite for being elected. Fred Friendly noted that these seminars were... "not to make up anybody's mind, but to open minds and to make the agony of decision making so intense that you can escape only by thinking."
While I'm on a clooney-fest, rent "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" it's about the host of The Gong Show, who of course was also an assassin for the CIA. Sam Rockwell is perfect and the film never quite tells you if this is a true story or not, but its a fun flashback for those of us who stayed home sick and watched Gene Gene the Dancing Machine do his stuff.
Ok, Sam Rockwell reminds me of "Three Kings," another "worth renting" movie (this one about the first Gulf War). Marky Mark can act and this one is a gritty behind the scenes take on what the soldiers really did over there (of course it seems tame and childlike when compared to Syriana).
Ok, so I'll end with a book about the disputed area between Pakistan and India (called Kashmir) to round out my tour of world events in media. "Shalimar the Clown" by Salman Rushdie is a rich immersion into the dreamland that was the inspiration for the stories about shangri-la, heaven on earth, and is now a charred blast furnace of nationalism, extremism, and futilism (at least it all seems futile and bleak). This is the first book I've read by the author and it rings with flowery language and vivid details. It is essentially the story of a small village of people who lived for many years in peace (and the village was made up of christians, jews, muslims, and hindus), plying their trade as entertainers and were then caught up in the nationalistic disputes of their neighbors (who of course each claimed Kashmir as its own, killing it to save it apparently) and their neighbor's friends (America, Europe, etc.). A nice companion piece to "The Wind Runner," if you're finally waking to the impact the middle east has (and will have) on our world.
