The opinions expressed in these blogs are solely those of the people who wrote them, and do not represent the views of WPSU or Penn State University.

Programming

Best Bets - Week of 11/9/00

Posted by Greg Petersen on 11/09 at 08:25 AM

Some radio and TV programming worth your time this week.

Radio: Veterans in PA – Wed. at 6:50am and 8:50am during Morning Edition – Patty Satalia talks with Ryan Quinn of the Pa National Guard about the challenges for veterans reintegrating to home life after service in Iraq.

Radio: Folk Fest in Central PA – Fri, at 7:33am and 8:33am – A local folk music festival celebrates the work of Harry Smith, the American ethnomusicologist who played a key role in the revival of folk and blues music in the 1950s and 60s. Mel De Young talks with local musician Kai Shafft about Smith’s legacy and about the festival, held Nov 15 in Milheim.

TV: AMERICAN EXPERIENCE – “Hoover Dam” – Monday, 9pm – The construction of the Hoover Dam, which “changed the history of the West” and took eight years to complete. Included: interviews with former workers; efforts by the Bureau of Reclamation to convince the Government to fund the project.  (Personal note from the writer:  My father was a carpenter who worked on the project.)

TV: HOW THE BEATLES ROCKED THE KREMLIN – Monday, 10pm – How the Beatles influenced life behind the Iron Curtain, featuring comments from ordinary and not-so-ordinary Russians, including deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov, who says he learned English from Beatles’ records, rock-music writer Artemy Troitsky and St. Petersburg “superfan” Kolya Vasin, who built a “Temple of Peace and Love” to John Lennon.

TV: HALLOWED GROUNDS – Wednesday, 10pm – A tour of overseas U.S. military cemeteries from World Wars I and II, with archival footage and photos of the battles that led to the deaths of those in the burial grounds and profiles of some of the men and women who rest in them, including poet Joyce Kilmer, Glenn Miller and Gen. George S. Patton.

TV: OUT IN THE SILENCE – Thursday, 9pm – An exploration of homosexuality in small-town America focuses on Oil City, Pa., the hometown of co-director Joe Wilson, who follows a gay teen dealing with harassment at school, and a lesbian couple who are renovating a theater. Wilson also talks to a local pastor.  More about this local documentary can be found here.