Conscious Planet: Our New Monthly Media Guide

Welcome back! The world seems to be changing faster than can be absorbed. On one day, according to some, the war in Iraq would be a cakewalk; the next day, it looked like it was stalling and the fighting would last months rather than weeks. Just one week later it was over. And now the U.S. and the allied forces are trying to win the peace. This reminds me of an ancient Chinese saying: don?t be fooled by first appearances. With that in mind, one should look very carefully at the current events in the Middle East before drawing any hasty conclusions.

In the meantime a health crisis is hitting the world: the SARS epidemic. Whatever the many differences are between war and disease, there is one similarity. Due to technology and globalization, their consequences can now affect many more people around the world. Thanks to the media, we can follow in real time the latest developments in a war thousands of miles away. This war not only influenced the stability of a region, but also the price of oil, which, in turn, has the power to determine global economic prosperity. Thanks to the airline industry, a disease which years ago might have been confined to the inner regions of China is now prevalent in other Asian countries and even in Toronto.

This should convince those who might have some lingering doubts about the power of globalization that members of the world community are linked. What happens in Asia does in fact influence what happens in Europe; what happens in Africa influences what happens in the U.S. And, obviously, what happens in Washington, D.C., influences what happens in Baghdad. Only by being aware of these sometimes invisible connections and by being open-minded -- whether in human relations, health, trade, or security -- will the world community be able to achieve sustainable results.

Speaking of being open minded, several recent Paraview titles approach many different issues in an open-minded manner: in our latest title, Strange Secrets, authors Nick Redfern and Andy Roberts are uncovering government secrets similar to the fiction of the X-Files; author Loren Coleman is looking for the true story of apes in America in his book Bigfoot!; Marie Jones is helping those of us who are seeking our Higher Power in Looking for God in All the Wrong Places; and Eileen Flynn is finding solutions to the ongoing crisis in the Catholic Church in Catholics at a Crossroads.

I encourage you to read one or more of those titles and compare your views to the views of these authors. I believe that an open discussion and an open mind are the key to a free, prosperous, and more peaceful world.

See you next month.

Alexander M. Dake
CEO, Paraview.com

Transforming the World -- One Book at a Time

The X-Files (SCI FI)
Weekdays, 4 p.m. ET/PT
What?s fact and what?s fiction? Our Paraview Pocket Books release Strange Secrets claims to be the real X-Files. Compare it to this great and creepy series now airing on the SCI FI Channel.

Doc Day (Sundance)
Mondays
The Sundance Channel presents documentaries that you aren?t always able to catch in theaters and airs them all day every Monday. Recent docs include the controversial The Trials of Henry Kissinger and Chile, Obstinate Memory. The site includes lots of topical links, so check that out, too.

Warrior Challenge (PBS)
Tuesdays, May 6-27
This four-part reality series is part educational TV, part guilty pleasure. Follow contemporary tough guys into the world of long-ago warriors such as gladiators, Vikings, and medieval knights. Can they survive training, combat, and -- probably worst of all -- eating gruel?

New at Paraview in May