Even James Bond would probably have a hard time chasing down The Chameleon. Haggai Carmon’s agent Dan Gordon chases The Chameleon around the world by following money and clues, eventually uncovering a terror plot that is much larger than any single person.
Do you think of international finance or fraud investigation as being interesting? Neither did I. How about a fraud investigator for the US Department of Justice with ties to Mossad? Ok, now we’re getting warmer. Now what happens if we add in a terror plot with sleeper cells in the United States? Now I’m hooked.
For the last 20 years, author Haggai Carmon has held a number of intriguing jobs: international attorney, undercover intelligence operative for a number of U.S. federal agencies, husband, father, and author of the Triple Identity and The Red Syndrome, the first two Dan Gordon novels. Now with The Chameleon Conspiracy, he’s done an amazing job weaving the complex areas of money laundering and fraud investigation with international intrigue to make a compelling, page-turning story.
Agent Dan Gordon, over the course of a number of months, travels from the United States to Australia, Europe, and the Middle East to try and track down a mysterious Albert C. Ward III who bilked money from a number of investors throughout the US. His investigation eventually finds him working with the FBI, CIA and Mossad as they attempt to discover just how deep the conspiracy goes…
I’m a huge spy novel fan, but have to admit I haven’t read any for a while. The last one I read was Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, a James Bond novel set during the 1960s at the height of the Cold War. The Chameleon Conspiracy takes place in the present political climate, using our post 9/11 world to take us to dangerous hubs of terrorism and anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, Iran, and elsewhere.
It’s nearly impossible to review this book without giving too much away. Suffice it to say that if you’re looking for an entertaining, but intricate spy novel, I can’t recommend The Chameleon Conspiracy enough. Now I have to go find the other Dan Gordon books by Carmon to catch up! Find it at your favorite local bookseller or online retailer.
–Fitz
p.s. Click below to check out this and other Haggai Carmon books at Amazon!
To be moved by music is a wondrous feeling. Whether you are moved to feel, dance, sing, or play, there is something about music that reverberates through each of us. And even in a world feeling lost and afraid in the face of global changes, music is one thing that can bring us together.
Add to that the need to keep music alive and you find a group of people doing some remarkable things around the world. Even in the midst of poverty, war, or famine, the Playing for Change Foundation aims to share more than the music of the many musicians they have met during the course of their travels. They are building music schools so that these gifted artists can pass along their skills and passion to the next generation so this precioius resource is not lost.
The Playing for Change: Songs Around the World album is part of a multimedia effort to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. Using a mobile recording studio, a group of people traveled wherever the music took them. This is not a political or spiritual missoin, but an artistic one with the goal of helping people see that music can unite us as a people regardless of ideology, location, or religion.
Traveling to such diverse locations as Santa Monica, California, and Barcelona, Spain; Johannesburg, South Africa, and Kathmandu, Nepal; New Orleans, Louisiana, and Jerusalem, Israel; these people, led by Mark Johnson and a crew devoted to the singular mission of spreading peace through music. They found musicians in the United States, Europe, Africa, India, Asia, and the Middle East and recorded them live using their mobile equipment.
Songs Around the World includes a CD with ten tracks, from the classic “Stand by Me” and Bob Marley standards as “One Love” and “Don’t Worry” and the Hindi song “Chanda Mama”. It also includes a DVD with videos of five of the songs on the CD.
Though the CD is amazing and I don’t want to downplay its significance, it’s the DVD that really touched me.
Several months ago I first saw the video for “Stand by Me” on the web as the project was starting to get the word out. I remember it vividly because it touched an emotional bone in my body that hasn’t been touched for quite a while. Each of the artists who performed on the song added a bit of their indomitable spirits to this song, from Roger Ridley on the street in Santa Monica, CA, to Sinamuva outside in Umlazi, South Africa, to Clarence Bekker in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and everyone in-between.
