Bill Moyers Journal ended its current run last Friday (April 30, 2010). Over the last few years it had become one of my favorite TV programs, so it will be most missed. What better way to end the series than for Moyers to sit down with two of his favorite people, author Barry Lopez and Texas populist, Jim Hightower. You can watch Moyer’s discussion with each by clicking on their names.
I learned about Shaun Mullen blog when he commented on one of my blog entries on our cat Kiko passing on. As you might guess, he had a cat named Kiko.
I just love his site. As Shaun states on his site, he was born to blog. “It just took a few years for the medium to catch up to the messenger.” Throughout the year, Kiko’s House has celebrated the bicentenary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth with posts and book excerpt on the greatest of American presidents. Here are the highlights:
Additionally, on Christmas Day, Bill Moyers Journal had on Bill T. Jones. “At the close of Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial year, BILL MOYERS JOURNAL takes a unique look at our nation’s 16th President — through the eyes of the critically acclaimed dance artist Bill T. Jones. In a groundbreaking work of choreography called FONDLY DO WE HOPE…FERVENTLY DO WE PRAY, Jones reimagines a young Lincoln in his formative years through modern dance. Bill Moyers speaks with Jones about his creative process, his insights into Lincoln, and how dance can give us fresh perspective on America’s most-studied president.”
By now, most people have probably seen the video, Playing for Change – Stand By Me (over 16 million on YouTube), or seen the music documentary, which demonstrates that music can help bring about change. “Perhaps nothing can do more do connect a planet so divided by war, economics, religion and race than MUSIC!!” (Mark Johnson)
It was just a little over a year ago that I first learned about Playing for Change in a Bill Moyers Journal segment. Moyers began with a line that is still very apropos to today: “All over our country people are hurting. The statistics of unemployment and foreclosures reveal the magnitude of the distress but not the individual experience of people who lose their paychecks one month and their home the next.” He went on to talk about personal dramas being played out. “During lunch, I overheard people at a nearby table talking about the ugliness of our politics, and while I know this, too, is a recurring theme in American history, I tried to imagine how foreign this campaign must seem to the reality of everyday life for the Alvarez family, Willie, Corinne, James, and the others among that “fellowship of suffering” for whom life right now is a series of sighs and a stream of tears. How foreign and fraudulent the politics of sleaze, the polarizing almost savage pursuit of power that strokes the paranoia in us to divide and conquer,” Moyers said. Watching the segment, it became apparent that all this was a lead-in to introducing his next segment – “So it seems a good moment to introduce you to someone of the next generation who hasn’t given up on either our humanity or our future together,” at which time he introduced Mark Johnson.
Although the world is changing, for better or worse, much remains the same. So, in this season of peace and love, I share the transformative power of music again. “Let’s get together and feel all right!” – Peace Through Music.
I try to watch Bill Moyers Journal as often as my schedule will allow. This past Friday Parker Palmer, founder and senior partner for the Center for Courage & Renewal, was one of Bill’s guests. I recommend viewing it at PBS.org. I was so impress, I left a comment on the Center for Courage & Renewal blog.
kenne
(Photo source: Bill Moyers Journal)
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