documentary film series

I just received an announcement via email for an impressive series of films to be shown here in KC:

Documentary Film Series
All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church (Directions and Map)
All films begin at 7:00 p.m. and are followed by a discussion.
There is no charge for the series, however donations are always appreciated.
Tuesday – August 31 UNPRECEDENTED – The 2000 Presidential Election
The battle for the Presidency in Florida and the Undermining of democracy in America.
Filmmakers Richard Ray Perez and Loan Sekler examine modern America’s most controversial political contest the Election of George W. Bush. What emerges is a disturbing picture of an election marred by suspicious irregularities, electoral injustices and sinister voter purges in a state governed by the winning candidate’s brother.
Tuesday – September 14 UNCOVERED: the whole truth about the Iraq war.
The story of how truth became the first American casualty in Iraq. This is the second film in a series by Outfoxed producer, Robert Greenbaum.
Tuesday – September 21 THE FOG OF WAR
Robert S. McNamara sits down one on one with award-winning director Errol Morris to offer a candid and intimate journey through some of the most seminal events in contemporary American history. 2003 WINNER – Best Documentary Feature
Tuesday – September 28 OUTFOXED – Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism
We will replay the film that brought the largest crowd to our documentary series – ever! This documentary provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public’s right to know.
Tuesday – October 5 BONHOFFER
This poignant documentary traces the life of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was one of the first to speak up against Adolph Hitler throughout Hitler’s rise to power. Bonhoeffer organized the Confessing Church, the only structured revolt against Hitler, and turned to his roots as a devout Christian for the strength to take a political stand for Jews everywhere.
Tuesday – October 12 BE GOOD, SMILE PRETTY
In March 2001, when Tracy Droz Tragos happened upon a first-hand account of her father’s death on a U.S. Naval swift boat in Vietnam, she decided she needed to know exactly who that 25-year-old stranger was. Be Good, Smile Pretty documents Tragos’s journey of discovery and the powerfully moving, personal exploration of her grief for the father she never knew, a grief shared by the estimated 20,000 Americans whose fathers were killed in Vietnam.
     We showed this film earlier in the year. It has since been awarded two Emmy’s. The father of Tracy Droz Tragos is from Rich Hill, Missouri. Mike Murphy, program director, of KCPT Public Television, helped her, in part to complete this film. On her trip to Washington, she is met by none other than John Kerry, who served with her father.
Tuesday – October 19 FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (if available)
Tuesday – October 26 CONTROL ROOM
This documentary peers into the controversial and often dangerous operations of the 7-year-old Al Jazeera news network. Although it often enrages its own people, the news outlet has become the most accepted informational resource in the Arab community. Filmmaker Jehane Noujaim gains extraordinary access to Al Jazeera journalists and the risks they confront on a daily basis.
Tuesday – November 2 LIVE ELECTION RESULTS – to be shown on the large screen at All Souls.
Come, bring a friend and a covered dish and join us for an evening of election results.
Your host is Mike McKelley, E-mail: mmckelley[at]kc[dot]rr[dot]com
(816) 531-2551

what’s umkc doing on september 11?

Tomorrow, people from across the Kansas City region will come together to share and discuss ideas about democracy, citizenship, and patriotism through public talks, roundtables, and performances.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City
Call 816-235-2559 for more information.
Download an event flyer by clicking here.

  • Open forum & Bring-your-own-picnic
    11:00-2:00
    University Playhouse (51st & Holmes: Map)
    Come have your say, listen to speakers, singers, poets. Bring a picnic lunch and have a conversation on the grass.
  • Roundtable Discussion
    2:00-3:30
    Oak Street Residence Hall (51st & Oak: Map)
    Professors, students, and community members will discuss “Civic Responsibility in Light of September 11.”
  • Voter Registration
    Miller Nichols Library (51st & Rockhill: Map)
    Exercise your right: register to vote.

The September Project is a collection of people, groups, and organizations working to create a day of engagement, a day of conversation, a day of democracy.

The September Project is for all people.

To learn more about other KC events:
http://www.kcseptemberproject.org

To learn more about the national project:
http://www.theseptemberproject.org

darnton on reading

Robert Darnton, “First Steps Toward a History of Reading“

Both familiar and strange, [reading] is an activity that we share with our ancestors yet can never be the same as what they experienced. We may enjoy the illusion of stepping outside of time in order to make contact with authors who lived centuries ago. But even if their texts have come down to us unchanged – a virtual impossibility, considering the evolution of layout and of books as physical objects – our relation to those texts cannot be the same as that of readers in the past. Reading has a history. But how can we recover it?

Darnton suggests that scholars writing the history of reading pursue answers to these five questions: How was reading discussed or portrayed at different times and in different places? How was reading learned? What did readers write about their reading either in diaries or as marginalia? How was meaning construed by readers? How did the typographical features of print direct or at least influence the experience of reading? These are, of course, very basic questions, but they are ones we do not yet know the full answers to.

The history of reading is something I’ve been doing a bit of work in, myself.

andy cline on media objectivity

Reporting the facts…: “The politically useless he-said, she-said stenography that passes for so much political reporting is only possible when the press misunderstands objectivity. Objectivity is not a stance; it’s a process.”

Read the … how you say? ah, yes … whole thing.