And if you think about the technological feat it would be to not only record each individual performance, but then turn around and make different parts available for the rest of the artists to listen to while performing, it’s a huge undertaking. Think about the challenges of recording in wide open spaces, in the middle of a crowded area, or inside a building – none of which were ever meant to record audio in, let alone record it cleanly. Then add to that recording video of each performance and then weaving the performances, both video and audio, into a complete whole and balancing tracks.
Each of these videos is a work of art that faithfully weaves the lives, passions, and music of the artists into a tapestry of sight and sound. And though “Stand by Me” is still my favorite, as it was my first taste of this project, “War/No More Trouble” and “Don’t Worry” are my other two favorites out of the five videos available.
These amazing artists around the world were brought together virtually, proving once again that the world is getting smaller every day through the use of technology.
Through music, perhaps our world will one day find peace. Please keep that hope alive. Buy a copy of the Playing for Change: Songs Around the World CD or better yet, donate to the cause at the Playing for Change Foundation website. Join a movement and help this music touch more peoples’ hearts around the world.
–Fitz
p.s. Pick up a copy of the Playing for Change: Songs Around the World CD/DVD at your local music retailer or online:
It’s time for a rant. I apologize in advance if you’re not here for rants, and I understand if you don’t want to read on… But what the <bleep> is going on in the world?
While driving around this weekend, I saw a mother walking a dog with her daughter and cutting across the lawn of the house on the corner to do so. Now, this house has been on the market for 2+ years and was foreclosed on last year sometime, so it’s bank owned, and in poor repair. But it’s the principle of the thing. It’s not their lawn, so why would they tread on it?
But it’s not just that… My job has me annoyed by doing some very dumb things with company policies. My wife’s company is also doing some inane things that will result in eventually closing the actual location she works at because the company is making it impossible to actually work there (money grubbing corporate medicine).
The news ticks me off when I watch newscasters and analysts tearing apart Obama’s first few days in office… The man hasn’t even BEEN in office for 100 days and we’re already tearing him apart for things he has or hasn’t done yet. And then they rip on other members of the administration for <gasp> admitting mistakes or misspeaking from time to time?
Is our country going to hell this fast?
Yes, the economy stinks. Yes, we’re still fighting an insane war in Iraq and not giving enough support to our troops there and in Afghanistan. Yes, the middle east is in turmoil (honestly, when isn’t it?)…
But can’t we still be polite to each other? Treat one another with a certain modicum of respect?
The world would be a better place if we all remember our “Please” and “Thank you’s”, don’t you think? And mind our own actions even if we think nobody’s looking.
Come on people… let’s get our acts back together. Or should we just let common courtesy rest in peace?
<rant off>
This has been an off the cuff rant by yours truly. I apologize if anyone was offended, but these are my thoughts — this is my forum — and thankfully I don’t have to contend with network TV censors.
With a mix of pop, swing, and rockabilly, The Love Willows groove through these tracks and sound like they had a great time doing it. If you liked No Doubt’s early work, Brian Setzer, or even Irving Berlin, Hey! Hey! will be right up your alley!
After hearing Hey! Hey!, I definitely want to see this duo live for a taste of their level of energy in a room with other fans. SingerHope Partlow and guitarist/vocalist Ryan Wilson are unbelievably upbeat. All the tracks were written by Partlow and Wilson, and produced and engineered by Wilson, so this is their sound untouched by outsiders, which is amazing. They’ve even had one song, “Strut My Stuff,” featured on the season finale of The Real World: Hollywood. Compared to some of the other songs I’ve heard featured on television these days, The Love Willows is a breath of fresh air.
According to their MySpace page, Partlow says “It’s all about fetishes, love and hate. It’s a product of what we’ve gone through as a couple, the battles and the glories, everything that’s happened in the past few years.” You can definitely hear the cycle of losing love, finding love, and keeping love mirrored in the progression of the songs on the CD.
“A Day in My Life” starts off the album with a bang. And “Keep Your Head Up” reminds me a bit of the Go Go’s from the 1980s. Struggling to get out of bed and keep chugging along is a problem I think most of us face in our lives.
