"Declining by Degrees:" Five Univeristy of Arizona students try to survive the megauniversity
A provocative NYT article summarizes an upcoming PBS special (
1,
2) on undergraduate education at large public universities. The average time to complete the BA is 4.7 years. Students describe acquiring "maze smart" skills for navigating institutions where they are completely anonymous. Professors are castigated for striking a grade-inflating "bargain" with underachieving students so they can attend less to teaching and more to research. Assistant coaches patrol the campus in golf carts looking for student athletes playing hooky. Millions of high school grads humiliated every year across the country--should they even bother with the "paper"?
posted by ~rschram
on Apr 25, 2005 -
84 comments
Freedom's Defenders or Politicians' Pawns? No pretense of protecting Americans’ freedom went into the decision to enter into the
Spanish-American War. It was out-and-out imperialism and nothing more. Veterans of that war may have helped to liberate Cuba , Guam , Puerto Rico , and the Philippines from Spanish rule; but those same veterans then turned around and rammed the jackboot of the U. S. military into the faces of those they had just liberated. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans and Filipinos, who had thought they were being freed only to find out they had merely exchanged one colonial master for another, were killed in their own independence-from-Uncle-Sam movements. When they finally did throw off direct U. S. rule, they were then saddled with dictators of Uncle Sam’s choosing. No credit for the defense of Americans’ freedom can be granted to veterans of this war.
Compare to this:
Gunning For Saddam
We report, you decide indeed...
posted by Elim
on Mar 6, 2005 -
23 comments
Don't miss tonight on PBS the final NOW with Bill Moyers.
"Bill Moyers looks inside the right-wing media machine that the conservative NEW YORK TIMES columnist David Brooks called a "dazzlingly efficient ideology delivery system." The program examines how a vast echo chamber that is admittedly partisan and powerfully successful delivers information — and misinformation — with more regard for propaganda than fact. Founding father to the conservative movement, Richard Viguerie tells Moyers, 'That’s what journalism is, Bill. It’s all just opinion. Just opinion.'”
posted by semmi
on Dec 17, 2004 -
45 comments
Lost Boys of Sudan is an amazing documentary about refugees from Sudan's
Darfur conflict finding haven in the US. It's premiering on PBS tomorrow. Their website has local PBS listings as well as locations and times of upcoming screenings in the US. From sleeping on the ground in a UN refugee camp to working at WalMart in Dallas, the men in the film undertake an enormously difficult, but ultimately life-saving journey.
posted by scarabic
on Sep 27, 2004 -
8 comments
“I bid you peace…” Jeff Smith,
The Frugal Gourmet, dead at 65. One of television’s most popular cooking shows throughout the 80s and 90s, The Frugal Gourmet defined the genre. An ordained United Methodist chaplain, Smith lost his PBS show in 1997 after eight men accused him of sexual assault during the 1970s. Denying the allegations, Smith nonetheless settled the cases out of court. Did the Frugal Gourmet do the
ultimate shark jump? Maybe someone should ask Elmo.
posted by wfrgms
on Jul 10, 2004 -
28 comments
The elegant universe. A 3 hour PBS NOVA documentary on string theory [in 24 ~5-10 minute chunks of real player or quick time video]. Welcome to the 11th dimension.
posted by srboisvert
on Nov 14, 2003 -
18 comments
A new TV series described as "Sesame Street for adults" gets a wide release next month on PBS stations nationwide. Its producers hope it will reach a few of the estimated 90 million "low-functioning" grown-ups. In 1992, when researchers last rated the skills of adults 16 or older, they found that nearly half weren't proficient in applying basic skills to accomplish daily tasks. Is this a bold step toward improving the lives of less fortunate adults, or a disturbing sign of the increasing ignorance of the American public?
posted by eyebeam
on Jul 25, 2003 -
64 comments
BodyBurden: the pollution in people. "Researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in the blood and urine of nine volunteers, with a total of 167 chemicals found in the group. Like most of us, the people tested do not work with chemicals on the job and do not live near an industrial facility. Scientists refer to this contamination as a person’s body burden. Of the 167 chemicals found, 76 cause cancer in humans or animals, 94 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 79 cause birth defects or abnormal development. The dangers of exposure to these chemicals in combination has never been studied."
This was also the subject of a PBS program by Bill Moyers,
Trade Secrets. Moyers himself was found to have
84 chemicals in his blood and urine. [Via
This Modern World.]
posted by homunculus
on May 26, 2003 -
17 comments
Mr. Rogers Dead. Fred Rogers of "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" died of stomach cancer at age 74. To be honest, his was never my personal favorite PBS kid's show growing up (I preferred off-brand shows like "Zoom" and "3-2-1 Contact"). But my appreciation for him when I was an adult was pretty high. Anyway, it's a sad day in the neighborhood.
posted by jscalzi
on Feb 27, 2003 -
130 comments
The War Behind Closed Doors PBS' newest
"Frontline" focuses on what has been happening behind the scenes within the Bush administration during the buildup to war against Iraq. Wolfowitz is seen as supporting a policy of US preemptive wars
starting in 1992 and
urging a US invasion of Iraq just four days after 9/11,
Richard Perle says that "it was understood that Iraq had to be dealt with" in the earliest days of the Bush presidential campaign, and Colin Powell is shown as the only reason the US sought UN approval at all.
posted by insomnia_lj
on Feb 21, 2003 -
17 comments
Frivolous Fun for Friday (although not quite lighthearted…) As an avid Gorey fan, I couldn't pass up posting these interactive murder mysteries. Shockwave required.
posted by Fenriss
on Jan 31, 2003 -
5 comments
Emmett just barely got on that train to Mississippi. We could hear the whistle blowing. As he was running up the steps, I said, 'Bo,'--that's what I called him--'you didn't kiss me. How do I know I'll ever see you again?' He turned around and said, 'Oh, Mama.' Gently scolding me. He ran down those steps and gave me a kiss. As he turned to go up the steps again, he pulled his watch off and said, 'Take this, I won't need it.' I said, 'What about your ring?' He was wearing his father's ring for the first time. He said, 'I'm going to show this to my friends.' That's how we were able to identify him, by that ring. I think it was a Mason's ring.
