All Down The Line

[Gio]

Stranger at the Gate

| 2023 Oscar-Nominated Short |
The New Yorker Documentary

An Afghan refugee named Bibi Bahrami – and the members of her little Indiana mosque – come face to face with a U.S. Marine who has secret plans to bomb their community center. But Mac McKinney's plan takes an unexpected turn. Directed by Joshua Seftel, it is a story of grace, transformation, and hope.

2022

30:13 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbbl1S6foM

[Emil El Zapato]

Truly inspiring...

[Gio]

"If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith".

The Chronicles of a New York Locksmith
| Keys to the City

The New Yorker Documentary

May 24, 2023
Leading up to his retirement, a New York craftsman trains his young protégé, in a short documentary by Ian Moubayed

32:05 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg6o7NDIsmM

[Gio]

Very troubling aspects...

Sex tourists in Thailand

DW Documentary

Nov 30, 2023
Thailand's resort town of Pattaya is still a center of international sex tourism. Since the coronavirus is no longer an obstacle to travel, hundreds of thousands of men from all over the world are again flocking to the country in search of women and sex.

Go-go bars, seedy massage parlors and plenty of open-air beer stalls with scantily clad young women: All this is part of the draw for sex tourists of all ages, here in the coastal metropolis of Pattaya on Thailand's west coast. After a pandemic pause, sex tourism is returning to what passes for normal here.

One German tourist sums it up for the camera: "Why are we all here? Here you get more sex for less money!" A younger German doesn't agree: "I'm not looking for sex here, I'm looking for love," says Stefan, complaining that his numerous conquests are always after his money in the end.

The "red light vacationers" have been waiting for two years: Pattaya's huge entertainment district lay completely fallow due to Covid-19. For the city's approximately 60,000 sex workers, this was a threatening situation. Because the Thai state generates billions in tax revenue from the sex business, but prostitution is officially banned, those working in the trade were excluded from all government aid programs. Take sex worker Aom, for example. She became pregnant by a German client who initially swore to stand by her, before abandoning her with the baby. Now Aom is using a lawyer to try to at least enforce child support payments, while she continues to work in the sex trade. "I'm done with German clients," she says.

The documentary delves into Pattaya's red-light scene -- and documents a lot of hypocrisy. Some German sex tourists convince themselves that their payments ensure the survival of impoverished Thai families. One restaurant owner from northern Germany tells the filmmakers that the girls only stand on the side of the road in such short skirts because of the warm weather here.
Tour operators also earn money from the sex business, even if they don't like to talk about it. All of them have Pattaya in their program. German tour operators are proud of the fact that they have signed a commitment to take action against child prostitution. But who monitors that?

The coronavirus lockdown massively aggravated the problem of abuse. In the red-light district of Pattaya, where according to local officials there is no longer any prostitution of minors, the film team comes across evidence of pedophilia crimes. And a German national who is still able to leave the country shortly after his arrest. How can this be? When it comes to this important issue, is international cooperation actually delivering?

42:25 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6vBvB1Fyjo

About
DW Documentary gives you information beyond the headlines. Watch top documentaries from German broadcasters and international production companies. Meet intriguing people, travel to distant lands, get a look behind the complexities of daily life and build a deeper understanding of current affairs and global events

[Gio]

#another troubling trend ...

When your political activism freaks out your family
| Us & Them

DW Documentary

Dec 2, 2023
María in Mexico wants an end to violence against women; Somkele is fighting for democracy in Nigeria. But their parents have mixed feelings about their children’s activism. After all, political engagement can be dangerous.

22-year-old María attends protest rallies, sprays walls with feminist graffiti and is active on social media attacking machismo and challenging the threat to young women posed by men in her country. Her parents are afraid for their daughter and concerned that she will become radicalized. Her mother Maira is a devout Catholic and her father Carlos is a civil servant. While they understand María’s anger, they’re afraid for her life. That’s because around 10 women are murdered every day in Mexico. Simply because of their gender.

