Black Diamonds - Trailer for a film about MTR

Here's one more:

For more about this film, check this website. This is an issue that is incredibly controversial throughout Appalachia, and there aren't easy answers. But one of the first steps is taking a closer look at the effects of these extraction processes, and listening to the people whose livelihoods and ways of life are affected. Yes, coal mining is about jobs, but it's also about clean water, public health, and the clash between local communities and mining companies. A larger part of the issue is the fact that coal is used widely throughout the US, but the costs of coal production aren't always considered--or even imagined--but the people who use it to power their daily lives. Often, when we take "costs" into account, we are really only looking at a highly reductive version of reality. Costs are about more than just what shows up on ledgers.

Bending the rule of law

Last night I saw the film "Taxi to the Dark Side," which actually ties in with quite a lot of the readings that I have been doing in seminar classes this semester. This is especially so with the readings of Giorgio Agamben and others who spend a good amount of time talking about citizenship, sovereignty, rights, and law--and how political all of these can become during times of war (or states of exception). Here is the trailer for the film:

Are human rights ever inalienable? Can a universal set of human rights ever encompass all societies? Who defines these rights, and who enforces them?