Dream Refuge

Summer Breeze

2009-07-09T02:30:00.004+09:00

I'm on fire. Have we finally hit bottom? Perhaps. Very nice weather indeed. Summer breeze makes me feel fine,... pun intended. Hard to believe this is the crest, but always feels like that before the wave crashes over you. Gotta keep the windows closed or someone will catch the breeze flowing through the place. Time to shine.

Frontline: Breaking the Bank

2009-06-19T16:21:00.003+09:00

FRONTLINE Breaking The Bank
Originally Broadcast June 16, 2009

Watch Online

In Breaking the Bank, FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (Inside the Meltdown, Bush's War) draws on a rare combination of high-profile interviews with key players Ken Lewis and former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain to reveal the story of two banks at the heart of the financial crisis, their rocky merger, and the government's new role in taking over -- some call it "nationalizing" -- the American banking system.

FRONTLINE Home pbs.org/WGBH - Boston

Since January 1983, FRONTLINE has served as American public television's - PBS - flagship public affairs series. Hailed upon its television broadcast debut as "the last best hope for broadcast documentaries," FRONTLINE's stature over 20 seasons is reaffirmed each week through incisive documentaries covering the scope and complexity of the human experience.

Frontline has over 50 reports for online viewing.
Watch Online

The Incredible Human Journey

2009-06-15T22:10:00.009+09:00

The Incredible Human Journey is a five-episode science documentary presented by Alice Roberts first broadcast on BBC television in May and June 2009 in the United Kingdom. It considers the evidence for and against the theory of early human migrations out of Africa and subsequently around the world.

Episode 1 "Out of Africa"
Episode 2 "Asia"
Episode 3 "Europe"
Episode 4 "Australia"
Episode 5 "Americas"

Before The Dawn

2009-06-14T23:34:00.001+09:00

Talk of the Nation, Science Friday

Review - Monstersandcritics.com

Amazon.com - From Publishers Weekly
"Scientists are using DNA analysis to understand our prehistory: the evolution of humans; their relation to the Neanderthals, who populated Europe and the Near East; and Homo erectus, who roamed the steppes of Asia. Most importantly, geneticists can trace the movements of a little band of human ancestors, numbering perhaps no more than 150, who crossed the Red Sea from east Africa about 50,000 years ago. Within a few thousand years, their descendents, Homo sapiens, became masters of all they surveyed, the other humanoid species having become extinct.

Atlas of the Human Journey

2009-06-13T23:43:00.003+09:00

The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have launched the Genographic Project, a five-year effort to understand the human journey—where we came from and how we got to where we live today. This unprecedented effort will map humanity's genetic journey through the ages.

This I Believe: I am Still The Greatest

2009-04-06T16:21:00.005+09:00

All Things Considered: This I believe
Muhammad Ali: "I am still the greatest"
Read by his wife Lonnie Ali
April 6, 2009

Poem by Cassius Clay

This is the legend of Cassius Clay, The most beautiful fighter in the world today.

He talks a great deal and brags indeedy, Of a muscular punch that's incredibly speedy.

The fistic world was dull and weary, with a champ like Liston, things had to be dreary.

Then someone with colour, someone with dash, brought fight fans a-running with cash.

Yes, I'm the man this poem is about, I'll be Champ of the World, There isn't a doubt.

Here I predict Mr Liston's dismemberment, I'll hit him so hard, he'll wonder where October and November went.

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

2009-04-04T16:27:00.000+09:00

Black and Blue (review)
Time Magazine
April 14, 1953

Black and Blue
Louis Armstrong

Cold empty bed, springs hurt my head
Feels like ole ned, wished I was dead
What did I do, to be so black and blue?

Even the mouse, ran from my house
They laugh at you, and all that you do
What did I do, to be so black and blue

I'm white, inside, but, that dont help my case
Thats life, cant hide, what is in my face

How would it end, aint got a friend
My only sin, is in my skin
What did I do, to be so black and blue?

How would it end, I ain't got a friend
My only sin, is in my skin
What did I do, to be so black and blue?

