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Description
The Earth's surface gave shape to the early cosmologies of almost every culture. This program explores that universal phenomenon, traveling across the globe to examine the role of geology in religion and myth. From the revered Uluru/Ayers Rock in Australia to Crete's Diktaeon cave-according to tradition, the birthplace of Zeus-the video explains the spiritual significance of numerous sites while connecting them with historical events and scientific...
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In Iran, even laughter is considered sinful by the nation's strict Shiite regime. Yet after revolution and war, Iranians cherish hopes of a freer future. This program describes the impact of life in a modern fundamentalist society on Iran's diverse population, which includes Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It also spotlights the joyful celebration of Sizdah Bedar, which welcomes the spring; the incomparable Iranian crown jewels; monuments such as the...
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Between the early 19th century and the early 21st century, the global population grew from one billion to more than six billion people. This program describes population geography and explains how experts use it to define groups and forecast changes within those groups. First, population distribution and demographics are described. Then, the effects of birth and death rates on the populations of developed and under-developed countries are detailed....
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Who are the Inuit, and what are their origins? In this program, host Niobe Thompson, an anthropologist of Arctic cultures, explores the Inuit, or Tuli, migration from Siberia, across Canada, and ultimately to Greenland during the Middle Ages. First, Thompson examines Tuli life in 11th-century Russia, specifically the reliance on Asian iron to make weapons and boat parts. Anthropologist Max Friesen then explains how the Tuli crossed the Arctic circle...
Description
Water may be the world's hardest-working religious symbol, representing life, death, purification, destruction, and countless other ideas. This program studies the spiritual properties of water and the myriad ways in which humanity has regarded the precious substance over the millennia. Establishing a link between climate and the evolution of god-images, the video explores the notion of the angry deity who punishes with water-a concept prevailing...
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Every new migrant has a different story to tell, but most of those stories are based on the desire for a better way of life. Through the experiences of several newcomers and their families, this program explores the history, causes, and impact of migration in the U.K. Viewers meet a former nurse who left West Africa to help support more than 30 family members back home, a Latvian farm worker doing labor-intensive chores that native Britons shunned,...
Description
Bangalore's booming IT business lures so many new professionals every year that a separate industry has sprung up to help them settle in. But Bangalore also has more than 1,000 slum areas, and that is where most newcomers, arriving from poverty-stricken rural villages, will end up. This program explains why so many of India's poor continue to migrate to cities like Bangalore, the challenges they face when they arrive, and what the slum-residents themselves...
Description
It has altered our sense of space, fueled our mega-economy, knifed into the hearts of thriving city neighborhoods, and changed the lives of millions of people in the 40 years it's taken to build. This program about the Interstate Highway System combines archival material, newsreels, and interviews to describe the impact of what has been called the world's largest public works project. The Interstate's effect on community, culture, regionalism, and...
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Impoverished, sparsely populated, and still recovering from the Vietnam War, Laos exists on the edge of the abyss. This program considers the cultural and economic impact on Laotians and Hmong alike of initiatives designed to improve the country, such as the new highway being built by Swedish engineers. Although the regime's "reeducation camps" show no signs of being closed and antigovernment rebels continue to make travel dangerous, foreign tourism...
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The American Dream has drawn millions of people to the New World with the promise that all can reach their full potential if they work hard enough, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. In this program six Chinese citizens arriving in the U.S. over a 30-year period share their stories of how that dream has played out for them. A geophysicist who came in 1978 speaks movingly of finally being able to pursue his academic studies, forbidden...
Description
Prehistoric art often renders animals in spiritual, even divine, form-but primitive beast images can also reflect a degree of humanity. This program sifts through the complexity of the animal-god concept, identifying the place of the lion, the giraffe, the wolf, the elephant, and many other creatures in a wide range of myths and religions. With detailed observations of sculpture, carvings, and statuary-including Native American totem poles, European...
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Like many economically developed countries the U.K. is home to a rapidly growing number of people over the age of 50. What are the social changes behind this trend, and what are its implications? The issues surrounding an aging population are examined in this program, using East Devon in the U.K. as a case study. The video addresses the strain on health care, special housing, and transportation services from a segment of the population that contributes...
Description
Some Asian traditions hold that sex with a virgin will bring a man good luck and health. Tragically, the custom is far from moribund-in the dark world of Southeast Asian prostitution there is a growing demand for younger and younger companions. This program reveals the disturbing inner workings of Cambodia's child-sex industry as well as its manifold human consequences. Viewers meet teenage girls who entered the trade as high-priced virgins-some under...
Description
Situated by the bank of the holy Ganges, Varanasi, also known as Kashi and Benares, is one of the oldest living cities in the world. Founded approximately 3,000 years ago, the city is the religious and cultural capital of India-considered by many to be the holiest place on earth. Every year Hindus in great number go there to die, believing that cremation in that place of renewal provides an immediate entry to heaven. Shot on location, this program...
Description
The UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child was meant to establish the fundamental right of those 18 and below to a life free from exploitation and preventable adverse conditions. However, there are still many factors that pose risks to the health of the young, in both the developing world and industrialized countries. This program examines the most prominent of these risks: early pregnancy and childbirth, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, mental illness,...
Author
Description
Explains why an awareness of Earth's temporal rhythms is critical to planetary survival and offers suggestions for how to create a more time-literate society.
"Why an awareness of Earth's temporal rhythms is critical to our planetary survival: Few of us have any conception of the enormous timescales in our planet's long history, and this narrow perspective underlies many of the environmental problems we are creating for ourselves. The passage of...
Description
Most elementary-age children exude innocence and optimism. What about kids who face extreme poverty? This documentary focuses on the plight of underprivileged nine-year-olds across the world-revealing their hardships and challenges as well as the light-hearted spirit they often exhibit in spite of their surroundings. Traveling to Egypt, Rwanda, India, Cambodia, Romania, Brazil, and New York City, the film presents a case study of a child in each location...
Description
Mental images of storybook adventures and stereotyped people, on the one hand, and genocides and pandemics, on the other, make it practically impossible for Westerners to see Africa as it really is: a place with generational conflicts, cultural misunderstandings, and power struggles-just like anywhere else-plus the added dilemma of how to deal with the tension between tradition and modernity as the already rapid pace of progress continues to accelerate....
Description
Based on recent statistics, 90 percent of the world's orphans live in sub-Saharan Africa; 40 percent of African children work seven days a week; and many support themselves by prostitution or are subjected to enslavement. This program highlights the work of the Terre des Hommes Oasis Center, in Benin, which rescues, rehabilitates, and returns exploited children to their families; the Jinja School for Orphans, in Uganda; extended families on Kenya's...
Description
The Changpa people live cut off from the rest of the world on a barren, 4,000-meter-high plateau in the southeast of Ladakh, in the Kashmir Himalayas. Here, livestock must search far and wide to pry something edible from the earth. Inhospitable as it is, the region is also home to a living treasure: Changpa goats, which grow a fine wool - but only at extremely high altitudes and in bitterly cold winters. The wool is then brushed out in the early summer...
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