Pledge of Allegiance Blues documents the journey of Rev. Dr. Michael Newdow, the blues-singing California physician and his battle to protect the separation between church and state, a battle that took him all the way to the United States Supreme Court where he defended the landmark "under God" lawsuit. From the controversy over the Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama State Courthouse to a historical analysis about the intertwining of religion and government in American history, Pledge of Allegiance Blues is a smart and funny examination of the often tense relationship between church and state. With toe-tapping musical numbers by Newdow, a cast of characters including attorney Alan Dershowitz, publisher Larry Flynt, and radio talk-show host Sandy Rios, this critically acclaimed documentary provides a contemporary and provocative look at one man’s campaign to defend his constitutional rights.

“Both as a lesson in law and as an entertaining personality profile, Pledge of Allegiance Blues is highly recommended. Three and a half stars”
-Video Librarian

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03, July 2008 , 14:07


by Glenys Livingstone
 
When I first encountered the work of Marija Gimbutas in a library in country Australia at the beginning of my post-graduate research on earlier layers of human consciousness, it was the lighting of a flame ... perhaps the re-lighting. Her book now known as The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe - then hard to get - presented a view of the world that was so different from the views I had felt were set in concrete. It was the opening up of a heretofore hidden, dormant layer of the human story, a presentation of "the spiritual manifestations of Old Europe". "Old Europe" itself was a concept brought into being by Marija Gimbutas' grounded research, which uncovered it as a "distinct culture developing a unique identity" as she writes in the Introduction to her now readily available book. Her work fed both the scientist and the Poet in me, and the one who longed to know her roots in this Earth. Gimbutas' method was the application of a rigorous scientific mind - Europeon-trained in the discipline of archaeology - in combination with an intuitive sensuous indigenous relationship with her material. And so it is for this great documentary of her life and work, of her theories and her critics, and of her influence on scholarship and consciousness studies. It is itself a document of the complexities and confluences of all these aspects, and pleasurably presented with narration, interviews and animated graphics...
 

03, July 2008 , 08:38


Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman
Pregnancy -- Ariel Goreprint

I’m hardly a pro-lifer, but let’s be honest: Folks come to me when they don’t want to get an abortion.

When friends get knocked up unexpectedly-or even quite expectedly-they know I’ll support them whatever their choice. But they’ve got plenty of friends who’ll support their right to terminate. Not so many will support their right to have a baby.

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01, July 2008 , 11:18


30, June 2008 , 08:24


Women and Spirituality
On Words -- Amina Wadudprint

Today my grandson turns two years old. As it happens my plans to move from the east coast, where he now lives, were already in motion before he was born. First stop on my trip was to await his birth during the last days of my daughter’s pregnancy. All the things they say about grand children after one’s own children have been delightfully true. But I miss that every day and in-every-way- development of communication: from the first languishing infant wail to the comprehendible codification of one’s native language group. Right now, he is loquacious, like his mama and nana. Only, his words are not comprehensible to the average listener. They fall rapidly from his lips like bells tinkling in the Nepalese valleys. On and on and on he goes, with no easy semblance to the English over which he will soon become master.

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27, June 2008 , 12:00


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