The critically acclaimed HBO drama The Wire returns in two weeks for its fifth and final season and already tongues are wagging in anticipation. The ground-breaking series that tells stories more like a first rate novel than a television show, will cap off its run by focusing in on how the media covers—or doesn’t cover—the issues faced by most major cities.
The Wire uses Baltimore as its backdrop and in season one, it explored the drug trade and the cat and mouse game between dealers and city police. Season two continued the tale using the city’s waterfront to illustrate the disappearance of good paying jobs for dock workers and working class people in general and the struggle just to survive. City Hall, government indifference and the need for political reform was tackled in season three, while the educational system and how neglect of our young people breeds the next generation of desperate survivors was the focus last season, in what some consider the best one of all.
Feeling he has told all the stories he has to tell, producer David Simon has rejected offers to prolong the series just for the sake of keeping it on the air, and in so doing, has kept standards high. Familiar faces from the first four seasons will return along with several new characters in the role of newspaper reporters. Season five begins January 6.
You can feel it in the air. All around us people are hustling and bustling about, filling the stores and malls in search of just the right present for their loved ones. Christmas time is just days away.
While the holiday season is typically a joyous and festive occasion marked by gift-giving and merriment, not everyone is so fortunate. Every year a deserving few dream of a visit from Santa and hope they too will be remembered, but more often than not they are left unsatisfied. This year, you can do something to help.
Show your love this year for someone who would truly appreciate hearing from you. Click on this link and go directly to a site where you can select a nice gift from a long list of his favorite items, and have it sent in time for the holidays. That special someone will be deeply appreciative and you will have the satisfaction of knowing you brought joy to his heart this Christmas.
A simple act of kindness goes long, long way. Please give generously.
(What, you thought I was talking about some poor kids or something?)
While network television is mired in rerun and reality show hell as film and television producers unwisely choose not to negotiate and settle their differences with striking members of the Writers Guild, there is worthwhile viewing to be found on some public television stations.
The Freedom Files is a nine-part series returning for its second season this fall with a slate of new programs examining the legal inequities around the death penalty, same-sex marriage, gay parenting, voting rights, immigrants’ rights, surveillance, sex education, the school-to-prison pipeline, and unlawful imprisonment and torture.
These half-hour documentaries feature the firsthand accounts of real people who have taken on the powers that be, often at great risk to themselves, in order to preserve their precious constitutional rights. They draw on the power of true stories to highlight vital civil liberties issues of our time and inspire viewers to take action.
This excerpt from an episode called, “Freedom to Marry” follows the lives of three Maryland couples seeking to overturn state law that bars same-sex couples from marriage. Takia Foskey and Jo Rabb had a commitment ceremony four years ago but despite being in a committed relationship, they lack the hundreds of legal protections afforded to heterosexual married couples, and must worry about how to protect their family without these protections.
Filmmaker and political activist Robert Greenwald, whose ground-breaking films include Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers and Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, continues as executive producer of the series.
The episodes will be distributed nationwide to public television stations, and sneak previews will air in the fall on Peabody award-winning Link TV. The programs also will be made available on Web sites such as YouTube.com.
Meanwhile, Newark, NJ-based public radio station 88.3 WBGO-FM will shed light on an overlooked and neglected segment of that city’s population, its LGBT community. Thursday night at 8 pm ET, on Newark Today first-term Newark Mayor Cory Booker will answer questions and field listener calls and emails on some of the harsh conditions facing the city’s gays and lesbians. Those conditions recently came to light in a New York Times article that contrasted the progressive social legislation happening across the rest of New Jersey with the often blatant homophobia that exists in its largest city.
Listeners outside the area can tune in via the internet at www.wbgo.org.