FanFare

Pennies cost more than a cent to make — and no one spends them. The New York Times Magazine's Caity Weaver explains why we can't get rid of them. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Oct 14, 2024 - 2 comments

This week: still in the void, for (perhaps) four more weeks. A crisis is developing over the fate of translators in Afghanistan, who are experiencing difficulties in obtaining visas to enter the US as troops withdraw, a life-or-death situation for them. And Now: Jim Cramer Loves Chipotle. Main story (22 minutes): about ambulence service in the US, often staffed by the underpaid, and yet are still frequently extremely expensive. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Aug 2, 2021 - 8 comments

This week, again in the white void: A grand jury declined to indict the perpetrators over the death of Breonna Taylor, heaping more fuel onto the Black Lives Matter protests. Main story: the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, giving Republicans a third Supreme Court pick during Trump's term, largely and ultimately due to the machinations of "mule piss" Mitch McConnell and the weird anti-democratic games the US system plays to preserve power to the powerful. And Now: An Unexpected Update Regarding Peeps. Finally, the Census, and the importance for US residents to fill it out. 14 million households haven't yet despite its tremendous importance to our systems to have an accurate count of people. You can complete it, probably in just a couple of minutes, at my2020census.gov. To help encouraage viewers to do that, the show played a couple of minutes of the audiobook version of Sean Penn's novel Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff (hoo boy), to drive people away in order to do this essential thing. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Sep 29, 2020 - 5 comments

"More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq." [more inside]
posted by kokaku on Jul 20, 2019 - 3 comments

ShortsTV presents a theatrical release of the five Oscar nominees for Best Documentary, Short Subject [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee on Feb 15, 2019 - 2 comments

High adventure fraught with cliffhanger twists marks this runaway-slave narrative, which leaps, sails, and soars from Caribbean cane fields to the fringes of the frozen Arctic and across a whole ocean. (Opening line from Kirkus Review, one of many publications to list Esi Edugyan's novel among the best fiction of 2018). Booker Prize shortlisted nominee. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Feb 2, 2019 - 3 comments

Battle for Sevastopol is a Russian/Ukranian co-production based on the WWII experiences of Lyudmila Pavilchenko, a young Ukranian student who becomes one of the war's deadliest snipers. With 309 confirmed kills in just over a year, Pavilchenko is brought to the White House to meet President Franklin D Roosevelt, the first Soviet ever to receive such an invitation. Pavilchenko meets and is befriended by Eleanor Roosevelt, who invites her on a promotional tour of the United States to rally support for the Soviet "Second Front" war effort despite her PTSD. [more inside]
posted by under_petticoat_rule on Apr 29, 2017 - 1 comment

Shorts HD presents a theatrical release of the five Oscar nominees for Best Documentary, Short Subject. [more inside]
posted by DevilsAdvocate on Feb 27, 2016 - 1 comment

This week: Shootings in South Carolina. Russians plan "Patroit Park," a theme park for national military fans. The US $10 bill is being redesigned to include a woman's face. And Now: C-Span Callers Suggest Women For The $10 Bill. Main story: On the harassment of women on the internet. YouTube (17m) Last Week Tonight remakes an old AOL ad.
posted by JHarris on Jun 23, 2015 - 16 comments

In Russia, another Putin critic, Boris Nemtsov was gunned down. (CNN) FCC passes Net Neutrality rules. (BBC) Scientists suspect gerbils, not rats, were responsible for bubonic plague. (New Yorker) Last Week Tonight makes a video apologizing to rats and demonizing gerbils. Main story: The crumbling national infrastructure of the United States, and why it's hard to do something about it. (LWT YouTube, 21m) LWT provides a trailer for an action movie about performing basic maintenance on roads and bridges.
posted by JHarris on Mar 2, 2015 - 19 comments