Pentagon spy effort serves a purpose, by Mark Bowden

We are no longer in the Cold War, when spying meant monitoring the activities of an empire such as the Soviet Union. Infiltrating and targeting terror cells is work that requires boots on the ground - as with the unit in Jolo - who have relationships with the local military and police, who know the language, the culture, and the politics in obscure theaters of operation, and who are capable not only of gathering intel but acting upon it fast.

Some of the things Rumsfeld did were right.

He was also on the radio recently, talking about Iran.

Move over, James Bond

The problem is that audiences tend to prefer spy movies of the Mission: Impossible variety. Despite winning critical plaudits, The Good Shepherd has only made around $60m (£30m) in the US - a modest return for a big-budget, 167-minute all-star movie. Other downbeat spy yarns have also struggled. Michael Apted's Enigma (2002), about the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, failed to capture the public imagination. Cinema goers don't always warm to tales about desk-bound cryptographers or tormented double agents.

There is a revealing anecdote in Leo Marks's memoir, Between Silk and Cyanide, chronicling his experiences as a codemaker for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. As far as Marks was concerned, he was doing work of the utmost national importance. But that wasn't how his neighbours saw it. They posted him a letter containing a white feather and the message, "shirker". To them, the idea that he could be contributing to the war effort by sitting in an office solving puzzles didn't stack up.

Manuel Castells, on blogs

Most importantly, the Internet increases the belief that you have power. And the belief that you have power, in Castells' formulation, constitutes real power.

Did you know that Larry Lessig gave the key note speech at the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha? (See also here)

An American Family

Ten years ago, HBO bought a pilot script for a show that no one—not creator David Chase, lead actor James Gandolfini, or any of the original cast—thought would ever get made. Today, The Sopranos is perhaps the greatest pop-culture masterpiece of... [ Read More (0.7k in body) ]