Comments on: Six Reasons You Should Watch the Ken Burns Series America’s Best Idea

By: David Page

David Page — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:06:51 +0000

Missed it on the first go-round? Never fear: now it's set to re-air January 27th, 2010 on PBS stations.

By: David Page

David Page — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:16:45 +0000

And now you can even check it out en español.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:51:58 +0000

I caught about two of the episodes and loved it. Thought you described it perfectly, nature porn and all.

By: David Page

David Page — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:19:26 +0000

Thanks Mara! “Nature Porn,” most recently anyway, was Stephen Colbert. As for whether we can still do that kind of stuff today… absolutely we can! For example, it wasn’t that long ago (1994) that Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act, nearly doubling the size of Death Valley National Monument and turning it into a national park–the largest outside of Alaska. Who knows what our current Nobel laureate president will do for his and our posterity? How about the Owens Valley National Park? How about the Great American Plains Buffalo Corridor, from Mexico to Canada? All we gotta do is, uh, I don’t know. I guess we better do something!

By: Mara

Mara — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:08:23 +0000

I don’t know if you coined the phrase “nature porn” but you certainly put it to effective use here.

I haven’t had a chance to watch this series but appreciate the sentiments you express here. I was just saying to someone the other day that it’s a good thing the parks were created when there were, as I’m not sure such unselfish political will could be achieved today.

By: Hal Amen

Hal Amen — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:08:52 +0000

What’s better than fiddles+banjos+nature porn?

By: ross

ross — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:23:58 +0000

i saw the first episode on pbs and it was awesome. ken burns doesn’t inspire a yawn from me at all. there’s actually few things i’d rather watch, from the “the war” to “jazz” to “louis and clark”, i’ve watched literally about a hundred hours of his documentaries. guy’s a genius.

By: Julie

Julie — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:48:09 +0000

David-

Fantastic quotes. I had a chance to watch a few of the episodes from the NP documentary and definitely enjoyed anecdotes about the people who helped make the parks possible and who have largely disappeared from history.

By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:43:11 +0000

Ken Burns is pure win. Thanks for letting us know about this, as it completely flew under my radar. I’ll definitely be catching it online.