Everything Nonfiction

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Review of A Thousand Cuts

Review of A Thousand Cuts written and directed by Ramona S Diaz Rating *****

What if Donald Trump had won a second term? What if, feeling emboldened and surrounded by loyalists, he started to round up his opponents and have them sent to prison on trumped-up charges? That is what happens with authoritarian leaders who have no checks and balances. Putin has his political opponents assassinated or jailed.

Trump’s ascension coincided with a wave of authoritarian leaders: Putin, Kim Jong-un, Jair Bolsonaro, Bashar al-Assad, Nicolas Maduro, and Tayyip Erdogan to name a few. But none of those narcissistic leaders compare to President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. Here is a man whose solution to the drug problem is to murder anyone tied to the drug trade, including users. More than 27,000 Philippians have been murdered. No trial. No arrest. No opportunity to defend oneself.

Duterte is Trump times ten. He is a misogynistic, narcissistic psychopath. Yet, he remains popular in the Philippines. That is not to say that he does not have critics. The problem is that those who criticize him face repercussions ranging from imprisonment to assassination.

One such critic is journalist Maria Ressa. Maria is the head of a news site critical of Duterte and his policies of fear. She has published stories about the killings and the spread of disinformation on social media. As a result of her efforts, she has faced death threats via social media and condemnation by Duterte.

The documentary follows Maria as she travels around the world, warning about the rise of authoritarian leaders and the spread of misinformation through social media. A parallel story covers the election of Senate candidates, including the political rise of Duterte’s daughter.

The film shows the dire effects that fear and misinformation have on the daily lives of Filipinos. The streets at night are mostly vacant. That’s when most of the murders take place.

The filmmakers finished the film before the pandemic. The Philippines currently have the second-highest number of Covid cases in the region.

The film ends with Maria being tried and convicted on charges of an attempted coup. She is currently serving a six-year prison sentence.

Donald Trump’s defeat may give hope to people under authoritarian leadership. We have shown that democracy can work. Duterte will eventually be held accountable for his disastrous policies. He will be tried and convicted for human rights violations. Perhaps his successor will be Maria Ressa.

You can watch the entire film, if not taken down by Youtube, below.

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Review of The Winter Fortress

Review of The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb by Neal Bascomb rating ****

From the subtitle, you might assume that this book tells the story of a single sabotage mission. That is not the case. There are three separate missions made by different saboteurs.

Two of the planned attacks are successful. One goes terribly wrong. As compelling as each planned attack is, the book suffers from too many characters with hard to pronounce names and a lack of images that would have helped enormously.

I listened to most of the book, reading on my Kindle between what I played on Audible. The Winter Fortress in the title refers to a manufacturing plant in Norway that produced heavy water. The author explains in detail what heavy water is, the production process, and how the Germans were using it in their attempts at building an atomic bomb. If I read that section ten times, I probably still couldn’t fully understand it.

While the sabotage attempts are engaging, much of the book dwells on different characters struggling to survive in Norway’s mountains awaiting orders. Men who have family a day hike away instead decide to rough it in the mountains. Supply drops go unrecovered. There is poor planning in almost every phase of the initial action.

The first attempt at sabotage involved men crammed into large gliders who were supposed to land in a hastily prepared landing spot. The mission was doomed from the start. Pilots towing the gliders navigated by beacon, which only got them into the general vicinity of the landing strip. It was at night. It was mountainous terrain. The men waiting for them on the ground had only crude signal lights that went unseen. It ended in tragedy for all involved.

This book is a perfect example of how images would have made the story easier to follow and appreciate. No matter how well the author tried to describe the fortress, a character, a ferry, a plane, or a ship, it didn’t match a simple picture’s power.

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The speechwriter who saved Donald Trump

I’m no fan of Donald Trump. He absolutely is culpable for the riot on the capitol building. But he will not be convicted or impeached by the Senate thanks to one word inserted into his speech the day of the riot.

Anytime you hear President Trump say something that sounds cogent and rational, it’s not him. It’s a speechwriter. That last video he put out where he said he was going to be focused on a peaceful transfer of power, that wasn’t coming from him. As one person described it, that was Trump making a hostage video. Trump can’t make an intelligible speech. Even at his rallies, which consists of him airing his many grievances, even those speeches are delivered mostly by him reading from a teleprompter. Don’t believe me? Just watch him. He turns from side to side, his gaze never leaving the teleprompters. That’s why all of his speeches sound like a fifth-grader forced to speak in front of the class.

In order for Trump to be criminally liable for what took place at the capitol, you have to show that he knew that a riot would ensue. For all the nonsense about how the election was stolen from him, there was nothing in his speech that even hinted at an insurrection. In fact, his speech contained one word that will ultimately save him. At one point in his speech, he said the following (I’m paraphrasing): “We’re going to march down Pennsylvania Avenue peacefully and have our voices heard.”

That’s it, folks. You can’t say that he incited a riot when you have him on tape encouraging his supporters to act peacefully. Now the same can’t be said about Trump Jr. and Rudy Giuliani. Their speeches were done without a teleprompter.

So here is an example where Trump’s reliance on the teleprompter will ultimately save him. Congress may vote to impeach him. He still may be removed by the 25th amendment. But he will not be convicted in any Senate hearing.

