Tag Archives: pbs

Trump’s energy policy is being shaped by scary, oily think tank.

Nye first found television fame in the ’90s with his weekly children’s show on PBS. Now, he’s returning to the small screen — or, at least, the streaming device — with Bill Nye Saves the World, a Netflix series set to debut this spring.

“Each episode will tackle a topic from a scientific point of view,” Nye said in a statement, “dispelling myths, and refuting anti-scientific claims that may be espoused by politicians, religious leaders, or titans of industry.” Those topics include some hot-button issues, like vaccinations, genetically modified foods, and climate change.

Though he got his start on an uncontroversial kids’ show, in recent years Nye has not shied away from contentious issues. He’s been an especially outspoken critic of climate change deniers. Last year, he bet notorious denier Marc Marano $20,000 that 2016 would be one of the 10 hottest years on record. Morano declined the offer — which, considering the data, was probably wise.

Nye will get some help on his new show from special correspondents like Karlie Kloss. “We’ll be talking about every nerdy thing you can dream of,” says the model.

Jump to original:

Trump’s energy policy is being shaped by scary, oily think tank.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, oven, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Trump’s energy policy is being shaped by scary, oily think tank.

How the Conservative Media Went Nuts When David Brooks and I Discussed Cruz’s "Satanic" Tone

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Jeez, the conservative media is really sensitive these days when it comes to Sen. Ted Cruz.

On Friday night, New York Times columnist David Brooks, a mild conservative, and I were on the PBS Newshour, and our discussion of Cruz’s recent surge in Iowa really ticked off some within the right-wing press. Here are a few headlines:

PBS: Ted Cruz and His Father Are ‘Satanic’ (National Review)

Watch PBS Panel of Journalists Call Ted Cruz and His Father ‘Satanic’ (The Blaze)

PBS Panel: Ted Cruz and His Pastor Father ‘Satanic’ (cnsnews.com)

The Blaze story summed up the big news this way: “During Friday’s episode of “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks and Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn referred to presidential hopeful Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and his father as ‘satanic.'”

I don’t know about Brooks, but I was besieged on Twitter by conservatives who hurled angry how-dare-you tweets at me. Some accused me of committing a hate crime (the victims: Christians). But this was yet another exercise of false right-wing outrage, and a demonstration of rather poor reading comprehension on the right.

This phony brouhaha was triggered when Newshour host Judy Woodruff asked Brooks and me to evaluate recent developments in the GOP presidential primary. Brooks went first:

Ted Cruz is making headway. There’s — you begin to see little signs of liftoff. Trump has sort of ceiling-ed out. Carson is collapsing. And Cruz is somehow beginning to get some momentum from Iowa and elsewhere. And so people are either mimicking him, which Rubio is doing a little by adopting some of the dark and satanic tones that Cruz has, and so—

Woodruff interrupted Brooks at this point to ask about his use of the word “satanic,” and Brooks explained:

Well, if you go to a Cruz — if you watch a Cruz speech, it’s like, we have got this enemy, we have got that enemy, we’re going to stomp on this person, we’re going to crush that person, we’re going to destroy that person. It is an ugly world in Ted Cruz’s world. And it’s combative. And it’s angry, and it’s apocalyptic.

At that point, with this article in mind, I chimed in to point out that Cruz’s father, an evangelical pastor who officially campaigns for Cruz, truly does believe and promote satanic conspiracies, claiming in a recent speech that Lucifer was responsible for the Supreme Court’s gay-marriage decision:

Well, actually, if you go to a speech from his dad, who is a pastor, evangelical, Rafael Cruz, it actually is satanic. He — I watched a speech in which he said Satan was behind the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage.

Brooks replied, “I withdraw the satanic from Ted Cruz.” I noted, “You’re thinking that it’s political, but, sometimes, it’s literal.” Brooks went on to compare Cruz’s “dark and combative and, frankly, harsh” approach to the sunnier political disposition of Sen. Marco Rubio. And that was it regarding Cruz and the devil.

As you can see, neither one of us called either Cruz “satanic.” Brooks did use the word “satanic” to describe Cruz’s tone, but he meant that Cruz pitches an apocalyptic message of good-versus-evil, light-versus-dark. Which he does. And I then explained that his father, who has been recruiting religious leaders to support his son’s campaign, does indeed see political and policy developments he opposes as the handiwork of Satan. That is, the elder Cruz, who routinely resorts to fiery fundamentalist rhetoric, often labels his (and his son’s) foes as “satanic,” noting that they’re being manipulated by the Evil One. Neither Brooks nor I suggested that Ted or Rafael Cruz are serving the Dark Lord.

The points we made were not that hard to understand. Yet conservatives—perhaps driven by their antipathy to the RINO-ish Brooks—quickly tried to manufacture a fake controversy. I wonder if the devil made them do it.

See the original article here: 

How the Conservative Media Went Nuts When David Brooks and I Discussed Cruz’s "Satanic" Tone

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How the Conservative Media Went Nuts When David Brooks and I Discussed Cruz’s "Satanic" Tone

3 Times Sesame Street Has Hilariously Parodied an HBO Series

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

HBO just announced that it has struck a deal to air Sesame Street for the next five years on the network. The iconic show, which has aired on PBS for 45 years, will start running on HBO later this fall. Don’t worry: The show will continue airing on PBS following a nine-month window during which HBO has exclusive rights to run it. Big Bird and co. have have had an ongoing relationship of sorts with the premium cable network, producing amusing spoofs of some of HBO’s most popular shows under the moniker “GrouchBO.” Expect more hilarious send-ups like these when Sesame Street officially joins the HBO lineup.