34:45 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdNUcJYN2Kc

[Emil El Zapato]

#another troubling trend ...

When your political activism freaks out your family
| Us & Them

DW Documentary



34:45 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdNUcJYN2Kc

Several things I have noticed are interesting but two of the most ironic are that the daughter is 24 and living at home. My daughter would find that 'interesting' but not reason for condemnation. The other thing is that the daughter doesn't join a radical action group because 'her parents won't let her'. What?! Somehow I don't see my daughter asking me for permission, maybe her mother but I seriously doubt it.

[Gio]

Very well reported with a look ...



Inside Wagner: The Rise of Russia's Notorious Mercenaries

Vice News

Dec 5, 2023
Inside Wagner is a gripping and definitive look at the group's presence across several continents with a deep dive into the group's operations, personalities, and modus operandi.

44:22 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtSf9ktubO0

[Gio]

Just recent ...

Graham Hancock: Beyond Ancient Apocalypse
| Presentation @ Logan Hall, London

Dec 2, 2023
Graham gives a presentation at UCL's Logan Hall, London, expanding on some of the themes of his Netflix series 'Ancient Apocalypse'.
https://grahamhancock.com/

0:00 Introduction
3:09 Talk starts. Native American DNA studies
11:00 Clovis culture
18:15 Cerutti Mastodon
21:22 SAA letter to Netflix
23:12 Sphinx temples
24:45 Gobleki Tepe
28:15 Baalbek
30:48 The Andes
36:49 The Sahara
38:33 Ancient Maps
42:45 The Underworld
52:14 The Amazon
1:01:35 Ancient Egypt and the journey of the soul
1:13:31 North America
1:16:34 The common connection

1:31:01 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2PNqelhFOE

[Gio]

Hoping to give visibility to this invisible segment of the population, who have too often been left behind in a harried, hectic modern world.

A postman forges a letter sent to an old woman,
as an act of kindness.

film titled

1.2 Million

Mark is a young postman at a new post in Yorkshire, England. During one delivery to a kind-hearted old woman named Mary on his route, he intercepts a letter to her and discovers it's from her son Joseph, who's quite far away from her, physically and emotionally. Having dropped the letter in water, he opens it to fix or repair it but finds it a bit heartless. So he decides to alter the original to be more loving.

But as he continues the ruse, Mark's guilt starts to grow, and he is forced to decide whether or not to tell Mary the heartbreaking truth -- or continue to feed the well-meaning but increasingly tricky pile of lies.

Written and directed by Anastasia Arsentyeva, this short drama is a focused, compact slice-of-life about connection and the responsibility we have to one another. Its clear, engaged storytelling aims to give voice and thought to an almost invisible phenomenon: the increased marginalization of the elderly.

2019

10:42 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FlazkHOTaU

[Gio]

"For 64 years Edmund's fate was unknown,
But now we could finally give Santa a home" ...


MIRACLE ON CATALINA STREET
| The Edmund Gwenn Story

HollywoodGraveyard

Dec 4, 2023
On December 3, 2023, we welcomed Edmund Gwenn (Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street) to his new home at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. His urn was rediscovered earlier this year after 64 years in an inaccessible vault at Chapel of the Pines.

Thank you to everyone who donated to support these efforts!
And special thanks to Chapel of the Pines, and Hollywood Forever Cemetery, for working with us to make this Christmas miracle happen.
In collaboration with Jessica Wahl

