News & Updates

While giving his “Death from the Skies!” lecture, astronomer Phil Plait gets the first-hand experience with “Crushing and Zapping and Impacting” at the Engineering Open House run by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Engineering department: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/31/_engineering_open_house
_at_uiuc_crushing_concrete_musical_tesla_coils_and.html

Astronomer Phil Plait explains asteroids on the Huffington post science blog Talk Nerdy to Me: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/asteroids-meteors-space-rocks-impact_n_2842340.html

Astronomer Phil Plait is featured in NPR’s TED Radio Hour ‘Peering Into Space’ where he talks about the asteroids that are or are not likely to hit Earth. Listen to it here: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/08/172136499/peering-into-space

Lost Boy of Sudan Gabriel Bol Deng recently visited the St. Ursula Academy and the St. John’s Jesuit High School in Ohio. Read about and watch a video of his visit on northwestohio.com.

Dr. Terrence Roberts, one of the Little Rock Nine, spoke at West Virginia University for Black History Month. Read about his visit and watch a short interview with him here.

Samara Lectures is at the National Association for Campus Activities national convention, this year in Nashville, TN! We can hear live music from our hotel room! Stop on by booth #603 if you’re here too!

Human rights advocate Jen Marlowe‘s recent visit to Jamestown Community College in NY was covered by the Post-Journal in this positive profile: ”Our hope was that we could bring someone in who could involve the community and engage the students in understanding the bigger issues that face the world, but still connect them to the motivations that were apparent in Martin Luther King’s work and legacy,” said Bridget Johnson, JCC’s coordinator of community relations. “Her message dealing with peaceful resistance and conflict resolution really motivated us to get her here, and we’re thrilled that she could come through.”

We’re sure you’ve heard of the meteor that broke up over Russia last night, but did you know an entirely separate asteroid is currently zooming by Earth? Get all the details on Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer’s blog, and tune in at 11AM PST or 2PM EST for a live Hangout on Google + where Phil will take questions about the two events.

The website Boing Boing has a new podcast called ‘Tell Me Something I Don’t Know‘, and Gary Groth, founder/publisher of The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics Books is their first guest! This hefty hour long interview traces Gary’s path from founding The Comics Journal in 1976, the introduction of journalism into comics, and alternative comics today.

Today is the two-year anniversary of Bahrain’s Arab Spring, a pro-democracy uprising that continues despite ongoing harsh repression from the Bahraini regime. To mark the two-year anniversary of the Bahraini people’s struggle, Samara Lectures is pleased to offer a new talk:

BAHRAIN: THE UNCOVERED ARAB SPRING

In July 2012, human rights activist and documentary filmmaker Jen Marlowe traveled to the small Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain with Witness Bahrain in order to clandestinely observe, document, and expose the continued repression against Bahrain’s Arab Spring.  In a multimedia presentation, Marlowe will discuss the stories she documented in her three weeks there, including: nurses treating injured protestors at underground clinics; updates from the doctors who were arrested and tortured under fabricated charges; the family of a fourteen-year old boy killed by a teargas canister shot to the back of his head, an eleven-year old boy who was arrested while playing soccer with his friends and jailed for a month; Bahrainis whose homes had just been raided and family members arrested in an alarming upsurge of nighttime house-raids; youth on the streets clashing daily with riot police.  Marlowe also conducted the final interview with human rights defender Nabeel Rajab before he was taken to prison for three months because of a tweet that he sent, surreptitiously filming the arrest itself, as well.  (Rajab’s prison sentence was later extended to two years. He remains behind bars.) Marlowe’s talk will explore the central role women have played in Bahrain’s Arab Spring, and will also examine the overly simplistic “Shi’a versus Sunni” analysis that has been used to characterize the Bahrain uprising. Throughout, Marlowe will highlight the inspirational Bahraini pro-democracy and human rights activists, who continue their struggle for democracy and freedom at great personal risk.