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eyes on the prize?

“eyes on the prize, the landmark documentary on the civil rights movement, is no longer broadcast or sold new in the united states. it’s illegal,” says a wired article, adding that even pbs, who first aired the documentary, can’t re-broadcast it.

this kind of situation makes even those who are in favor of copyright (and i am not one of those, so ya know) justifiably angry (and it makes me all the more anti-copyright). there have been different responses to this:

downhill battle is trying to organize screenings around the country for feburary 8th with people getting copies from schools, out of libraries, or even their own collections (though on amazon, copies can cost over a thousand dollars!). one history teacher in virginia was organizing a screening for his high school but had to cancel after being threatened with a lawsuit. crrrazy.

the documentary was released, in combination with downhill battle and ‘commen sense releasers’ (good name!), as bit torrents and are floating around. “Lawrence Guyot, former leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, plans to organize a screening… He said that Downhill Battle’s reaction is “precisely what is needed…Our country has a history of laws that we are very proud we have moved away from.”

rick prelinger, of the great prelinger archives that are available to everyone via the internet archive, is trying to organize “fellow archivists.. [to donate] the nonbroadcast educational and classroom use rights needed for this series to be rereleased”, though so far, he hasn’t gotten any responses. this is a great great idea. as archivists, we need to get more involved in the copyright and general intellectual property issues that are being fought and struggled over.

btw, it’s no surprise that though eyes on the prize was such a hit, the producer had a really hard time finding financial backers for eyes 2 which was going to focus “on the rise of the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, the Black Consciousness Movement, the Vietnam War, busing, and Affirmative Action.”

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posted 2 February 05 & filed under archives, lots of links

last day of march

april 1 update: the databases were restored while i slept so hopefully not too many people saw the mysql-gobbledy-gook that now looks like a decent post below. more info forthcoming..

hello ~ the last day of march! this month has been so long but still, as always, i’m suprised to reach the end of it..

last night, totally by accident, i ended up watching episode two of pbs’ the new americans series. it was really good ~ tonight is episode three, and i’m really looking forward to it. basically, it follows the stories of five or so different recent immigrants to the u.s. one is a mexican day laborer who is trying to get working visas for his family of 8. another is a recently wed palestinian woman. then there’s two domincan baseball players. and then there’s three nigerians, one a couple that is expecting their second child, and the other is a mother of two teenage girls, who also happens to be the sister of the famous nigerian activist ken saro-wiwa who was killed while fighting the nigerian gov’t and shell. you should watch it!

one of my favorite magazines, stay free magazine, just posted an interview with rick prelinger who, working with the internet archive has just posted over 1,900 “ephemeral” films, that is, advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films. now you too can watch the infamous ‘duck and cover’ (learning simple steps to save yourself if hit by a nuclear bomb), as well as ‘booked for safekeeping’ (about imprisoning the mentally ill), ‘a is for atom’ (the many uses of nuclear fission), ‘act your age’ (an immature youth struggles to grow up and get popular) and much more. it’s awesome. (avaible as downloads in lots of formats, including real player and quicktime. go internet archive!)

library journal just released their annual movers and shakers, which highlights lots (this year, 55) of librarians that they consider are real, yeah, movers and shakers. anyhow, the list is always fun to read and i always (at least for two years now) have lots of fun fantasizing i will be a profiled mover and shaker, one day. :D so silly. but really, is there a similar one for archivists? i don’t think so. and so there’s yet another reason i should maybe turn to public librarianship instead of archival stuff. hm. so, anway, here’s some cool people: troy johnson of librarian’s book club fame (which got re-designed and looks good), christin borne who set up the next gen librarian listerv (& website, and matthew battles who wrote the excellent library: an unquiet history.

last but not least, for those that have outdoor gardening space (you lucky dogs), check out you grow girl: garderning for the people. not only is it a pretty and web standards compliant page, it also has lots of forums, articles, pretty pictures, an online store, etc. to satisfy those with the gardening itch.

