Criminal Justice Scholar to Moderate Film Discussion

Dr. Christina Lane will lead audience discussion following this Friday's screening of Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action, as part of the Justice & Multiculturalism in the 21st Century Film Series, cosponsored by the NYS Writers Institute and the School of Criminal Justice.

A faculty member at the College of Saint Rose and alumna of the UAlbany School of Criminal Justice doctoral program, Professor Lane is a multiple year honoree in America’s Who’s Who Teachers of Excellence. She teaches courses in Criminal Justice, Behavior & Law, Forensic Psychology, and Forensic Science.

HOMELAND: FOUR PORTRAITS OF NATIVE ACTION
February 15 (Friday)Film screening — 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Roberta Grossman
(United States, 2006, 88 minutes, color)

An artful and moving example of documentary filmmaking, HOMELAND follows the stories of Native American activists fighting to protect their lands against corporate exploitation and environmental destruction. Variety called the film, “Beautifully crafted...,” and said “Roberta Grossman skillfully intersperses vastly varied archival clips with quietly impassioned testimonials by tribal leaders and stunning lensing showcasing both the natural wonders and the man-made degradation of the landscape.”

More on the film series:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html

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Homeland Film Tomorrow: "Visually Stunning"

Tomorrow, Friday 2/15 at Page Hall, 7:30PM, we will screen Homeland, winner of numerous prizes at documentary festivals around the world. The film follows the battles of Native American activists to save the natural beauty and resources of their reservations from corporate exploitation.

"Beautifully crafted... Roberta Grossman skillfully intersperses vastly varied archival clips with quietly impassioned testimonials by tribal leaders and stunning lensing showcasing both the natural wonders and the manmade degradation of the landscape... Homeland merits a wider audience than provided by scattershot PBS airings... At a time when 30 years of environmental protection laws are being rapidly dismantled, Homeland militantly proposes America's First Peoples as the vangaurd of resistence." -- Variety

"Visually stunning... [Homeland] is a perfect blend of visuals, words, musical background, and thought-provoking issues related not only to Native Americans but to the environmental crisis facing America. " -- School Library Journal

"The story of a U.S. tragedy -- multinational companies doing their deadly work in Native peoples' backyards -- and of the brave few who stand up to combat it." -- The Utne Reader

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Jorgen Randers Last Night

Influential futurist Jorgen Randers, author of 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years (2012), spoke last night to a packed Lecture Center audience of approximately 400.

Audience members remarked on the sharp contrast between Randers' sunny disposition and the terrifying implications of his data.

For more on Randers, go to http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/randers_jorgen13.html.

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Jorgen Randers In the Times Union

Jorgen Randers, who visits today, Wednesday, Feb. 8th, is interviewed by Elizabeth Floyd Mair in the Times Union:

Global thinking, global warning

Norwegian environmental scientist sees a bleak future unfolding if nations do not change course

   Jorgen Randers has spent much of his adult life worrying about the future. Not his own, but that of the planet.The environmental scientist co-authored the classic "The Limits to Growth" in 1972, which examined humanity's overuse of the Earth's finite natural resources and discussed a variety of scenarios that could result over the next four decades.
   Fast-forward 40 years to 2012, when Randers issued a new book, "2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years." In it, Randers, displaying a curious mix of passion and resignation, takes a hard look at what he believes the future is likely to be.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Global-thinking-and-global-warning-4240722.php#ixzz2K8DsSRYM
More on Randers' visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/randers_jorgen13.html

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Fracking Panel at Festival of Writers in Rensselaerville

The Festival of Writers in Rensselaerville will open today 7/26 with a panel on fracking that will feature New York Times blogger Andrew Revkin of the "Dot Earth" blog. Revkin is also the author of the 1990 book, The Burning Season: The Murder Of Chico Mendes And The Fight For The Amazon Rain Forest, the basis of a 1994 HBO film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Raul Julia.
Other panelists are Stu Gruskin, former Deputy Commissioner of NYSDEC and Dr. Erik Kiviat, Executive Director of Hudsonia. Robert Moore, Executive Director of Environmental Advocates of New York, will moderate.  More.

Full schedule of events:  http://www.festivalofwriters.org/schedule/

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"Global Warming's Terrifying New Math"

The most talked-about piece on global warming this year was written by Bill McKibben, Glens Falls native and Vermont resident who participated in the Writers Institute's "Telling the Truth" symposium back in 1991.

From this week's Rolling Stone:

"If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe."

More.

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Shalom Auslander: Hating His New Car

Shalom Auslander, who visits Thursday 3/1, regrets his purchase of a "carbon-frugal" car in a piece that appeared in The Guardian in 2008:

"I hated my new car. I hated Japan. I wanted a gas-guzzler. I wanted a car with negative miles per gallon. I wanted a Ford F-150. I wanted a Ford F-350. I wanted a Ford F-550, with an extra engine strapped to the top that didn't even attach to anything, it just ran continuously, all day and all night, doing nothing but spreading toxins and poison into the atmosphere of a planet full of people I loathed. I wanted a car that ran on CFCs, and I wanted to drive it across the planet with "Bite me, mankind," written across the back window. And when, a few weeks later, I returned home, all mankind would be gone and I would laugh and laugh and choke and die. Happily."

More.

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John Sayles: Filmmaker for the Environment

John Sayles, who visits UAlbany this coming Monday, Feb. 27, is this year's recipient of Duke University's LEAF Award for Lifetime Environmental Achievement.

"Nicholas School Dean Bill Chameides said the LEAF Award does not necessarily go to artists whose work is explicitly environmental, but goes to those who explore environmental themes on a profound level."

"'[Sayles examines] the theme of our connection to land, to the earth and to the difficulties we have in trying to balance the various needs and desires for the resources of that land,' Chameides said." More.

Picture: Water buffalo in Amigo, to be screened Friday, Feb. 24 in the Performing Arts Center uptown.

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