Bookmarked SOUTHERN REGIONAL COUNCIL "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" program files and sound recordings, 1956-1998 (bulk 1983-1998) (findingaids.library.emory.edu)
Program files and sound recordings from the award winning radio documentary, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: An Audio History of the Civil Rights Movement in Five Southern Communities and the Music of Those Times," produced by the Southern Regional Council (SRC). The collections consists of interview transcripts, audiovisual materials, scripts, program research files, and production files.
Watched Born Again (2007) from Netflix

Born and raised in an Evangelical Christian family, director Markie Hancock struggled through her childhood to find the line between her family and her religion, between her duties to God and Jesus and her responsibilities to her parents and herself. Fervent in her beliefs, she thought she would pursue a religious calling until the true nature of her sexuality and her need to express her own doubts brought her into a final confrontation with her upbringing. This is the story of that confrontation and what was won and what was lost.

movie poster for Born Again featuring a black and white photo of a prototypical white family from the 60's in front of a christmas tree

I’m glad this exists, but would not watch it again.

It is interesting to note that this was made in 2007 and presaged the political turmoil of the 2016 election. It also goes a long way to explore some of the political divisions within the country during the decade or more after it was made.

Rating: ★★½

📺 The Bit Player (Trailer) | IEEE Information Theory Society

Watched The Bit Player (Trailer) from IEEE Information Theory Society

The Bit Player Trailer from IEEE Information Theory Society on Vimeo.

In a blockbuster paper in 1948, Claude Shannon introduced the notion of a "bit" and laid the foundation for the information age. His ideas ripple through nearly every aspect of modern life, influencing such diverse fields as communication, computing, cryptography, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, cosmology, linguistics, and genetics. But when interviewed in the 1980s, Shannon was more interested in showing off the gadgets he’d constructed — juggling robots, a Rubik’s Cube solving machine, a wearable computer to win at roulette, a unicycle without pedals, a flame-throwing trumpet — than rehashing the past. Mixing contemporary interviews, archival film, animation and dialogue drawn from interviews conducted with Shannon himself, The Bit Player tells the story of an overlooked genius who revolutionized the world, but never lost his childlike curiosity.

📺 Can We All Get Along? | A Documentary about The Segregation of John Muir H.S.

Watched Can We All Get Along?: The Segregation of John Muir High School from Can We All Get Along?

A 50 minute documentary following filmmaker & Class of ’82 John Muir High Alumnus, Pablo Miralles (“Gringos at the Gate“) as he questions what has happened to his once diverse alma mater and whether or not to send his own son to the school today. In the film, Miralles explores the complex history of Pasadena’s schools and the 1970 court order that created the first Federal desegregation plan outside of the south. Weaving stories from alumni, administrators, and civic leaders of John Muir High School’s multi-cultural community, Miralles illustrates the challenges and failures of California, and the United States, to promote well-funded and diverse public education.

📺 The Facebook Dilemma (Part 1) | Frontline

Watched The Facebook Dilemma from FRONTLINE

A major, two-night investigation of the powerful social media platform’s impact on privacy and democracy in the U.S. and around the world.

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.

Some great journalism, but somehow I don’t think it’s as frightening as it should be.

It did spark some great debate within the house though.

📺 One of Us (2017) | Netflix

Watched One of Us (2017) from Netflix
Directed by Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady. With Etty, Chani Getter, Ari Hershkowitz, Luzer Twersky. Penetrating the insular world of New York's Hasidic community, focusing on three individuals driven to break away despite threats of retaliation.
A painful documentary to watch. It’s fine for communities like this to exist and even flourish, but they should not be so insular so as to force people to live within them and deal with tremendous abuse and lack of choice.

🎞️ RBG (2018)

Watched RBG (2018) from CNN Films, Storyville Films
Directed by Julie Cohen, Betsy West. With Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Gloria Steinem, Nina Totenberg. A look at the life and work of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
At the age of 84, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has developed a breathtaking legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon. But without a definitive Ginsburg biography, the unique personal journey of this diminutive, quiet warrior's rise to the nation's highest court has been largely unknown, even to some of her biggest fans - until now. RBG is a revelatory documentary exploring Ginsburg's exceptional life and career from Betsy West and Julie Cohen, and co-produced by Storyville Films and CNN Films.
An awesome little movie. It has a bigness in the theater with a large crowd that it may not have had if I’d watched it on television. Either way, a great documentary.