Tokyo Metro: Please do it at home

2009-04-02T17:08:00.000+09:00

Tokyo Metro Public Service Ad Posters

Carbon Nanotech

2009-03-30T14:28:00.007+09:00

Nanotechnology is the study of the control of matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally nanotechnology deals with structures of the size 100 nanometers or smaller, and involves developing materials or devices within that size.

Nanotechnology is extremely diverse, ranging from novel extensions of conventional device physics, to completely new approaches based upon molecular self-assembly, to developing new materials with dimensions on the nanoscale, even to speculation on whether we can directly control matter on the atomic scale.

Buckyball Discoverer Explores Nanotech Frontier
NPR Talk of the Nation Science Friday, March 20, 2009

Carbon nanotubes are allotropes of carbon with a nanostructure that can have a length-to-diameter ratio of up to 28,000,000:1, which is significantly larger than any other material. These cylindrical carbon molecules have novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science, as well as potential uses in architectural fields. They exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat.

Frontline: Inside the Meltdown

2009-02-16T02:48:00.004+09:00

Frontline: Inside The Meltdown
PBS.org, Original Broadcast Feb 17, 2009

"FRONTLINE investigates the causes of the worst economic crisis in 70 years and how the government responded. The film chronicles the inside stories of the Bear Stearns deal, Lehman Brothers’ collapse, the propping up of insurance giant AIG, and the $700 billion bailout. Inside the Meltdown examines what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke didn’t see, couldn’t stop and haven’t been able to fix.."

FRONTLINE Home
pbs.org/WGBH - Boston

Since January 1983, FRONTLINE has served as American public television's - PBS - flagship public affairs series. Hailed upon its television broadcast debut as "the last best hope for broadcast documentaries," FRONTLINE's stature over 20 seasons is reaffirmed each week through incisive documentaries covering the scope and complexity of the human experience.

Frontline has over 50 reports for online viewing.
Watch Online

Looking for Lincoln

2009-02-12T22:00:00.005+09:00

Looking For Lincoln

Talk of the Nation, February 11, 2009
Scholar Reappraises President Lincoln

Looking for Lincoln, PBS
January 12, 2009

Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s quest to piece together Lincoln’s complex life takes him from Illinois to Gettysburg to Washington, D.C., and face-to-face with people who live with Lincoln every day – relic hunters, re-enactors, and others for whom the study of Lincoln is a passion. Among those weighing in: Pulitzer Prize winners Doris Kearns Goodwin and Tony Kushner; presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; and Lincoln scholars including Harold Holzer, vice chair of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission; Harvard University’s president Drew Faust and history professor David Hebert Donald; Yale University history professor David Blight; and Allen Guelzo of Gettysburg College.

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Director, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research

The Post-American World

2009-01-29T18:12:00.006+09:00

All Things Considered, April 29, 2008

'Post-American World' Offers New Role for U.S.'

Amazon.com Review
Book Description

"This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's important new work on the era we are now entering. Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

2008-12-29T02:30:00.006+09:00

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
"Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Michael Pollan Interview by Bill Moyers
November 28, 2008

Talk of the Nation, December 24, 2008

Nutritionist Michael Pollan Accepts No Imitations

michaelpollen.com

Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. By urging us to once again eat food, he challenges the prevailing nutrient-by-nutrient approach -- what he calls nutritionism -- and proposes an alternative way of eating that is informed by the traditions and ecology of real, well-grown, unprocessed food. Our personal health, he argues, cannot be divorced from the health of the food chains of which we are part.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

2008-12-29T01:05:00.002+09:00

"In his new book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, journalist and writer Michael Pollan argues that many Americans suffer from a national eating disorder based on super-sized, corn-fed diets."

Talk of the nation Science Friday
April 14, 2006

Fresh Air - Dinner: An Author Considers the Source
April 11, 2006

Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression

2008-11-10T14:48:00.006+09:00

Hard Times, by Studs Terkel

Recordings from Hard Times
www.studsterkel.org

Terkel interviewed hundreds of people across the United States for his book on the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1973, he selected several interviews that were included in his book to be broadcast in eleven parts on the Studs Terkel Program on WFMT radio (Chicago, IL). This gallery includes the interviews in those programs.

