Tag: Documentary

“Taxi to the Dark Side”

Taxi to the Dark Side

Taxi to the Dark Side is a 2007 documentary film directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney, and produced by Eva Orner and Susannah Shipman, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It focuses on the killing of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Parwan Detention Facility.

Taxi to the Dark Side examines the USA’s policy on torture and interrogation in general, specifically the CIA’s use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation. The film includes opposition to the use of torture from its political and military opponents, as well as the defense of such methods; attempts by Congress to uphold the standards of the Geneva Convention forbidding torture; and popularization of the use of torture techniques in shows such as 24.

It is part of the Why Democracy? series, which consists of ten documentary films from around the world questioning and examining contemporary democracy. As part of the series, Taxi to the Dark Side was broadcast in over 30 different countries around the world from October 8-18, 2007.

August To June; Bringing Life to Palm Beach Schools



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copyright © 2011 Betsy L. Angert.  Empathy And Education; BeThink or  BeThink.org

As any Mom or Dad might do on Parent Teacher Conference Day, Amy Valens, the Educator featured in the documentary film August To June, traveled from “classroom to classroom.”  This journey was not a conventional one. Indeed, Amy did not attend a series of Parent Teacher Conferences.  What she did was appear at Palm Beach screenings of her documentary.  The film follows twenty-six [26] third and fourth graders who studied with Amy in her last year of teaching.  The public school open classroom “Brings Life” to education.

After the movie was viewed, Ms Valens and the audiences engaged in conversations. They discussed what they saw and how it might relate to a broader dialogue.  The subjects of Education Reform, Classroom Standards, Teacher Quality, Merit Pay, Student-Rewards for Success, Parent Involvement, and Testing are but a few topics prominent in our national debate.  While the assemblies of viewers varied widely, the results were the same.  Every child, every class, all Teachers, and each parent, tells a unique tale.  Regardless of the individual or group, we see the world, or in this case the film, through our own lens.

On Fathers Day ‘Think!’ of the ‘Gold Star Children’

And yes I do realize there are ‘Gold Star Children’ who have lost Mothers, especially in these two long conflicts, not minimizing the fact that many of the women soldiers killed were possibly Mothers as they all were Daughters, Sisters or Nieces and Aunts, the greater numbers killed still in war are male.

CBS sought out a message with meaning for Fathers Day, that aired June 17 2011, and I totally agree with the one they found which among many messages it should send ties our long war of choice, Vietnam where this Country said it would remember the lessons of, to both current wars of choice, Afghanistan and Iraq, lessons forgotten five minutes after Vietnam and so many DeJa-Vu’s of then repeated with many enhanced and coming on faster.

Discussion After Premier of “Wartorn 1861 – 2010”

DCoE – Defense Centers of Excellence

11 November 2010 – Military leaders, vets discuss invisible wounds of war and getting help after viewing HBO documentary about PTSD

HBO’s Wartorn 1861 – 2010

Fight! Food Fight For Life!

Food, Inc. Pictures, Images and Photos



This is my first time posting an essay here.  This is too important to not spread around.

Cross posted at
http://www.myleftwing.com/ and  http://firefly-dreaming.blogsp…

One of my favorite things about the Oscar nominations is the new list of documentaries to see, on this list this year is Food INC.

Watching Oprah interview Michael Pollan, http://www.michaelpollan.com/ the other day talking about the Oscar nominated documentary Food INC. which he narrated, I was so intrigued I ordered the movie and watched it today.

For the sake of you and your families health, for the sake of the health of the planet, for the sake of the soul of the human race please I beg you to watch this documentary. You can get it through amazon for 10 bucks here: http://www.amazon.com/Food-Inc…

It is priceless in terms of what you get and you can pass it on to everyone you know.  Yes it is that important!

You know how you get little snippets of what is going on and you think you know but this documentary pulls it all together starting with the seed all the way to the plate and the grave.

It is gripping and had me shaking just like you do when you are cold.  I kid you not this film of where we are is like a cold splash of reality.  The bottom line message is we vote for this every time we buy something to eat.  If everyone saw this movie and we changed our buying habits the change would be powerful and swift.

Enough about the movie you just have to see it and get back to me.

More about this amazing man Michael Pollan after the jump……. talk about heroes this guy is way up there on the list!

“Living in Emergency:

Stories of Doctors Without Borders”

From: Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

Mother’s love: a plea to Michelle Obama

An Agent Orange activist calls on the first lady to help dioxin victims in Vietnam.

Vietnamese victims of the defoliant Agent Orange play at a social sponsorship center in Da Nang City June 26, 2009. US warplanes dropped about 18 million gallons of the defoliant on southern Vietnam for most of the 1960s.

The following is a letter sent to Michelle Obama by Secretary of the Britain-Vietnam Friendship Association Len Aldis, who has worked for years to spread awareness of Agent Orange victims’ plight.

August 2 marks the beginning of Orange Week, a government program to create Agent Orange awareness through various programs nationwide. Orange Week ends on August 10, 48 years to the day since the US military begin spraying the defoliant on Vietnam.

Dear Michelle Obama,

You can find the Letter Here

POV: “The Reckoning.”

Please take a minute to mark your calendar for this coming Tuesday, July 14th, so you can watch PBS’s new documentary on the International Criminal Court, “The Reckoning.” The documentary should air at 10 pm in most areas, but check here to see your local listing.  

In Their Boots: Vets For Hire, Episode 3

After serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, three veterans discover the value of their service as they search for employment in the midst of a troubled economy.

In Their Boots Website for the two previous of this year and links to last years online productions, as well as the other important site links.

One of those being Their Resources Page for Military/Veterans and Their Families.

Sundance Channel on Iraq: 6th Anniversary

The Sundance Channel just launched a website in observance of the sixth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

From a post by Anna Brew, found at After Downing Street hattip for the lead:

The highlight of the site is a large collection of webisodes and clips from two documentaries that will premiere on television on March 19th (the date of the 2003 invasion): Hometown Baghdad and Heavy Metal in Baghdad. Both films capture the day-to-day realities confronted by Iraqi citizens.

“Invisible Wounds” a Documentary and Michelle Obama

Yesterday as I was searching out a few things I came across a recent documentary that was up on the UPI site in three parts, not long but another real good look at a subject many of us, especially Veterans, have been fighting a long battle to get into the public conscious, and stuck there once in, with the realization of the hidden damages, wounds, that Wars cause to those that are sent to occupy and the occupied.

Back From The Lion’s Den

How did a group of female support soldiers-mechanics, supply clerks and engineers-end up fighting alongside the Marines in some of the bloodiest counterinsurgency battles of the Iraq war? Find out in Lioness, a film about female combat veterans.

In the new PBS documentary “Lioness,” Specialist Shannon Morgan, a brawny, tattooed Army vet, conveys the anguish of post-traumatic stress disorder in one simple line. In the woods of her native Arkansas, she sits with a rifle in one hand. On the brink of tears, sounding half like a warrior and half like a lonely young girl, she recounts the fire fight in Iraq that probably should’ve killed her. “I really wish,” she says, “I had lost my mind.”

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