The frenetic energy of the first two tracks slows down for “Falling Faster,” which tells the story of a girl falling for a guy after swapping phone numbers at a party. “We talked forever, lost track of time / I’ve got to let you know that I am… / Falling faster…”
“Gotta Make You Mine” continues the sentiment, starting to punch the beat back up. Now we’re through the infatuation and want to make the relationship more lasting. Partlow and Wilson sing a great duet for this one.
And then you get to one of my favorites of the album – “Shoes”. I’m not a shoe guy, but this song is infectious and fun. Guitars, bass, drums, and lyrics that express one woman’s true love for shoes!
“I Still Love You” has a sort of Eagles’ feel for me. But amid the high energy tracks of the rest of the album, it seems out of place. That said, by now in the relationship (moving through the CD), we’re going through a bit of a rough patch, but still thinking of one another.
“Wait” tells the story of a girl waiting for her beau. Minutes take forever when you’re waiting and I almost get the feeling that the girl is waiting for a serviceman serving in the armed forces to come home. With our current involvement in the Middle East, this is a highly topical and well done song.
“Mary Jane” is about starting to lose her beau to her best friend. Though I’m not sure if she’s talking to herself or her boyfriend, it’s a call to arms. Time to fight for what is hers! Definitely another fun song with some great lyrics!
But my most favorite song on the album is “Strut My Stuff”. Take No Doubt and cross it with a little Right Said Fred and you get this fun tune. You can almost see the girl strutting on the catwalk of life.
“Try” is a simple duet with an acoustic guitar that expresss the feelings of unrequited love. For me, this is what “I Still Love You” could have been if you stepped away from the overpowering tracks.
“Here to Stay” gets back to the sassy qualities of the record. “I’ve been losing the fight day after day, I’m not backing down, but Baby I’m here to say” – she’s fighting to stay in the relationship.
By the end of the album with “You Say”, the relationship is pretty much done. We’re at the end of the story, ending the theme of finding love, keeping it, and losing it again.
Partlow’s fun and passion is definitely one of the main strengths of the album, but the arrangements are excellent. It’s impossible to tell it was recorded in Wilson’s parents’ house at their attic studio!
Overall, Hey! Hey! is a great album with a ton of fun, infectious energy. It’s impossible to listen without at the very least tapping your toes or even just cutting loose and dancing! Check it out at iTunes (“Falling Faster” and “A Day in My Life” are available) and Amazon (to hopefully be available at the end of January)!
While reading Know It All: The Little Book of Essential Knowledge by by Susan Aldridge, Elizabeth King Humphrey, and Julie Whitake, it quickly became very apparent that I don’t know nearly as much as I thought I did. Even with all the trivia floating around in my brain, this book contains more useful facts in a quick, all in one place, easy to access manner, that I might be able to give up Google for a while. (Maybe not, I love searching on Google!)
Know It All is a perfect introduction to a wide array of subjects for students, parents, teachers, and anyone else seeking a better understanding of nearly 100 diverse topics from science to history, art, and religion.
Each chapter focuses on 10 to 15 entries and ends with a brief quiz so you can test your knowledge to see how much stuck with you after reading. Chapter 10 provides the final exam as a test over all the material from the entire book. Though I don’t take many tests any more, I see this as a great supplement for home schooled kids to provide yet another level of feedback on reading and retention.
The nine chapters focus on the following broad topics:
Understanding the Universe
The Story of the Earth
The Story of Life
Exploring the World
Invention and Discovery
Conflicts of the Modern Age
The Structure of Society
Religion and Thought
Artistic Endeavors
Even if you skip the tests throughout the book, each chapter gives a great overview of each subject. Interested in just a particular topic? Search the detailed four page index at the end of the book.
Is this book a complete reference on everything it covers? Not even close – but that’s not the goal. The book serves as a starting point or introduction to the topics covered. From there you can branch out at your local library, bookstore, or on the Internet to dig deeper.
A few of the surprising facts I learned from the book included:
The bumblebee bat is the world’s smallest animal and it lives in Thailand along the River Kwai. An endangered species, the bat is around 1.2 inches long and weighs only about 0.07 ounces!