Terkel questions people about their recollections of employment problems, the crash of 1929, organized labor issues, “farm holidays” where crops were destroyed, and U.S. President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. He asks them how they managed financially and personally through the economic slump and what personal qualities surfaced as a result. In particular he seems interested in exploring the relationship between their personal plight and values and their awareness of national issues and society’s values.

Studs Terkel
1912-2008

African American Lives

2008-10-23T13:02:00.005+09:00

PBS: African American Lives

"Hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois professor of the Humanities and chair of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES, an unprecedented four-part PBS series, takes Alex Haley's Roots saga to a whole new level through moving stories of personal discovery. Using genealogy, oral history, family stories and DNA analysis to trace lineage through American history and back to Africa, the series provides a life-changing journey for a diverse group of highly accomplished African Americans: Dr. Ben Carson, Whoopi Goldberg, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Dr. Mae Jemison, Quincy Jones, Dr. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Chris Tucker and Oprah Winfrey.

The series works to restore the participants' lineages in reverse chronological order. Starting with the oral histories of the individuals' families, and drawing on photographs, film clips, music and early personal records, Professor Gates begins to trace their family trees back through the 20th century. Noted historians and expert genealogists around America help fill in missing branches, in the process explaining how such major events as Jim Crow segregation and the post-World War I "Great Migration" from the South to the North helped shape African-American families."

Frontline: The Choice 2008, Heat

2008-10-21T12:34:00.003+09:00

Frontline: Heat
PBS.org, Original Broadcast Oct 21, 2008

"Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, fires, floods and droughts. On the eve of a historic election, award-winning producer and correspondent Martin Smith investigates how the world's largest corporations and governments are responding to Earth's looming environmental disaster.

The world needs to dramatically cut the carbon emissions responsible for wreaking havoc on the planet's climate, according to Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, whose organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize. "If we don't take action immediately, we face a crisis," Pachauri tells Smith. "Climate change is caused by human actions, and we need to do something about it. The sooner we realize that, the better."

With that sense of urgency in mind, Smith traveled to 12 countries on four continents to investigate whether major corporations and governments are up to the challenge. HEAT features in-depth interviews with top policy-makers and with leading executives from many of the largest carbon emitters from around the world, including Chinese coal companies, Indian SUV makers and American oil giants. The report paints an ominous portrait. Despite increasing talk about "going green," across the planet, environmental concerns are still taking a back seat to shorter-term economic interests."

Frontline: The Choice 2008
PBS.org, Original Broadcast Oct 14, 2008

"It has been called one of the most historic presidential elections in our nation's history -- Barack Obama versus John McCain. It is a race that pits the iconoclast against the newcomer, the heroic prisoner of war against the first African American nominated by a major party. FRONTLINE's critically acclaimed series The Choice returns this election season to examine the rich personal and political biographies of these two men in The Choice 2008.

The Choice 2008 draws on in-depth interviews with the advisers, friends and those closest to these unlikely candidates, as well as with seasoned observers of American politics, who together tell the definitive story of these men and their ascent to their party's nominations.

When FRONTLINE first aired a profile of presidential candidates during the 1988 election, The Choice redefined political journalism on television. Now, in an unprecedented election year, veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (Bush's War, Cheney's Law) goes behind the headlines to tell a deeper political story about the candidates, the decisions they made, and why their nominations may indicate a historic change in American politics."

FRONTLINE Home
pbs.org/WGBH - Boston

Since January 1983, FRONTLINE has served as American public television's - PBS - flagship public affairs series. Hailed upon its television broadcast debut as "the last best hope for broadcast documentaries," FRONTLINE's stature over 20 seasons is reaffirmed each week through incisive documentaries covering the scope and complexity of the human experience.

