Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Back to the Moon


PBS, July 10, 2019

Back to the Moon

"On the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing, NOVA looks ahead to the hoped-for dawn of a new age in lunar exploration. This time, governments and private industry are working together to reach our nearest celestial neighbor. But why go back? The Moon can serve as a platform for basic astronomical research; as an abundant source of rare metals and hydrogen fuel; and ultimately as a stepping stone for human missions to Mars and beyond. Join the next generation of engineers that aim to take us to the Moon, and discover how our legacy of lunar exploration won't be confined to the history books for long."

Sunday, February 03, 2019

George Washington Carver: An Uncommon Life


While George Washington Carver's rise from slavery to scientific accomplishment has inspired millions, time has dulled the luster of his reputation, reducing him to the man who did something with peanuts. This documentary uncovers Carver's complexities and reveals the full impact of his life and work.

Friday, October 12, 2018

Frontline: The Facebook Dilemma


PBS.org

Frontline SEASON 37: EPISODE 4

The promise of Facebook was to create a more open and connected world. But from the company’s failure to protect millions of users’ data, to the proliferation of “fake news” and disinformation, mounting crises have raised the question: Is Facebook more harmful than helpful? On Monday, Oct. 29, and Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, FRONTLINE presents The Facebook Dilemma. This major, two-night event investigates a series of warnings to Facebook as the company grew from Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room to a global empire. With dozens of original interviews and rare footage, The Facebook Dilemma examines the powerful social media platform’s impact on privacy and democracy in the U.S. and around the world.


Saturday, June 02, 2018

American Experience: The Chinese Exclusion Act


American Experience: The Chinese Exclusion Act
2 hours

The 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already here ever to become U.S. citizens.

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Kim Jong-un crosses border into South Korea for historic peace talks


Kim Jong-un has become the first North Korean leader to cross into the South since the end of the Korean War in 1953 for a historic summit with his southern counterpart. South Korean President Moon Jae-in personally greeted Kim with a hand shake at the border truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the countries.

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Arlington Street Church - ASC Tiffany Education Center



The Arlington Street Church is a Unitarian Universalist church across from the Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. Because of its geographic prominence and the notable ministers who have served the congregation, the church is considered to be among the most historically important in American Unitarianism and Unitarian Universalism. Completed in 1861, it was designed by Arthur Gilman and Gridley James Fox Bryant to resemble James Gibbs' St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London.


In the 1960s, the congregation became active in the Civil Rights Movement. James Reeb, a minister active in the congregation, was murdered during a march in Selma, Alabama. Under the ministry of Jack Mendelsohn, the church became a center for protests against the Vietnam War. In the 1980s, the church led AIDS awareness programs and support for the homeless.

The main sanctuary space has 16 large-scale stained-glass windows installed by Tiffany Studios from 1899 to 1929. Originally, all of the sanctuary windows were glazed with clear glass. In 1898, the congregation voted to start installation of memorial stained glass windows created by the studios of Louis C. Tiffany, and commissioned a set of designs for all 20 windows. The last of 16 Tiffany windows was installed in 1929, just before the Great Depression dried up available funds. By the time the economic crisis had eased, Tiffany Studios had been liquidated (in 1937), and new Tiffany windows were unobtainable.


The Tiffany windows were designed by Frederick Wilson (1858–1932), Tiffany's chief designer for ecclesiastical windows. He made extensive use of Tiffany's special glassmaking technologies, including confetti glass, iridescent glass, 3D-textured "drapery glass", pastel colors for "painting in glass", and the trademark opalescent “Favrile” glass. There are as many as six or seven layers of glass in a Tiffany window, producing visual textures that would otherwise have to be painted in. Only some fine details impractical to produce in glass were hand-painted, in permanent enamel.

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Boston Bronze & Stone Speak to Us


Amazon.com

"Boston Bronze & Stone Speak To Us is a unique and beautiful book that combines art, history, and walking guides for the public sculpture found in eighteen Boston locales. Written by Joseph R. Gallo, Jr., who states that he is not an historian but a lover of the City of Boston, the book combines his original photographs and observations with well-referenced sources and maps for a complete experience of enjoying Boston sculpture. With hundreds of full-color photographs in all, each chapter offers a map of that area with stars and page numbers marking each work discussed. The chapters include the Boston Common, the State House inside and out, Beacon Hill and Louisburg Square, the Boston Public Gardens, the Esplanade and Hatch Shell, the Fenway, Chinatown and the Theater District, Copley Square, Park Square, the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, School Street and the Old City hall, King's Chapel, Downtown and the Financial District, Government Center, Quincy Marketplace and Faneuil Hall, the North End, and the Waterfront.