📺 The Vietnam War: Déjà Vu (1858-1961) Episode 1

Watched The Vietnam War: Déjà Vu (1858-1961) Episode 1 from PBS
After a long and brutal war, Vietnamese revolutionaries led by Ho Chi Minh end nearly a century of French colonial occupation. With the Cold War intensifying, Vietnam is divided in two at Geneva. Communists in the north aim to reunify the country, while America supports Ngo Dinh Diem's untested regime in the south.
The opening history is intriguing and really only seems to scratch the surface in this episode. I could have taken a more in-depth opening, though they’ve got a lot of ground to cover in just 10 episodes. Sadly, it’s the beginning and subtle causes for the war that are culturally the least understood, so this becomes a more useful place to lay them out for viewers.

I can only watch it and think about the futility of the whole thing.

I’m a bit curious how others found the flash forward portions of the late 60’s. It felt like the directors were trying to keep an American audience involved in the ongoing story, though, if continued throughout the series, these could provide interesting personal counterpoint to the overall arc of the story.

📺 Seed: The Untold Story | Independent Lens (PBS), S18 E13

Watched Seed: The Untold Story from Independent Lens | PBS
Worshiped and treasured since the dawn of humankind, few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds. SEED: The Untold Story follows passionate seed keepers intent on protecting our 12,000 year-old food legacy. In the last century, 94% of our seed varieties have disappeared. This once abundant seed diversity — painstakingly created by ancient farmers and gardeners over countless millennia — has been drastically winnowed down to a handful of mass-produced varieties. Under the spell of industrial "progress" and corporate profits, family farmsteads have given way to mechanized agribusinesses sowing genetically identical crops on a massive scale. But without seed diversity, crop diseases rise and empires fall. More than a cautionary tale of "man against nature," SEED reveals the work of farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers who are fighting a David versus Goliath battle to defend the future of our food. In a story both harrowing and heartening, we meet a wide variety of reluctant heroes working to rekindle a lost connection to our most treasured resource, from the pueblos of New Mexico to a seed bunker in Norway, from India to America’s heartland, from Peru to Hawaii. Among the dozens of people featured are Will Bonsall of the Scatterseed Project, Dr. Jane Goodall, environmental lawyer Claire Hope Cummings, ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan, botanical explorer Joseph Simcox, Andrew Kimbrell of the Center for Food Safety, and physicist/activist Dr. Vandana Shiva. SEED explores the hidden fabric of our food and the people that painstakingly and meticulously curate its diversity, in an era of climate uncertainty and immense corporate power.
This was an interesting documentary on seed which people obviously take heavily for granted.

I think I preferred the shorter podcasts I recently listened to: Why Save Seeds and Seed Law on the fantastic Eat This Podcast [1][2] mostly because they were a bit more scientific and policy-minded. This documentary was interesting, told some great personal stories, but could be viewed as not the most balanced of presentations. It obviously went for a more uplifting and poignant stance surrounding the people and the communities as well as their stories.

It could easily have spent 20-30 minutes delving into more of the science and the policy portions of the story to better underpin the overall arc of the story and simply had a longer 90 minute running time instead of just an hour spent primarily focused on trying to pull simply at our heartstrings.

I agree that the decrease in diversity of our seed stores is an appalling travesty, but the topic deserves better coverage and a more nuanced viewpoint of the relevant science and policy could have done far more to get people interested in the subject. I certainly would have appreciated it.

References

[1]
J. Cherfas, “Why save seeds?,” Eat This Podcast, 07-Oct-2013. [Online]. Available: http://www.eatthispodcast.com/why-save-seeds/. [Accessed: 25-Apr-2017]
[2]
J. Cherfas, “Seed Law,” Eat This Podcast, 27-May-2013. [Online]. Available: http://www.eatthispodcast.com/seed-law/. [Accessed: 25-Apr-2017]

📺 Divided States of America, Part 2 | Frontline

Watched Divided States of America, Part 2 from FRONTLINE | PBS, aired January 18, 2017
FRONTLINE investigates the partisanship of the Obama era, and the polarized America that Donald Trump inherits as president.
The second part of this wasn’t as fraught as the first half, but both are simply scintillating and well worth watching.

📺 Divided States of America, Part 1 | Frontline

Watched Divided States of America, Part 1 from FRONTLINE | PBS, aired January 17, 2017
FRONTLINE investigates the partisanship of the Obama era, and the polarized America that Donald Trump inherits as president.

Ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration, "Divided States of America" looks back at events during President Barack Obama's years in office that revealed deep divisions in our country. The documentary offers an in-depth view of the partisan gridlock in Washington, the rise of populist anger on both sides of the aisle, and the racial tensions that erupted throughout the country.
What a stunning overview of the last eight years of partisan politics. In particular I had forgotten about a lot of the rancor and racism stemming from the far right when Obama took office. This two part documentary does a terrific job of reminding us where we’ve all been and puts a lot of our current situation into perspective. The first part here was particularly brutal in its coverage. It seems almost too balanced to the point that the subtext of the documentary is that politicians need to find a better way to get along to do more good for their constituents.