Frontline has over 50 reports for online viewing.
Watch Online

Tesla Motors and Roadster

2008-10-14T21:53:00.004+09:00

Tesla Motors, Inc. is private a Silicon Valley automobile startup company focusing on the production of high performance, consumer-oriented battery electric vehicles.

The Tesla Roadster is a fully electric sports car. It is the first car produced by electric car firm Tesla Motors.

The car can travel 244 mi (393 km) on a single charge of its lithium-ion battery pack and accelerate from 0-60 mph (97 km/h) in 3.9 seconds.

The Roadster's efficiency, as of February 2008, is reported as 199 W·h/km (3.12 mi/kW·h), equivalent to 105 mpg–U.S. (2.24 L/100 km / 126.1 mpg–imp)

This American Life: Another Frightening Show About the Economy

2008-10-06T12:16:00.006+09:00

This American Life
Chicago Public Radio
October 3, 2008

Episode 365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy

Alex Blumberg and NPR's Adam Davidson — the two guys who reported our Giant Pool of Money episode — are back, in collaboration with the Planet Money podcast. They'll explain what happened this week, including what regulators could've done to prevent this financial crisis from happening in the first place.

Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy (2002)

2008-09-05T11:01:00.004+09:00

Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy confronts head-on Americans' critical concerns about the new interconnected world. Based on the best-selling book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, this groundbreaking series explores our changing world—the great debate over globalization and the future of our society.

View Online @PBS.org

MIT makes solar energy breakthrough

2008-08-06T02:43:00.003+09:00

Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

Daniel G. Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT, has developed a simple method to split water molecules and produce oxygen gas, a discovery that paves the way for large-scale use of solar power.

MIT researchers have developed a new catalyst, consisting of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode. When the catalyst is placed in water and electricity runs through the electrode, oxygen gas is produced. When another catalyst is used to produce hydrogen gas, the oxygen and hydrogen can be combined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power a house or an electric car, day or night.

With Daniel Nocera's and Matthew Kanan's new catalyst, homeowners could use their solar panels during the day to power their home, while also using the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for storage. At night, the stored hydrogen and oxygen could be recombined using a fuel cell to generate power while the solar panels are inactive.

How to kick the oil habit

2008-06-23T22:05:00.004+09:00

As prices rise, the race for new energy sources--from wind farms to liquid coal--heats up. Get ready for the withdrawal symptoms.

"If anyone harbored any doubts that hybrid cars are hot, last week the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show put them to rest. Carmakers practically ran over one another promoting their versions in attempts to catch up with Honda and Toyota, the technology's pioneers. Companies such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Mazda, Mitsubishi, GM, Volkswagen and Porsche showed new models or talked about plans to sell them by the end of the decade at the latest."

time.com Oct 23, 2005

Michael Klare on Entering the Age of Resource Wars

2008-06-23T22:02:00.002+09:00

(The Party's Over)

Michael Klare on Entering the Age of Resource Wars

The Twilight Era of Petroleum

Frontline: Young & Restless in China

2008-06-17T19:25:00.005+09:00

FRONTLINE presents Young & Restless in China
Originally Broadcast Tuesday, June 17, 2008, from 9 to 11 P.M. ET on PBS

Watch Online

“This generation will be running China in a few years. They are the next international politicians and business leaders, and their choices will affect us all,” says FRONTLINE producer Sue Williams about the new generation shaping China’s future.

In Young & Restless in China FRONTLINE presents intimate portraits of nine young Chinese over the course of four years, examining the reality of their lives as they navigate their way through a country that is changing daily. They are westernized, savvy about today’s interconnected world, ambitious – and often torn between their culture and their aspirations. Set to an original soundtrack of Chinese rock and hip-hop music, this provocative film presents an in-depth look at what it means to be young and Chinese today.

Unforgivable Blackness (2004)

2008-04-29T00:50:00.006+09:00

film description wikipedia.org:

"Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson is a documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Geoffrey C. Ward (2004)."

Unforgivable Blackness @ PBS.org

download "Unforgivable Blackness" via bittorrent (requires bittorrent client)