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Friday Nite Videos -- August 23, 2013

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A New Generation of Civil Rights Fighters. The Story of Gershwin, Harlem and the Blues. Deport the Statue of Liberty. Cracking the Codes: A Trip to the Grocery Store. When Comedy Went to School. Richie Havens at Woodstock (in memoriam).

The Workers Defense Project, a Union in Spirit

Steven Greenhouse The New York Times
The Workers Defense Project, founded in 2002, has emerged as one of the nation's most creative organizations for immigrant workers. Its focus is the Texas construction industry, which employs more than 600,000 workers. It is one of 225 worker centers nationwide, aiding immigrant workers. Workers Centers show what is possible, and may help infuse new life into the labor movement.

Paul Robeson -- Ballad for Americans

Written by John La Touche, with music by Earl Robinson, as part of a WPA theatre project in 1939, Ballad for Americans was first performed by Paul Robeson. The song emphatically asserts the democratic character of Amerian nationality from class, ethnic and racial, and religious angles, declaring that to be American is to be "Irish, Negro, Jewish, Italian, French and English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Polish, Scotch, Hungarian, Litwak, Swedish, Finnish, Canadian, Greek and Turk and Czech ... and lots more." For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.
 

West Side Story -- America

The musical West Side Story is a Romeo and Juliet crossing rival Italian and Puerto Rican gangs in New York City. In the song America, George Chakiris and Rita Moreno debate whether life is better in the adopted country or the native land. The music is by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.
 

Getting Past the Icon -- Should Photographers Depict Reality, or Try to Change It?

David Bacon Afterimage
Can photographers be participants in the social events they document? Eighty years ago the question would have seemed irrelevant in the political upsurges of the 1930s, in both Mexico and the United States. Many photographers were political activists, and saw their work intimately connected to workers strikes, political revolution or the movements for indigenous rights. Now a book and a recent exhibition should reopen this debate.

Media Bits & Bytes – On the Move Edition – May 7, 2013

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Racializing the Boston Bombers; LA Times Drops the "I-Word"; NY Times, Not So Much; ESPN Becomes New Conduit to Obama; Newspapers Remain Immobile; Online Ads Follow You Around; New Fight Over Internet `Wiretapping'; Feds Becoming Big Customer of Consumer Data Collected by Corporations; Decade of iTunes Killed the CD Industry; Journalism or Churnalism?; Wikipedia Has Women Problems

Fight for May Day’s Two Traditions

By Jane Slaughter Labor Notes
May Day started with the demand for the eight-hour day, and struggles over work time are again front and center as workers experience either drought or flood.

Media Bits & Bytes - As The World Turns edition

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AP drops the "i-word"; FCC’s future; When Google lost its cool; Are alt-weeklies toast?; A ‘disruptive’ cable channel; ProPublica meets Reddit; Time’s big lie; Kochs shop for dailies; Exxon > freedom of speech; NLRB Rules In Favor of CWA Against Cablevision

Immigrants Held in Solitary Cells, Often for Weeks

Ian Urbina and Catherine Rentz The New York Times
The United States has come under sharp criticism at home and abroad for relying on solitary confinement in its prisons more than any other democratic nation in the world. While Immigration and Customs Enforcement places only about 1 percent of its jailed immigrants in solitary, this practice is nonetheless startling because those detainees are being held on civil, not criminal, charges.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars - Be Careful What You Wish For edition

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Growth of Radical Right Wing Groups * Getting Rid of Lifeline "Obama Phones"? * Class Issues in Honey Boo Boo * Tech Companies Support Gay Marriage * Disney Video Game Shows Girls How to Climb the NYC Social Ladder * Father Hacks 'Donkey Kong' for Daughter * New Building Design for New Uses at Public Libraries * The Rise of `The American Conservative' * Surprising New Immigrant Geography * The `Harlem Shake' and Class Politics
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