THIRTEEN To Stream "Take This Hammer," Historic Documentary About Author And Activist James Baldwin

James Baldwin, "Take This Hammer"

WNET, home to tri-state-area PBS Stations THIRTEEN, WLIW21 and NJTV, is making the groundbreaking 1963 documentary, Take This Hammer, available via Facebook Live on Friday, February 24 at 8 pm.

This event marks the first time WNET will release an archival film via Facebook. 

"We are privileged to have a broad archive of noteworthy film content from throughout our 54-year history," says WNET President and CEO Neal Shapiro, "And Facebook Live can serve as yet another way to broaden the channels we use to reach the public with high-quality, informative and free content."

In Take this Hammer, author and activist James Baldwin meets with members of the local African-American community in San Francisco in the spring of 1963. He is escorted by Youth For Service's Executive Director Orville Luster and is intent on discovering "the real situation of Negroes in the city, as opposed to the image San Francisco would like to present."

Excerpts from Take this Hammer appear in the Academy Award-Nominated film, I Am Not your Negro, a film by Raoul Peck, Rémi Grellety and Hébert Peck that explores Baldwin's plans to write a biography of Malcom X, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr.

> Join the livestream of Take This Hammer on Friday, February 24 at 8 PM here < It will be available for viewing for one-week.

WNET is New York's flagship PBS station. (PRNewsFoto/WNET)

About WNET

WNET is America's flagship PBS station and parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21. WNET also operates NJTV, the statewide public media network in New Jersey. Through its broadcast channels, three cable services (KidsThirteen, Create and World) and online streaming sites, WNET brings quality arts, education and public affairs programming to more than five million viewers each week. WNET produces and presents such acclaimed PBS series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, PBS NewsHour Weekend, Charlie Rose and a range of documentaries, children's programs, and local news and cultural offerings. WNET's groundbreaking series for children and young adults include Get the Math, Oh Noah! and Cyberchase as well as Mission US, the award-winning interactive history game. WNET highlights the tri-state's unique culture and diverse communities through NYC-ARTS, Reel 13, NJTV News with Mary Alice Williams and MetroFocus, the daily multi-platform news magazine focusing on the New York region. In addition, WNET produces online-only programming including the award-winning series about gender, First Person, and an intergenerational look at tech and pop culture, The Chatterbox with Kevin and Grandma Lill. In 2015, 

SOURCE: WNET New York Public Media

SS-GB: Why The Renewed Obsession With Alternative Nazi Histories?

BBC/Sid Gentle Films Ltd/Laurie Sparham

By Sam Edwards, Manchester Metropolitan University

Nazis have taken over London – on screens at least. The BBC’s absorbing new series SS-GB, based on Len Deighton’s popular 1978 novel, imagines a world in which the Nazis have invaded and defeated Britain by 1941.

Such an imaginative conceit is by no means unusual. Similar dystopian visions of Nazi victory in World War II have long been popular. Take, for instance, Richard Harris’ Fatherland (1992), Stephen Fry’s Making History (1996), Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America (2004) and CJ Sansom’s acclaimed Dominion (2012). There was even Iron Sky, the 2012 film which imagined that the defeated Nazis fled to the other side of the moon in 1945 only to plan a space fleet to return to conquer Earth some 60 years later.

As Gavriel Rosenfeld has eloquently argued, persistent rewriting of history is intimately connected to changing perceptions of the Third Reich’s real historical legacy as well as to subversive efforts to “normalise” the Nazi past in the West, and especially in the United States and Britain. Through imagining a life of defeat and occupation, Britons and Americans (who have authored, read or viewed the vast majority of these visions) are able to bathe in the still-lingering glow of victory while at the same time closing the distance between themselves and their wartime enemies.

This nightmare of a Nazi military victory – and of a Nazified world order – was in fact first explored in pre-war fiction, most notably Katharine Burdakin’s Swastika Night (1937). But it was not until the Cold War that the idea took hold, with a flurry of activity in the early 60s.

