Documentary Night: American Experience - 1964

PBS.American.Experience.2014.1964.720p.HDTV... by HDDocumentary

Documentary Night: Frontline- The Trouble With Antibiotics

Well, this is all horrifying.

This is a preview.Watch the full video at PBS' website.



Bonus: Anderson Cooper discovering that his ancestor was a slave owner who was beaten to death by a rebellious slave.

Documentary Night: Faster Than Sound

This is an older episode of Nova. It's not a "classic" episode. I don't think we can call anything after 1990 "classic" just yet, but it's old enough, being from the 97-98 season. Of course, you probably already knew that from the hilariously mid-1990's CGI applied to every logo at the beginning of the show.

Oh, 90's. You loved your CGI text.

Documentary Night: A Short History of In-Home Heating

I get the feeling that this is somehow funded by a petroleum company trying to convince us that they "care." Regardless, Neil Oliver is awesome and even this five-minute short is worth a watch.

To Catch a Trader And My Mixed Feelings

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, these guys are a pack of assholes. They are masters of the universe, wealthy, mostly white, and almost all male. They have undoubtedly been part of the global economic crisis as we now know it and would, given a position of power, exploit and abuse that power. I would hate these people if I knew them. (Watch the full documentary here.)

On the other hand, what they did is one of the smallest problems in the stock market, and yet it is the only problem we ever seem to prosecute. The intro of the documentary quotes Preet Bhahara saying "It doesn't matter who you are, the rules are the rules and the law is the law."

Well... that's wrong. It does matter who you are and everyone knows that. There is far shiftier behavior transpiring on Wall Street and those criminals never go to jail. These people wrecked a good hunk of the global economy, and very few of them have even been investigated. Look at how long it took them to investigate Madoff!



I'm speaking about this as an ex-day trader. That's one of the reasons I'm angry. I've seen the inside of the machine. I've seen the gears turning. There are genuine changes that can, and should, be made, but focusing on some insider traders ignores those prospects. It is similar to the year or so after the crash, and how so many people were obsessed with vilifying short traders, all the while completely ignoring the actual problems.

And yet here we are, the problems aren't fixed, and we're going after the same people instead of the real criminals. How's that windmill, guys?

Documentary Night: The Last Explorers- Thomas Blake Glover

Thomas Blake Oliver, rockin' the 'stache.

Documentary Night: Vikings With Neil Oliver

Documentary Night: Order And Disorder With Jim AI-Khalili

Yet another amazing documentary with Jim Al Khalili. Why don't these ever make it to the US? Come on Discovery!

Climate Change: A Debate Between Correct And Stupid

I love how they wait to show the conversational bomb dropped by Mr. Buggy Eyes at the conference. When someone calls science the result of a Marxist conspiracy and that "green is the new red," they are so blatantly out in left field as to make watching the rest of the show almost unnecessary.

Watch Climate of Doubt on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

How Small Is The Universe?

BBC Horizon has rather hit the skids recently. The quality of the show is abysmal. So it's a pleasant surprise when an episode manages to be both entertaining and informative, while not having the pandering crap evinced in episodes like "The Truth About Looking Young," which was unwatchable.

Dan Rather Reports: The Dalits of India and Forced Marriage

Along with Frontline, Dan Rather Reports is the best news show in TV. You should watch it.

The most recent Dan Rather Reports that's been posted to YouTube is included. It covers further updates on India's "Untouchables," the Dalit Women. Also covered is forced marriage in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Documentary Night: A History of Celtic Britain

To go along with my previous post, The History of Ancient Britain, comes this post! Done by the same guy as the first post! If you liked the previous documentary, you'll love this one. If you didn't like it, don't bother. It's precisely the same style. The guy's presence on camera grows on you, I have to admit. He should get his hair cut, though. Damn hippy.

In God We Trust

This is a low-budget documentary made about a small town where secularists and Christian extremists clash over religious flags at a taxpayer-funded veterans cemetery. It was made famous by commentary and viewing by Richard Dawkins.

In general, it's much of the same stuff that you will have seen in other documentaries about the subject. I see this is a classier version of Religulous, where Bill Maher just sort of beat up on some poor sots. Yes, they were uneducated and dogmatic, but just because Maher can make fun of them doesn't make me feel good. It makes me feel like Maher is just beating up people. There's an especially sad point at around 1:12:00, with a man who has attempted suicide multiple times, but also has a skeptical, distrustful streak.

This documentary, while treading similar ground, does it with a less mocking tone. It's obviously judgmental; it still posits that these people are wrong, but it does so in a subtle way. It lets us experience what these people believe without much framing from the documentarian, and as such it's sort of preaching to the choir. This won't change minds because the documentary views these people through certain eyes, and it assumes that you are viewing them with the same eyes.

For those with a philosophical mind, the movie will be a bit boring. None of these people are terribly advanced thinkers. A preacher at one point early in the film isn't even aware of the Bible's explicit acceptance, and encouragement, of slavery. My advice to you is to just go off and get angry at another William Lane Craig video.

Documentary Night: A History of Ancient Britain

Quite a few pieces to this one, so it will probably take you more than one night. It's a bit lean on information, and the presenter isn't exactly a firecracker, but it effectively gets you interested in British archaeology.

Cracking Your Genetic Code

Watch Cracking Your Genetic Code on PBS. See more from NOVA.

BBC Horizon: Why Do We Talk?

A Great BBC Protestant Documentary

The flow of great documentaries out of the BBC is seemingly endless. I just finished watching Niall Ferguson's Civilization: Is The West History, which was problematic, and I already find this one.

I like this one more, but it still falls for what I consider the fallacy of causation. I take a sort of James Burkeian perspective, which I consider the correct perspective, that there is no linear causation in history. There are webs of causation. So to say that the Protestant Reformation was the root of all of these things is an inaccuracy.

Regardless of that almost exegetical issue, I find this documentary, and its presenter, really compelling. They present the effects of the Reformation entertainingly, while not sacrificing information density.