Ball bearings were invented by Philip Vaughan in 1794.
And the longest serving capital city in the world is Paris, which has held that distinction since King Clovis selected it as his administrative capital in 486! How’s that for staying power?
Know It All: The Little Book of Essential Knowledge is a great book to have in the house for parents of elementary, middle school, or even high school students to serve as a great starting point for reports and research. But more than that, it’s a great way to learn or relearn some of those facts that may have escaped some of us since we were last in school ourselves!
To give you a better idea of the great content within this book, I’ve included a brief excerpt below with permission.
The Religions of the World
The map of world religions reflects the political and social history of humankind. Eternal quests for meaning, along with conquests, migration, trade, and evangelistic fervor have helped to shape the beliefs of nations and peoples alike.
Every human society has had some form of religious belief or practice. In simplest terms, religion is the belief that the world is inspired and directed by a superhuman power of some type.
Christianity, with some 2.1 billion followers, is the largest of the world’s religions. Though it originally began in the Middle East, Christianity is no longer the dominant faith there. It is, however, the predominant religion in much of Europe and in North and South America.
Like some other religions, Christianity is divided into a number of different churches: In Russia, Orthodox Christianity is the leading religion. In South America, most Christians are Roman Catholics, and the same holds true in southern Europe.
Protestantism is more prevalent in both northern Europe and North America. With more than 1.5 billion adherents, Islam is the world’s second most popular faith. Following the faith are most people of
the Middle East and North Africa, a significant number in South and Southeast Asia, and long-standing minorities in the Balkans and eastern Europe. An influx of immigrants from former European colonies has seen the number of Muslims in Western Europe rise in recent decades.
Hinduism, the world’s third largest religion, is prevalent in India, though large populations of Sikhs and Muslims can also be found on the Indian subcontinent.
Although Buddhism originated in India, the countries with the largest Buddhist populations are now China, Japan, and Southeast Asian states such as Vietnam and Thailand. Buddhism also has many followers in the Western world.
A notable exception to the dominance of Islam throughout the Middle East is Israel. Large populations of Jews are also found across Europe and North America, the latter home to more than 40 percent of the world’s Jews. In fact, New York City has the second largest population of Jews of any city in the world, after Tel Aviv.
The United States is unusual for a developed nation in that a greater than usual proportion of its population holds religious beliefs, most commonly Protestant Christianity.
South America is predominantly a Catholic Christian continent. This is a legacy of the Spanish and Portugese Conquistadors, who brought the continent under colonial rule.
Africans retain many traditional religious practices in some regions. Christianity arrived more than two millennia ago, and Islam is the dominant religion of North Africa and West Africa.
India is a country of many religions. Four in every five Indians are Hindu, but there are also significant numbers of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains.
Australia is primarily Christian; however, its indigenous religions, centered around a belief in the ancient “Dreamtime” of creation, are key to its culture.
The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.
Until recently, I had never really given poverty much thought. But with Blogger Action Day coming up, it’s made me think about it some.
If you go back as far as the silent movies with Charlie Chaplin, one of his best loved characters was the Tramp. He never had enough to eat and lived in hard times. But many people were facing hard times back then, so it was good to see a character you could identify with and see the humor in things.
Poverty in movies today isn’t quite as easy to see. There are a few movies here and there focusing on poverty or hardship growing up, but the blockbuster makes more money, so we see more of those from the big studios. Documentaries don’t make money (unless your name is Spurlock). And so it seems to have fallen out of the public eye.
I know I’m guilty of avoiding documentaries where I am not entertained. I go to the movie to enjoy myself, not to be educated or guilted into feeling bad. It doesn’t take much to make me feel bad at the movies. I’m a sentimental fool. And yet it’s interesting how often you see poverty slipped into even modern blockbusters.
Babylon A.D. starts in a war-torn area of Russia. People are trying to sell guns to get money for food.
Death Race is set in a world where the economy has crashed, everyone is fighting over jobs, and too many people are put in jail because they have to fight to survive.
