Amy Goodman. She's quite an American. Amy Goodman is "the co-founder, executive producer and host of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on more than 900 public broadcast stations in North America." This from one of the many bios about her. If by some chance you, dear reader, have never seen her work on Democracy Now!, here is a link that you should follow and save for future use. Any Liberal/Progressive worth their salt should be checking this website out regularly and often.
Ms. Goodman is also a Harvard graduate, the winner of numerous awards for journalism including the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award, the Armstrong Award, the Radio/Television News Directors Award, as well as awards from the Associated Press, United Press International and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
She also seems to be quite the fire-breathing Liberal, which endears her to me greatly. But that's just my opinion of her - I could be wrong.
I can't say that I've ever seen Ms. Goodman venture far into the realm of Entertainment News. She simply doesn't seem to have any interest in selling out her journalistic integrity so that she might do a weekly bit for TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, or any of the myriad other places that follow Hollywood gossip. So when this woman decides to say something about The Oscars, it is worth noting indeed!
Let's get into the meat of this after we breeze past that curly-q thing which Markos seems to be so very fond of.
The Oscars (the Official name as of Feb. 20, 2013) has also been known as The Academy Awards and was originally the Academy Award of Merit (the name of the statuette) which is overseen by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). This is THE single largest event in the US motion picture industry. It will be televised this coming Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. As they say on the TV machine box, "Check your local listings for times and channels!"
The Oscars gives awards in many, MANY categories - from Best Picture to Sound Mixing and tons of other stuff in between and beyond. One of the categories that has been garnering more and more attention lately is "Best Documentary Feature" - mostly due to the work of a fellow named Michael Moore. This year, the category has five contenders. The ones that Ms. Goodman has written about are titled "5 Broken Cameras" and "The Gatekeepers". Before I go any farther about this, you can find the entirety of her piece about these two groundbreaking films RIGHT HERE at a website called TruthDig(dot)com.
It seems that the nice man who directed and filmed the entire documentary - a farmer named Emad Burnat - had a little trouble at LA Int'l. Airport. Immigration folks there detained this man, his wife, and his son for over an hour in a little room trying to get him to prove to their satisfaction the "real" reason for his visit to the US - despite him showing them his official invitation from AMPAS as an Oscar-nominated filmmaker. It took the intervention of Michael Moore himself along with some (probably very high-powered) AMPAS lawyers to get this guy sprung from detention and NOT deported.
The reason for all of the suspicion? The man happens to be a Palestinian farmer and Oscar-nominated filmmaker. It seems that the Israeli filmmaker who created "The Gatekeepers" had no such trouble gaining access to America. Amy Goodman's piece on this is exceptional. PLEASE read it here.
The other film mentioned, "The Gatekeepers", was discussed in a diary here on DKos that you can find at this link to the piece on this website. "The Gatekeepers" is also a very pointed look at the same problem chronicled by "5 Broken Cameras", but from the opposite side of the modern-day equivalent of the Berlin Wall.
I am going to steal quote one paragraph of Ms. Goodman's work here for you:
Regardless of which documentary wins, the 2013 Oscars mark a historic shift in the public dialogue on Israel/Palestine, a long-overdue shift to which 40 million television viewers will be exposed.
And a long-overdue shift (and a long-overdue conversation) it most certainly is.
Now go read what Amy Goodman wrote! Click this.