bye,

~ andrea

speak

posted 31 March 04 & filed under archives, politics

one project to go

hello.

i’m feeling a bit wiped out after this second-to-last project but i had to proudly present it here for any to look at (and please tell me if it doesn’t look right in your browser): coca in bolivia.

also, thanks to my great brother-in-law john, i have a few very sweet pictures of my nephew nickolas up in gallery, so take a look. i’ll be sure to put more family photos up soon. hey, and if anyone would rather i didn’t make these accessible to the public, then tell me and i’ll move ‘em quick as can be, ok?

i still have one more project to go, but thank goodness i don’t think it’ll be quite so hard as a)i’m less ambitious this time around, and b) the project is fairly structured, especially when compared with the archives one..

why in the world did i actually try my first push-ups ever last night? i’m already feeling pretty woo-woo woo-woo from sleep deprivation. and now, on top of that, my arms and the usually very squishy bit between by arms and armpit hurt and ache, ay!

i love bookmobiles, although i don’t think i’ve even been in one. (i vaguely remember something about a small walkable vehicle during a bible camp i went to when i was like 7 or 8. .. hm.) anyway, though the internet archive may have some problems as a serious archives, they sure do have an admirable amount of energy, optimism, and creativity. check out their very cool internet bookmobile! check out the photos, including glimpses of the nice portable book binder they have.

~ andrea

posted 23 March 04 & filed under archives, school

coca culture

hi.

one more week till the winter quarter ends for ucla. argh. it really feels so drawn out and i am ready for spring break right. now. please. (sigh) i feel like i’ve run into so much great links, stories, and info lately.. here’s some:

first of all, though mentioned before, check out this incredible adbusters’ short movie called ‘corporate crackdown’.

researching bolivia and its coca culture for an upcoming archives project, i found some great links: cajpe, andean information network, bolivia indymedia, and tni. also, check out the u.s. embassy in bolivia’s cheapy ugly website at http://www.megalink.com/usemblapaz/”>www.megalink.com/usemblapaz/.

stumbled across the library of congress’ minerva project/site. ‘minerva’ stands for ‘mapping the internet electronic resources virtual archive’. “the MINERVA web preservation project was established to initiate a broad program to collect and preserve [digitally born] primary source materials.” so far, it only has a few collection available to look at, notably their september 11 collection. (not that there’s much information on their site but webarchivist.org looks like a great site/idea/future job..)

although a scary and undoubtably messed up group, the global business network seems to cover lots of different subjects. among their many reports: ‘abrupt climate change’, a report requested by the pentagon wondering what the collapse of the climate due to global warming could mean to them and the world. (it’s not a pretty picture, as you can imagine, though pretty extreme sounding.) as for the rest of the reports, i can’t see them without logging in and, as the site states, “membership is available to organizations for $40,000 per year” and is not yet available for individuals. yikes/scary.

from one library site, i got this great link to concealed garments, a site dedicated to clothing deliberately concealed (that is, buried) in buidlings, for good luck, superstition, or who knows. it’s kinda scary to look at all the pictures, makes a shiver just run down my back. but still pretty interesting.

since the civil war, there has been only one execution of a u.s. soldier for desertion during wartime. eddie slovik, a 24 year old soldier serving in france during world war 2, was killed by a firing squad during the last months of the war, on january 31, 1945. eisenhower personally ordered the execution and slovik was buried in a cemetary for disgraced u.s. soldiers who had been caught raping and/or murdering. (there’s a movie, starring martin sheen, about him, called ‘the execution of private slovik’ that i want to see.)

camilo mejia, seeking an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector, says, “the justification for this war is money and no soldier should go to iraq and give his life for oil.”

~andrea

p.s. i just did a complete revamping of my bolivia index page and am now working on getting the other pages in that section to look equally nice!..

disgusting: from feminste, virgin airway’s clubhouse at jfk airport in nyc has men’s urinals shaped like women’s lips. if there was ever a doubt, sexism is alive and well, thank you very much.

speak

posted 17 March 04 & filed under archives, politics

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