This is my park as i step out of my front door, i'm there, smack bang in the middle of it

I've spent the last two days lazing around in the sun, having ice cream dropped on me by toddlers and reading ... yup, turning over real paper pages

It's been a long time since i've allowed my-self to delve into a well written, unsettling, 'mad' yet funny book about 'psychological warfare' ...*read it, read it, read it : you won't be decieved*

A lot of (the better) companies that i've worked with over the years have always asked their employees to throw the rule book out of the window, forget everything that they've been taught, to think 'out of the box', so to say, and design their new, ideal, company on a blank page

All cool and dandy ... very 1990's and Tom Peters business guru type stuff.. if you latch onto it all as a middle manger you've got it made and the world is your lobster

But ...

What happens when the 'company' concerned doesn't have margins, cutbacks and pnl constraints to worry about ?

What happens if the 'company' is actually the u.s gouvernment ?

What happens when Vietnam vets with ptsd are employed as agents for change ?

Where the mentors have psychopathic tendancies ?

Where the federal agencies adopt ideas, but do things 'back to front ?

Abu Grahib is the visible manifestation, but it is neither the start nor the end of things

Extract from The men who stare at goats

Glenn leant forward in his chair. "you've gone from the front door to the back door. How many chairs are ther in my house ?"

There was silence.

"you probably can't tell me how many chairs are in my house," said Glenn

I looked around.

"A super soldier wouldn't need to look," he said. "He would just know"

"A super soldier ?" I asked

"A super soldier," said Glenn. " A Jedi Warrior. He would know where all the lights are. He would know where all the power outlets are. Most people are poor observers. They haven't got a clue about what's really happning around them."

"What's a Jedi Warrior ?" i asked.

"You're looking at one," said Glenn

In the mid-1980's, he told me, Special Forces undertook a secret initiative, codenamed Project Jedi to create super soldiers - soldiers with superpowers. One such power was the ability to walk into a room and instantly be aware of every detail; that was level one.

"what was the level above that ?" I asked.

"Level two," he said. "Intuition. Is there some way we can develop you so that you make correct decisions ? Somebody runs up to you and says, "there's a fork in the road. Do we turn left or right?" And you go' - Glen snapped his fingers - ' "we go right" '

"what was thet level above that ?" I asked

"Invisibilty", said Glenn

"Actual invisibility ? " I asked

" At first," said Glenn. "But after a while we adapted it to just finding a way of not being seen"

"In what way ?" I asked

"By understanding the linkage between observation and reality, you learn to dance with invisibilty," said Glenn. "If you're not observed, you are invisible. You only exist if someone sees you"

"So, like camouflage? " I asked.

"No," sighed Glenn

"How good are you at invisibility ?" I asked

"Well," said Glenn, "I've got red hair and blue eyes, so people tend to remember me. But i get by. I'm alive today."

"What was the level above invisibility ?" I asked

"Uh", said Glenn. He paused for a few moments. Then he said, "We had a master sergeant who could stop the heart of a goat."

There was silence. Glenn raised an eyebrow.

"Just by..." I said

"just by wanting the goat's heart to stop," said Glenn