Thursday, October 18, 2012

What can one page do? A tribute to Dennis Littky







Dennis Littky's book is 8 years old this year.   The Big Picture:  Education is Everybody's Business is still available.   Why not look at this book?   This book inspires my husband:  at least once a week I catch him looking at it.


Why not just click here?

Learn about the school (video)





Falafel in California, thanks to Erik Friedl

I have learned a lot from Youtube.  A reliable source of unusual cultural items (that make me say, "hey, I've never seen THAT!") is Erik Friedl's channel www.Youtube.com/aiglon27.   Here is a link to a recent video that he posted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN79R-oCnx0


Click here and you will see the following images:

Warning:  When I saw this video, I wanted to click pause and drive out to the local Arab deli and get some cous-cous and falafels.
Be sure you have eaten something before watching this video or looking at the rest of this blog.




 Here is the description of this video as it appears on Youtube:

A vibrant pan-Arab celebration in southern California featuring Arabic cuisine, music and dance. The festival-goers hail from countries that span North Africa from Morocco to Egypt and extend across the Middle East from Lebanon to the nations of the Arabian Peninsula. With the momentous and historic changes sweeping their ancestral homelands, Arab Americans have raised their voices in response to the raging civil war in Syria, the movement toward Palestinian statehood, and the backlash encountered in the post-9/11 era.

Filmed and edited by Erik Friedl.

I'm ready...


Erik's videos transport me (without the delays of an airline trip or the cost of a ticket) to the locales that he has captured with his camera.  He uses a larger camera than I do, so he gets kids ask him, "What TV station are you with?  Can we get on TV?"




"We come here to learn about each other."

Exuberant members of the audience.


 Kids who strike rapper poses
What TV show are you from?


Are we going to be on TV?








See more 

Restore the wetlands  
An appreciation for southern California's coastal wetlands and the vital role they play in maintaining a healthy environment and balanced ecosystem.

Presented by Susan and Dan Gottlieb. Directed, filmed and edited by Erik Friedl. Music by Nathanael Barbey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nGYnpWs-uU