Green Options » Ken Burns

Our National Parks: America’s Best Idea

Rhonda Winter — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:17:28 +0000

Filmmaker Ken Burns’ most recent PBS documentary, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, is a stunning and utterly engrossing tribute not only to our country’s many awe-inspiring natural landscapes, but also to our nation’s fundamental democratic principles. Burns interviews scores of ordinary people, from park rangers and activists to journalists and historians, as they trace the origins of our greatest collectively-owned resources, and share their unique personal experiences in the vast beauty of our national parks.

“When we look at the parks and we look at the United States and we examine the whole idea of democracy, I think that the park experience is an exploration of the idea of freedom.”

-Shelton Johnson, Park Ranger

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Walmart’s Battlefield Win

Cate Nelson — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:44:59 +0000

Walmart has won approval to build a Supercenter on the edge one of the most important battlefields from the Civil War: the Wilderness Battlefield.

Wilderness was the location when Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met in battle, on May 4, 1864. Altogether, on both sides of the fighting, 160,000 soldiers total took part with approximately 29,000 killed or wounded. It was the beginning of the turning point of the Civil War.

Supervisors in Orange County, Virginia voted Monday night to grant a permit to the corporate giant, despite public outcry, especially from historians and Civil War buffs.

Jim Campi, of the Civil War Preservation Trust, is against it because,

What Walmart is proposing would absolutely transform the landscape. Walmart is proposing a superstore closer to a national park boundary than any previous Walmart, and this is right on the boundary of the national park.

Only one-quarter of the historic battlefield is protected, so the controversy has surrounded the question, “What is a battlefield?”

Kens Burns Films Footage in Glacier Park for New Documentary on “America’s Best Idea”

Levi Novey — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:16:23 +0000

American filmmaker Ken Burns, most famous for his documentary on the American Civil War, is currently on a working vacation in Glacier National Park. He is obtaining footage of the park for his upcoming documentary that will be titled The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.

Burns says he was fascinated by the idea of telling the story of how Yellowstone and other national parks were created: “in a culture so dedicated to the almighty dollar, so dedicated to a kind of extractive and acquisitive mentality. It’s phenomenal. So how did this happen? Who were these people?” The documentary will be broadcast on PBS in six parts of two hours each. It is scheduled to debut in the Fall of 2009.

Via Los Angeles Times

Image: backpackphotography on Flickr under a Creative Commons license