True Mud

Birdwalk Empire

Game of Chairs

Originally posted here: 

3 Times Sesame Street Has Hilariously Parodied an HBO Series

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 3 Times Sesame Street Has Hilariously Parodied an HBO Series

How To Throw Shade

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Last night, PBS aired “America After Ferguson,” a town hall about race in America. A lot of really interesting and intelligent things were said! You should watch the whole thing. In addition to the really interesting and intelligent things that were said, there were also very stupid and offensive things said. Dearly oppressed white conservative dumb dumb columnist for the American Spectator Ross Kaminsky’s contributions to the evening could probably best be classified more the latter than the former.

Look, I am not going to address this dude’s points in any serious way. (You can watch them for yourself if you’re into that sort of thing beginning around minute 14 above.) They was all very much “blah blah reverse racism blah blah white people are the real victims blah blah.” And here’s the thing: This is America. You can believe whatever stupid nonsense you want. It is quite literally the reason the pilgrims crossed the ocean. So, you do you, Ross Kaminsky. But know that whenever you spout off this insidious white man’s burden bullshit, the rest of us are going to be throwing you the type of shade this amazing kid threw your way all night long.

Have a nice weekend.

(h/t to my friend @sobendito)

Source – 

How To Throw Shade

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How To Throw Shade

How "Citizen Koch" Saw the Light of Day After Public TV Snubbed It

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Oscar-nominated filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin were steeped in the production of a documentary on the influence of money in politics, but it wasn’t until funding for their project was unceremoniously yanked last year that the power of big donors truly hit home.

The pair had received a $150,000 commitment from the Independent Television Service (ITVS), a Corporation for Public Broadcasting-funded organization that bankrolls projects aired on PBS. They would later learn that their film, Citizen Koch, which explores the post-Citizen United political landscape and the rise of the tea party, had touched a nerve among public television officials worried about angering a generous benefactor, David Koch, who served on the boards of Boston’s WGBH and New York City’s WNET. In the fall of 2012, PBS had aired Alex Gibney’s Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream, which featured a highly unflattering portrait of the billionaire, including an interview with a former doorman at Koch’s elite Manhattan apartment building who singled him out as its most miserly resident. Public television officials were sensitive about offending Koch again.

Continue Reading »

More here:

How "Citizen Koch" Saw the Light of Day After Public TV Snubbed It

Posted in Abrams, Anchor, Citizen, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How "Citizen Koch" Saw the Light of Day After Public TV Snubbed It

‘Soul Food Junkies’ digs into African American food history and habits

‘Soul Food Junkies’ digs into African American food history and habits

Is soul food “the bane of African American health,” or is it a cuisine with a long and complex cultural history?

What if it’s both?

Filmmaker Byron Hurt’s documentary Soul Food Junkies premiering tonight on PBS aims to tell the history of soul food and contextualize collards, peas, and cornbread in the contemporary fight for food justice in communities of color, communities we often call “food deserts.”

Food deserts are by definition low-income communities without supermarkets or grocery stores, where fresh food is a rarity and people suffer from obesity, diabetes, and other health problems. We often blame food deserts themselves for those health problems, but that label can obscure culinary history, not to mention some basic facts. Many poor urban neighborhoods aren’t actually food deserts at all — they’re closer to food swamps full of ready-made and relatively cheap processed items. The “nutritional timberline,” as Karla Cornejo Villavicencio coins it at The New Inquiry, is a real thing.

In Hurt’s film, he interviews a woman who is upset that her local grocery only carries vegetables “that look like they’re having a nervous breakdown.” From PBS:

The idea is that if healthy choices are available, people will buy them. And that works to an extent. But old habits die hard. A 15-year longitudinal study found that upping the number of grocery stores in low-income areas didn’t result in people automatically buying healthier food.

“Just because you build it, doesn’t mean you will change people’s behavior,” study author Barry Popkin, a professor of public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a Time magazine article. “Price, quality, accessibility, incentives, they matter too. Every community is different, but new efforts or supplementing existing infrastructure works if they’re accompanied with affordable prices, education, promotion or community collaboration.”

Efforts that only increase the availability of nice organic lettuce don’t do anything to address the personal food culture that drives mealtime choices in these communities. And let’s face it: A lot of food justice work in these communities is done by well-meaning but kind of patronizing white people.

Hurt hopes his film “will be used widely as a discussion starter in communities of color around food consumption, health, wellness, and fitness.” In an interview with the Smithsonian’s Food & Think blog, Hurt said, “I think the film is really resonating with people, especially among African American people because this is the first film that I know of that speaks directly to an African American audience in ways that Food, Inc., Supersize Me, King Corn, The Future of Food, Forks over Knives and other films don’t necessarily speak to people of color. So this is really making people talk.”

Soul Food Junkies airs tonight at 10 p.m. on PBS.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Twitter

.

Read more:

Cities

,

Food

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Original article – 

‘Soul Food Junkies’ digs into African American food history and habits

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on ‘Soul Food Junkies’ digs into African American food history and habits