The year 1964 saw The Other Man air on ITV (with Michael Caine in the lead role) and 1965 the cinematic release of the powerful and provocative It Happened Here. Using deliberately grainy 16mm black and white film, this latter production offered a harrowing portrayal of what a Nazi occupation of Britain might have looked like.

In the United States, meanwhile, the most powerful vision of a Nazi victory was surely Philip K Dick’s 1963 story, The Man in the High Castle. Set in the 60s, Dick describes an America occupied in the West by Imperial Japan and in the East by the Nazis. The two victors of World War II are technically at peace, but tensions are mounting, particularly once the Japanese government learns that their Nazi “allies” may be developing new and terrifying weaponry in order to secure overall control of the North American continent.

Tellingly, these 60s stories are once again very popular. Dick’s frightening vision is the subject of a current Amazon Prime TV series, now in its second season. Similar imaginings have featured in the NBC series Timeless (2016), which features an episode given over to a rewriting of World War II, while the 2011 Welsh film Resistance (starring Michael Sheen) begins with the failure of D-Day and the subsequent German invasion and occupation of Britain.

The BBC’s adaptation of SS-GB is just the latest in this line. Clearly, alternative histories of a Nazified world again have commercial and cultural traction.

Nazi obsessions
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ideas and images offered by such a counterfactual Nazi world seem to have worked their way into contemporary political discourse.

Amid the ongoing cross-Channel rancour connected to Brexit, Boris Johnson, the current British foreign secretary, asked whether the French president François Hollande’s function within the EU was akin to a Nazi prison guard. And during a recent and now typical Twitter outburst, Donald Trump, the US president, responded to his antagonists (in the media and intelligence community) with a pointed question: “Are we living in Nazi Germany?”

Seen in this context, the contemporary fascination with counterfactual history is the popular culture counterpart to Trumpian political “truth”. In Trump’s pronouncements and press conferences, truth is invented and reinvented on a daily basis. Media critics are Nazis; civil rights leaders once battered by the baton are “all talk”; the families of heroic veterans can quickly become villains; and famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass is even resurrected from the dead.

Welcome to a Nazified London. Sid Gentle Films Ltd // Screen Grab

On TV, meanwhile, history is remade and re-imagined via the most persistent Anglo-American “what if” nightmare – Nazi victory. The popularity of this kind of television history in the “post-truth” age of fake news surely makes perfect sense: they are two sides of the same coin. While very different in purpose and power, both are suggestive of a world in which the lines between fact and fiction are increasingly blurred. But the apparently symbiotic connection between the two should also give us pause for thought, particularly when the last age of counterfactual fascination – the 60s – is kept in mind.

Now, beware a spoiler. At the very end of his story, Dick confronts the reader with a revelation. The “reality” of an Axis victory is a myth, and the counterfactual histories of Allied victory authored – to Nazi irritation – by the mysterious “man in the high castle” are instead the “truth”. It is a skillful plot device, arresting and jolting. It also invites a troubling thought: if the “man in the high castle” writes the truth from deep within a myth, what does this mean for Dick’s own relationship with – and to – the 1960s? Does it suggest that Dick was similarly in a high castle and that his counterfactual vision of Nazis in New York contained a “truth” of sorts?

Dick’s contemporaries later endured the Age of Nixon, witnessed frequent racialised brutality targeting African-Americans in the south, and encountered – and perpetrated – the massacre of My Lai in the Vietnam War (which one American soldier later admitted was a “Nazi kind of thing”).

As we enter our own counterfactual age, in which truth is twisted and lies disseminated, the renewed obsession with “alternative histories” provides a powerful cautionary reminder of what can happen when nightmares are made real.


About Today's Contributor:
Sam Edwards, Senior Lecturer in History, Manchester Metropolitan University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. .