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How to fix climate change and eat healthier all at the same time

Review of Kiss the Ground
Rating *****

What if you could make a serious dent in reversing climate change while at the same time improve the quality of the food we eat? That’s the promise that is explored in the revealing Netflix documentary narrated by Woody Harrelson.

The solution to reducing the ill-effects of climate change lies in not just reducing the amount of carbon we put into the atmosphere but also in improving the quality of our soil. Turns out that quality soil, soil that contains cover vegetation and microbes, captures huge amounts of carbon. The process is known as regenerative agriculture.

History has plenty of examples of societies that have abused their natural resources and faltered as a result. Our own country experienced the devastating consequences of poor land management during the dust bowl. What we have now is not much better. The soil that produces our food is devoid of natural minerals and microbes. Instead, farmers are forced to use ever more pesticides and weed killers to grow anything. The result is dry, arid land; food that is saturated with chemicals; and livestock that is fed unnatural, poor quality feed.

The filmmakers give example after example of the right way to grow food. They give examples of bare landmasses that were transformed into vibrant greenspaces after just a few short years. And they highlight farmers who use the principles of regenerative agriculture to not only improve the soil but their profits as well.

If we continue along the current path of growing the same three subsidized crops of corn, soy, and hay, and continue the inhumane, unhealthy practice of industrialized meat production, we are doomed. We will grow sicker as a society. The planet will continue to warm, costing money and lives in countless ways.

This film shows us what we need to do. We can’t let the big ag companies determine our future. We have to put smart people in charge. We have to change the way we do things. We have to let science, not politics guide us. Watch this film.


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The seven elements of a scene masterclass

A year or two before I started working on my first book project, I decided to read a few books on the craft of writing. One of the books I picked up described the seven elements of a scene. According to the author, every scene has seven elements or stages: goal, conflict, disaster, reaction, reflection, decision, action.

That writing tip has stayed with me. I started noticing the seven elements in books and film. If you watch sports, you’ll see them there as well. But no one writes in such a mechanical way. A frown on an actor’s face is all you might need for a reaction. A character who storms out of a room might be a way of showing a reaction, reflection, decision, and action.

I’m not a big TV fan, but I got hooked on streaming TV from watching the series Breaking Bad. I didn’t realize it at the time, but if you go back and analyze each episode, you will find those seven elements over and over.

I recently came across another series, which, interestingly enough, also stars Bryan Cranston, that uses these seven elements in scene after scene. The series, called Your Honor, is available on Showtime on demand. I’ve only seen three of the ten episodes. If you want to learn how to build a story around conflict and disaster, watch these first three episodes.

The series is expertly written and acted. There is a disaster around every corner. I’ve been trying to predict what was going to happen based on the seven elements. For example, there is a scene early on where Bryan Cranston’s character decides that the best course of action is to go directly to the police and confess to what happened. I was telling my wife before he walked through the doors to the police station, “he’s not going to do it. I guarantee it.” I’ll admit that I didn’t see the disaster that awaited him inside the station.

There was another scene that blew me away. It dealt with the car that was involved in the hit and run accident at the center of this story. Despite Bryan Cranston’s best efforts to get rid of the car, it ends up in police custody (one disaster after another; one lie after another). A detective asks him about the damage to the front end of the car. He’s quick on his feet and comes up with a convincing lie. You just know they’re going to tie the car to the hit and run. But how? I could not predict what took place. I’m not even going to give this one away, but trust me it was ingenious.

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Best of Everything Nonfiction 2020

Being stuck inside for nearly a year has its downside. I miss going to the theatre. I miss live events. At the same time, it was a banner year for reading and streaming content. Below are some of the best books, films, documentaries, docuseries, and docudramas reviewed on EverythingNonfiction this past year.

Books

Evil at Lake Seminole – True crime

Bloodlines – Horse racing, money laundering, and drug cartels

American Prison – A detailed examination of the for profit prison system

The Chain – The industrialization of our food supply with a focus on pork

Mayflower – The story of the Mayflower and the pilgrims who first settled in America

Film

Hillbilly Elegy – An intimate look at the struggles of an Appalachian family

Bad Education – A nuanced look at how greed led well-intentioned people to make bad choices

Ford vs. Ferrari – The story of how Ford, known for its box-like family cars, decided to change its image by building a racecar to compete in the 24 hour Le Mans

Documentaries & Docuseries

Room 2806 – An uneducated immigrant brings down one of the most powerful men in the world.

Murder on Middle Beach – A son tries to solve his mother’s murder

Expedition Happiness – Exploring the world in a refurbished school bus

Trial 4 – A wrongful conviction story

The Last Dance – Michael Jordan’s run with the Chicago Bulls

The Way I See it – President Obama as seen by the Whitehouse official photographer

Immigration Nation – All sides of the immigration issue

I’ll be Gone in the Dark – How to make a serial killer

Outcry – The story of what happens when a teenager is falsely accused of the sexual abuse of a child

The Innocent Files – Stories of wrongful convictions

How to Fix a Drug Scandal – Questionable crime lab work, prosecutorial misconduct, sentencing disparity, and judicial incompetence.

Tiger King – The self-absorbed owner of an Exotic Animal Park and his grandiose dreams

The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez – An investigation into the suspicious circumstances of the death of an eight-year-old boy

The Pharmacist – The search for a murderer and the beginnings of the opioid epidemic

Docudrama and miniseries

Selena – Selena’s rise to fame

The Trial of the Chicago 7 – Organizers of a Vietnam war protest are put on trial