Mamie Till-Mobley, 81, who wanted the world to see her teenage
son's disfigured
face after his slaying in Mississippi in 1955 and who became a figure in the civil rights movement, died of a heart ailment Jan. 6 at a hospital in Chicago. She had kidney failure.
The impact of the Emmett Till case on black America was even greater than that of the Brown decision. On January 20, 2003, The American Experience will present, on PBS,
The Murder of Emmett Till. (Continued Inside)
posted by y2karl
on Jan 9, 2003 -
51 comments
On PBS last week, Senator Bob Graham said that there is "evidence that
there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the terrorists in the United States," but that "It will become public at some point when it's turned over to the archives, but that's 20 or 30 years from now. And, we need to have this information now because it's relevant to the threat that the people of the United States are facing today." Do you trust the government to keep the right informatin classified, or do we need to know?
posted by cell divide
on Dec 19, 2002 -
16 comments
Deep, way deep inside Iraq This aired very recently on PBS but I just caught it online -- the link is the second of four video clips following U.K. journalist Sam Kiley reporting on perception and reality in Jordan and Iraq and contains the most horrific footage of Saddam supporters you're likely to ever see. Be warned, it's not pretty.
posted by subpixel
on Nov 25, 2002 -
28 comments
The First Measured Century contains quite a bit of information about American society; population, work, education, religion, health, money, politics, crime and more. Everything from the median marriage age to the percentage of Americans who believe it is wrong to go to the movies on Sundays (13%).
posted by edlundart
on Oct 23, 2002 -
5 comments
If you missed the very powerful Frontline
"Faith and Doubt" on the spiritual implications of 9/11, check out the PBS site with the full script and interviews with priests, rabbis, an Islamic scholar, a professor of Middle East studies, an English professor, a
British novelist, a psychoanalyst, and the photographer who documented Ground Zero for the City of New York..
posted by semmi
on Sep 5, 2002 -
10 comments
Why the towers fell. PBS is airing a
special episode of Nova about the science behind while the World Trade Center towers collapse. Nova's reputation for converting esoteric science & engineering into understandable explanations for the layman should make the show something to watch. 7PM EDT/PDT on most PBS stations. Set your Tivos.
posted by Argyle
on Apr 30, 2002 -
23 comments
Jeez, is Gordon Clune a big jerk or what? After weeks of anticipation (okay, several reminders from my wife), I sat down tonight to watch the first two hours of PBS's
Frontier House. I thought it was
much better than I expected, but I can't keep the doubts away - is this really just an
1883 Survivor?
posted by yhbc
on Apr 29, 2002 -
28 comments
Rukeyser Out at Wall Street Week In Advance of 'Young' Format
The long-time host ever in search of 'value in today's markets' quit rather than accept a diminished role in a revamp of the show's format. Guest hosts will replace him next season until a permanent host is found.
PBS is quietly removing references to elves from the W$W website. The new show will be a co-production with Fortune Magazine. (Ick.) Guess
its Paul Kangas for me!
posted by rschram
on Mar 28, 2002 -
16 comments
PBS's Televangelist: "Moyers's difficulty conversing with people on the right seems to have impaired his ability to report their opinions fairly, particularly on issues of race. "The right gets away with blaming liberals for their efforts to help the poor, but what the right is really objecting to is the fact that the poor are primarily black," he told Alterman. "The man who sits in the White House today [George H.W. Bush] opposed the Civil Rights Act. So did Ronald Reagan. This crowd is really fighting a retroactive civil rights war to prevent the people they dislike because of their color from achieving success in American life."" (via
medianews)
posted by owillis
on Feb 18, 2002 -
43 comments
Art in the twenty-first century. Twenty-one artists who are defining the visual arts for a new millennium discuss their life, their work, and their vision in Art:21 - Art in the Twenty-First Century, a four-part series premiering Fall 2001 on PBS. Art:21 offers a unique glimpse into 21 artists' personal experiences, sources of inspiration, and creative processes. The last episode played last night, but the site has a wealth of information on some amazing artists. Did anyone catch this?
posted by mad
on Feb 8, 2002 -
8 comments
Taxi Dreams Did anyone watch the PBS show- "Taxi Dreams"? The PBS site is very informative. I enjoyed the video clips in the
gallery . The
facts and figures section was decent. Overall, I thought it was a great way to study the immigrant experience and the American dream.
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy
on Jan 4, 2002 -
3 comments
PBS discriminates A posting a day or so ago suggested that in the Israeli/Palestinian issue, PBS slanted its coverage. I had argued in a post that there was a larger issue: PBS slants on many issues. This piece shows where,why,how and when.
posted by Postroad
on Oct 25, 2001 -
10 comments