NASA Cargo Headed to Space Station Includes Important Experiments, Equipment

Image via www.nasa.gov

Major experiments that will look into a range of scientific disciplines from human health to atmospheric conditions on Earth are on their way to the International Space Station following liftoff at 9:39 a.m. EST aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. About 5,500 pounds of research equipment, cargo and supplies are packed into the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that is now in Earth orbit and headed to the station on the CRS-10 mission.

SpaceX's Dragon cargo craft launched from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This was the first commercial launch from Kennedy's historic pad.

Astronauts Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) and Shane Kimbrough of NASA will use the space station's robotic arm to capture Dragon when it arrives at the station. Live coverage of the rendezvous and capture will begin at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 22 on NASA TV and the agency's website, with installation coverage set to begin at 8:30 a.m. 

Research materials flying inside the Dragon's pressurized area include a crystal growth experiment that will crystallize a monoclonal antibody that is undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of immunological diseases. Growing the crystal in space will allow it develop more than it could on Earth where gravity causes crystals to collapse on themselves. Preserving these antibodies in crystals allows researchers a glimpse into how the biological molecules are arranged, which can provide new information about how they work in the body. So far, Earth-grown crystalline suspensions of monoclonal antibodies have proven to be too low-quality to fully model.

Better defining how some bacteria become drug-resistant is the focus of another experiment that aims to develop medicines that counter the resistance. Stem cells like those used to treat strokes and other occurrences also will be studied using experiment supplies brought up on this flight.

The equipment aboard the Dragon includes a major instrument that will survey Earth's upper atmosphere in a continuation of one of NASA's longest-running Earth-observing programs. Called SAGE III for Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment, the instrument examines the levels of ozone, aerosols, nitrogen dioxide and water vapor in the stratosphere and troposphere high above Earth. It is the latest version of an experiment that began in 1979 and has created a multi-decade record of measurements. The 2,200-pound instrument will be connected to the outside of the station to make daily observations for several years.

The mission is the company's tenth cargo flight to the station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. Dragon's cargo will support dozens of the more than 250 science and research investigations during the station's Expeditions 50 and 51.

Dragon is scheduled to depart the space station in late March, returning nearly 5,000 pounds of science, hardware and crew supplies.

For more than 16 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space. A global endeavor, more than 200 people from 18 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 1,900 research investigations from researchers in more than 95 countries.

NASA Logo. (PRNewsFoto/NASA) 

• Keep up with the International Space Station, and its research and crews, at: nasa.gov/station
• Get breaking news, images and features from the station on Instagram and Twitter
• Learn more about SpaceX's resupply mission at: nasa.gov/spacex

SOURCE: NASA

CAIR Calls on Feds to Probe Call to Violence Against U.S. Muslims at N.C. Meeting of Hate Groups

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today urged state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate an alleged call to violence against American Muslims during a meeting of hate groups in North Carolina.

According to media reports, a "consortium of tea partiers, patriot groups and other conservative activists" met Thursday at a restaurant in Kernersville, N.C., to hear a presentation on "a supposed Muslim plot to conquer the United States." 

The presentation on the "Islamization of America" included "frequent interruptions about supposed Muslim treachery paired with testimonials about preparedness for violent confrontation and even expressions of readiness to kill Muslims."

One meeting participant allegedly asked the presenter for recommendations about how to stop "Islamization," then added, "Because my only recommendation is to start killing the hell out them." That same person allegedly stated: "I'm ready to start taking people out." He replied, "Shed some blood, too," in response to the presenter's call to "shed some light" on the issue.

SEE: Local Conservative Activists Prepare for Violent Confrontation with Islam (Includes Audio of Presentation)

In response to the reported call to kill Muslims, a member of the hate group ACT for America allegedly stated: "I can understand that. But we're not there yet." ACT for America's anti-Muslim bigotry was highlighted recently in a Washington Post exposé.

SEE: This group believes Islam threatens America: 'It's a spiritual battle of good and evil.'

"Calls to violence against members of any minority group warrant a criminal investigation by state law enforcement authorities and the FBI," said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. "We call on President Trump to repudiate the growing bigotry in our nation targeting Muslims, Hispanics, immigrants, refugees, and other minority groups."