The book also includes and Index of Monuments and an Index of the Sculptors. Boston is home to some of the most extraordinary public art in North America. Sculptors of public art include Daniel Chester French, Katherine Lane Weems, August Saint-Gaudens and George Aarons. This lovingly produced book introduces readers to the artists, the subjects of their work, and the accessibility of exceptional art all within the city of Boston."

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Race and Racism in the Age of Trump


The 2017 Hutchins Forum will be live from Martha's Vineyard at 5pm ET on August 17. The forum is hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and moderated by Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Panelists include Charles Blow, Alan Dershowitz, Asma Khalid, Leah Wright Rigueur, April Ryan and Armstrong Williams.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

History.com: America's War On Drugs


America’s War on Drugs
http://www.history.com/shows/americas-war-on-drugs/about:

“America’s War on Drugs” is an immersive trip through the last five decades, uncovering how the CIA, obsessed with keeping America safe in the fight against communism, allied itself with the mafia and foreign drug traffickers. In exchange for support against foreign enemies, the groups were allowed to grow their drug trade in the United States. The series explores the unintended consequences of when gangsters, war lords, spies, outlaw entrepreneurs, street gangs and politicians vie for power and control of the global black market for narcotics – all told through the firsthand accounts of former CIA and DEA officers, major drug traffickers, gang members, noted experts and insiders.

Episode 1: Acid, Spies & Secret Experiments
Episode 2: Cocaine, Cartels, & Crack Downs
Episode 3: Gangs Prisons, and Meth Queens
Episode 4: Heroin, Terrorists, and Kings of Pain

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

My Family's Slave - The Atlantic - Alex Tizon






In 'Lola's Story,' A Journalist Reveals A Family Secret
NPR's Morning Edition
May 16, 2017

Thursday, April 27, 2017

American Gods


Based on the novel by English author Neil Gaiman, a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of mythology, all centering on the mysterious and taciturn Shadow. Several of the themes touched upon in the book were previously glimpsed in The Sandman comic book series.

The central premise of the novel is that gods and mythological creatures exist because people believe in them (a type of thoughtform). Immigrants to the United States brought with them spirits and gods. The power of these mythological beings has diminished as people's beliefs waned. New gods have arisen, reflecting America's obsessions with media, celebrity, technology, and drugs, among other things.





Tuesday, April 11, 2017

American Experience: The Great War


6 Hours:

Part 1: American neutrality erodes as Wilson declares “the world must be made safe for democracy.”
Part 2: As patriotism sweeps the nation, the country assembles its first mass conscripted army.
Part 3: The climactic struggle and ensuing peace that forever changed a president and a nation.

Friday, April 07, 2017

American Playboy


The Amazon Original Series draws from unprecedented access to more than 17,000 hours of footage and over 2,600 scrapbooks from Hefner's personal archives, chronicling the life of an American icon and the history of the brand he created.

Sunday, April 02, 2017

The People versus O.J. Simpson / O.J: Made in America

Two series on O.J. Simpson within the last year.
Both are good, award winners.
Underscores what an incredibly complicated and tragic figure.

Monday, March 27, 2017

Fareed Zakaria: Relationship between Trump and Putin


Fareed Zakaria searches to find the true nature of the relationship between President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and the implications of their relationship for the world. 

Monday, February 27, 2017

Africa's Great Civilizations


In his new six-hour series, Africa's Great Civilizations, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes a new look at the history of Africa, from the birth of humankind to the dawn of the 20th century. This is a breathtaking and personal journey through two hundred thousand years of history, from the origins, on the African continent, of art, writing and civilization itself, through the millennia in which Africa and Africans shaped not only their own rich civilizations, but also the wider world.





Thursday, February 09, 2017

Independent Lens: Birth of a Movement



Birth of a Movement Full Film | Video | Independent Lens | PBS:

The story of William Monroe Trotter, the nearly forgotten editor of a Boston black newspaper who helped launch a nationwide movement in 1915 to ban Hollywood’s first blockbuster movie, the later controversial The Birth of a Nation.