Where in the World is Osama Bin Ladenfocused on finding Bin Laden, but showed us some of the hardship facing people living in Afghanistan. They had to buy tents on the black market.
Even in the background of The Incredible Hulk, you got to see the poverty and crowded conditions in South America where Bruce Banner was hiding.
So though we’re not seeing “movies about poverty” from Hollywood, the writers and directors are showing us slices of the world that includes poverty. They may not talk about how to solve it. But it’s there.
It’s just sad that these “powerful” people in Hollywood can’t see their way to directing some of their resources to raising awareness of the problem as a way to help solve it.
Can you imagine if Warner Brothers Pictures took part of the $900+ million dollars raised so far by The Dark Knight and [gasp] donated it to a worthy cause?
What would happen if every studio, for one year, decided to donate 10% of the income generated by all their movies? Think about the millions of dollars that would go to worthy charities.
But the odds of that happening are slim. Movie making is a business. Giving away profits is something the little fish do for publicity, not the big fish. But it does pose an interesting what if…
So the next time you watch a movie at the theater, keep an eye out for the signs of poverty. It’s there somewhere.
In his travels around the world (Egypt, Morocco, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and finally Pakistan) he shows us that intelligent, reasonable people exist everywhere in the world, even in those places the media may tell us otherwise. It doesn’t matter if you are Islamic, Christian, Jewish, or any other religious denomination, madness is madness wherever you are.
This type of documentary is a great reminder of the great “War on Terror” debate. How do you declare war on an idea? These radicals, wherever they may live, whatever gods they may pray to, live among good people in their nations and do unspeakable things in the name of their organization’s goals. By saying we have gone to war with these insane people, we have legitimized their role in the world — if I blow stuff up, I get attention, and my drawing attention to myself and my cause, it will bring change. Unfortunately, it’s not always the kind of change we need.
Spurlock asks everyday people in the Middle East simple questions like what they think of the Islamic radicals blowing themselves up in the name of Islam. And the answers are sometimes interesting.
One of the most surprising things to me was the way the Hasidic Jews in Israel treated him at one point during his trip. They were physically pushing him away and out of their neighborhood and being verbally abusive. He was eventually helped out of the situation by Israeli police. But to see such intolerance even there makes me understand that there are radical Jews as well as radical Muslims, and though they may not be as violent, the potential for violence is there. Intolerance is scary stuff.
A telling quote from the movie was from Father Nabil Haddad of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Jordan. I’m paraphrasing a little here, but he said “What our American brothers and friends need is a cultural strategy. Without understanding each other, without mutual respect and understanding, there is no peace.”
I’m not a religious man, but amen to that.
One of my favorite segments was the one of Spurlock touring a Saudi Arabian mall. Nothing like beating you over the head with cultural differences in one of America’s favorite places to go — The Mall!
And his coverage of Afghanistan is heartbreaking. So much damage, so much money spent, but nothing to show for it. It all stays at the top. But beyond that, Spurlock as an embedded journalist was incredible. When the military tells you to get your butt back in the convoy, it’s time to go, no questions asked. They are still a war zone, and it looked the part.
Spurlock has done a good thing by raising the awareness of cultural differences in this “war on terror” so that we can see that it’s not the world that has gone mad, but a few misguided souls causing heartache for us all.
The ultimate question may not be “Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?” but will finding him make a difference or do we have to figure out what’s important to us as a people, as a world?
Watch it and give it some thought. It’s definitely worth the watch. Plus, it has some cool extras, including the history of Afghanistan done in animation.
This gets a solid 4 out of 4 for me. Was it enlightening and educational? Definitely. Was it entertaining? Yes, and even though I prefer flights of fancy to flights of fact, I think it should be watched by any American wanting another perspective on America’s role in the Middle East.
Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden is available for purchase on DVD on August 26, 2008. Check it out!
Do you think of international finance or fraud investigation as being interesting? Neither did I. How about a fraud investigator for the US Department of Justice with ties to Mossad? Ok, now we’re getting warmer. Now what happens if we add in a terror plot with sleeper cells in the United States? Now I’m hooked.
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