He said CAIR has noted an unprecedented spike in hate rhetoric and bias-motivated incidents targeting American Muslims and other minorities since the election of President Trump.

Last month, CAIR condemned a terror attack on a Canadian mosque by a suspect who had expressed anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments on social media. Six worshipers were killed in the attack and 17 others were wounded.

SEE: CAIR Condemns Terror Attack on Canadian Mosque, Urges U.S. Muslims to Take Security Measures

Hooper noted that, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, The number of anti-Muslim groups in the United States tripled between 2015 and 2016.

Report: Anti-Muslim Groups Triple in U.S. Amid Trump Hate Rhetoric

The Washington-based Muslim civil rights group is asking Muslim community members to report any bias incidents to police and to CAIR's Civil Rights Department at 202-742-6420 or by filing a report at: cair.com/civil-rights/report-an-incident/view/form.html 

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

SOURCE: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

Prime Minister Trudeau Concludes Successful Visit To Europe

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today concluded a successful visit to France and Germany from February 16 to 17, 2017. During the visit, the Prime Minister addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, and visited Berlin and Hamburg, Germany.

The Prime Minister's visit reinforced the close bonds between Canada, Germany, and the European Union (EU). It was also an opportunity to promote Canada's role as a leader on progressive trade and investment, and highlight how the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will create good, well-paying jobs, bolster our shared prosperity, and help grow the middle class.‎

During his historic address to the European Parliament, the Prime Minister spoke of the importance Canada places on its relationship with the EU and welcomed the European Parliament's vote to approve CETA and the Canada-EU Strategic Partnership Agreement.

In Berlin, the Prime Minister met with outgoing President Joachim Gauck and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In these meetings, key economic and foreign policy issues were discussed, including CETA. They also exchanged views on pressing international security concerns, including migration, the situation in Ukraine, and the fight against terrorism and Daesh.

While in Berlin, the Prime Minister paid his respects to the more than six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. During his visit, he laid a wreath in honour of all the victims. He and Chancellor Merkel were greeted by the Mayor of Berlin, Michael Müller, at Breitscheidplatz, central square in Berlin. Both leaders laid a rose in memory of the innocent victims of the Christmas Market attack in December 2016.

In Hamburg, the Prime Minister met with Mayor Olaf Scholz as well as officials from several of Germany's federal states. Following the meetings, the Prime Minister attended Hamburg's annual St. Matthew's Day banquet as this year's invited guest of honour and delivered remarks. The German Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel also spoke at the banquet as an invited guest.

Quotes

"It was a great honour to be the first Canadian Prime Minister to address the full European Parliament following this week's positive vote on CETA. This landmark trade deal puts people first, and will strengthen the middle class on both sides of the Atlantic. Together, I know Canada and the EU will continue to champion progressive free trade deals that benefit everyone."
—Rt. Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

"Germany is a key partner, ally, and friend. We will continue working with Chancellor Merkel to strengthen this important relationship, while advancing our common goals and growing the middle class in both our countries. I look forward to returning to Germany this July for the G20 Leaders' Summit in Hamburg."

—Rt. Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

Quick Facts

• While in Europe, the Prime Minister was joined by the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs; the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of International Trade; and Stéphane Dion, who has been proposed as Canada's next Ambassador to the European Union and Germany.
• Canada and the EU are expected to implement CETA in spring 2017, which will allow businesses on both sides of the Atlantic to take full advantage of the Agreement's significant economic benefits.
• With CETA, Canada and the EU have set the bar high for progressive trade agreements, which will benefit consumers and workers, and protect the environment.

Associated Links

• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to address European Parliament in France and Visit Germany
• CETA: MEPs back EU-Canada trade agreement
• Canada and EU sign historic trade agreement during EU-Canada Summit
• Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
• Canada-EU Strategic Partnership Agreement
• Canada and Europe

SOURCE: Prime Minister's Office