6:12 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z9vSpAyKU0

Miracle on Catalina Street
By Arthur Dark

T'was three weeks before Christmas, when all through the hall
Of an old mausoleum, people sat near a pall.
They'd come from afar, and they'd come from anear,
To see ol' Kris Kringle, get laid to rest here.
But shed not a tear on this solemn occasion,
For Santa's not dead -- do you need some persuasion?
If you look to your left, and you look to your right,
Your eyes will behold a most curious sight.
Santas, not one, but two, three, or more,
Through them lives the spirit of Christmases of yore.
They've come here to honor their key inspiration,
The Santa of film for a whole generation.
He made us believe in that magic again,
We call him Kris Kringle, his name's Edmund Gwenn.
But after his death, Edmund's urn was mislaid,
Lost down in a vault, there for decades it stayed.
We searched high and low, and we searched all around,
But hope grew quite dim that he'd ever be found.
'Til one fateful day, a hard-working elf,
Found wrapped in a bag, Edmund's urn on a shelf.
She shouted with glee, "He's not lost anymore!
We've found him! We've found him, that man we adore!"
For 64 years Edmund's fate was unknown,
But now we could finally give Santa a home.
Despite all the years passed since he did depart,
Our dear Edmund Gwenn had not once left our heart.
That jolly old man, he made Christmas so pleasant,
It now was our turn to give Santa a present.
So we all came together, showing love in return,
To give Mr. Gwenn a glass house for his urn.
Here Edmund will rest, from this storied December,
Forever adored by those who still remember.
Now out of the dark, finally brought to the light,
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

[Gio]

Will share this here ...



An 11% waxing crescent moon sets behind the Statue of Liberty in
New York City on Friday evening (12/15/23).

A Poem by Emma Lazarus Changed the Meaning of Lady Liberty



By Robert McNamara

When the Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, the ceremonial speeches had nothing to do with immigrants arriving in America. The sculptor who created the enormous statue, Fredric-Auguste Bartholdi, never intended the statue to evoke the idea of immigration. In a sense, he viewed his creation as something nearly opposite: as a symbol of liberty spreading outward from America.

So how and why did the statue become an iconic symbol of immigration? The Statue is now always linked in the public mind with arriving immigrants thanks to the words of Emma Lazarus. Lady Liberty took on deeper meaning because of the sonnet written in its honor, "The New Colossus."

Poet Emma Lazarus Was Asked to Write a Poem

Before the Statue of Liberty was completed and shipped to the United States for assembly, a campaign was organized by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer to raise funds to build the pedestal on Bedloe’s Island. Donations were very slow in coming, and in the early 1880s it appeared that the statue might never be assembled in New York. There were even rumors that another city, perhaps Boston, could wind up with the statue.

Fundraising events were organized, one of which was an art show. The poet Emma Lazarus, who was known and respected in the artistic community in New York City, was asked to participate.

Lazarus was a 34-year-old native New Yorker, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family with roots going back to the colonial era in New York City. She had become very concerned about the plight of Jews being persecuted in a pogrom in Russia.

Newly arrived Jewish refugees from Russia were being housed on Ward's Island, in New York City's East River. Lazarus had been visiting them and had gotten involved with charitable organizations helping the destitute new arrivals get a start in their new country.

The writer Constance Cary Harrison asked Lazarus to write a poem to help raise money for the Statue of Liberty pedestal fund. Lazarus, at first, was not interested in writing something on assignment.

Emma Lazarus Applied Her Social Conscience

Harrison later recalled that she encouraged Lazarus to change her mind by saying, “Think of that goddess standing on her pedestal down yonder in the bay, and holding her torch out to those Russian refugees of yours that you are so fond of visiting at Ward’s Island.”

Lazarus reconsidered and wrote the sonnet, “The New Colossus.” The opening of the poem refers to the Colossus of Rhodes, an ancient statue of a Greek titan. But Lazarus then refers to the statue which “shall” stand as a “mighty woman with a torch” and the “Mother of Exiles.”

Later in the sonnet are the lines which eventually became iconic:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Thus in the mind of Lazarus the statue was not symbolic of liberty flowing outward from America, as Bartholdi envisioned, but rather a symbol of America being a refuge where those oppressed could come to live in liberty. Lazarus was no doubt thinking of the Jewish refugees from Russia she had been volunteering to assist at Ward's Island. And she surely understood that had she been born somewhere else, she may have faced oppression and suffering herself.

