Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004) works better as a book than as a movie (2009). In the film version, the protagonist is based out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, for some reason, and there is a narrative arc lacking in the original. Still, the best thing about the DVD release is an extra called "Goats Declassified: The Real Men of the First Earth Battalion." This includes interviews with some of the former military officers involved with New Age techniques and experiments, things like staring a goat to death, cloud bursting and remote viewing. (The Men Who Stare at Goats: stars George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey; directed by Grant Heslov, working off a screenplay adaptation by Peter Straughan. This is not The Big Lebowski, Part II.)
As far as cloud bursting goes, I tried it in the early 1980s during a long trans-America journey through "Big Sky Country." There was certainly an illusion of mind over vapors. Was I dispersing the cloud, or merely observing the cloud disperse "on its own" (does anything "control" the cloud?) Consider the observer effect, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the observer-expectancy effect and cultural preconceptions as to what is possible or impossible.
More to say on the "New Mental Battlefield" at some point, but I'll leave it at this: we now live in a world where unmanned drones fly around and launch Hellfire Missiles at remote targets. Until recently, American forces harassed or tortured prisoners playing loud obnoxious music, making people do crazy things like form naked human pyramids. Why would anyone think these are good ideas?
Today's Rune: Joy.
4 comments:
Torture has never been about getting information; it's usually rooted in the pathologies of the torturer.
I've heard, now, bad reviews from everybody who saw the movie. I'll add the book to my list of "To Read When I'm Done With Nursing School."
Goats (and pigs) were also used to test the effects of atomic bombing: see from the 1946 Bikini "experiments" --
http://www.archive.org/details/Operatio1946
Cloud bursting? Must've been an acid trip. As for Clooney: he should stick to television.
"Why would anyone think these are good ideas?"
My guess is that the people who thought it was a good idea have a vastly overinflated opinion of their own thoughts and the people ordered to carry it out are taught not to think at all, just to do.
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