The Poem 'The New Colossus' Was Essentially Forgotten

On December 3, 1883, a reception was held at the Academy of Design in New York City to auction off a portfolio of writings and artwork to raise funds for the statue’s pedestal. The next morning the New York Times reported that a crowd which included J. P. Morgan, the famous banker, heard a reading of the poem “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus.

The art auction did not raise as much money as the organizers had hoped. And the poem written by Emma Lazarus seems to have been forgotten. She tragically died of cancer on November 19, 1887, at the age of 38, less than four years after writing the poem. An obituary in the New York Times the following day praised her writing, with the headline calling her "An American Poet of Uncommon Talent." The obituary quoted some of her poems yet did not mention “The New Colossus.”

Thus, the sonnet was generally forgotten not long after it was written. Yet over time the sentiments expressed in words by Lazarus and the massive figure crafted of copper by Bartholdi would become inseparable in the public mind.

The Poem Was Revived by a Friend of Emma Lazarus

In May 1903, a friend of Lazarus, Georgina Schuyler, succeeded in having a bronze plaque containing the text of “The New Colossus” installed on an interior wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

By that time the statue had been standing in the harbor for nearly 17 years, and millions of immigrants had passed by it. And for those fleeing oppression in Europe, the Statue of Liberty did seem to be holding a torch of welcome.

Lady Liberty's Legacy

Over the following decades, especially in the 1920s, when the United States began to restrict immigration, the words of Lazarus took on deeper meaning. And whenever there is talk of closing America's borders, relevant lines from "The New Colossus" are always quoted in opposition.

Still, the poem and its connection to the statue unexpectedly became a contentious issue in the summer of 2017. Stephen Miller, an anti-immigrant adviser to President Donald Trump, sought to denigrate the poem and its connection to the statue.

Two years later, in the summer of 2019, Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Trump administration, sparked a controversy by suggesting that the classic poem be edited. In a series of interviews on August 13, 2019, Cuccinelli said the poem should be changed to refer to immigrants who "can stand on their own two feet." He also noted that the Lazarus poem referred to "people coming from Europe," which critics interpreted as a sign of current bias toward non-white immigrants.

McNamara, Robert. "A Poem by Emma Lazarus Changed the Meaning of Lady Liberty." ThoughtCo, Mar. 4, 2021, thoughtco.com/statue-of-liberty-symbolize-immigration-1774050.

Source page

Sadly and unfortunately, immigration to the United States throughout the country's history has never been about being fair and equal to all seeking refuge within.

Gio Vonni

[Aianawa]

Love to go in n below, Beautifullll star fort she is

Yes a tartar one

[Gio]

And speaking of liberty ...

It Begins… NYC Turns Against It’s Mayor

Cash Jordan

Dec 17, 2023
A new quinnipiac university poll shows NYC’s mayor Eric Adams has 28% approval, but are the big problems in the big apple really his fault, or would former mayors Deblasio and Bloomberg have the same poll numbers if they were the current mayor?

13:34 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuto_QgcRk0

[Gio]

A look back on some immigration ...



A Wee Tour of NYC's Irish History

Tom Delgado
tomdnyc

Dec 17, 2023
Tom Delgado shows you around NYC and tells you the history of the Irish in New York, stopping at various locations associated with their immigration. Shot by Cameron Burton. Music by Shakir Standley (@shakirstandley)

25:47 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mfDbOsaH1c

[Gio]

Some more good, bad, and ugly of early U.S. migration ...


Massacre at Hells Canyon | Oregon Experience


Oregon Public Broadcasting

May 26, 2023 #Oregon #ChinaTown #PacificNorthWest
Hells Canyon is the site of what may be the worst massacre of Chinese people by white settlers in the United States.

Chinese immigrants helped build the West Coast of the United States, but they faced unprecedented legalized discrimination and violence. In 1887, a gang of Wallowa County, Oregon, men killed as many as 34 Chinese gold miners along the Snake River. For over a century, the murders were covered up, and no one was held accountable. This program delves into the mystery of what really happened at Chinese Massacre Cove and who was responsible.

27:18 min.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx6Lzw6LoL0