The Friday Fillip

Today we’re headed south — but only just. The U.S. Government is a prolific educator and propagandist, and until the internet came along film was perhaps the premier medium for reaching the public with your message. Now, in a more-or-less-happy marriage of the “tubes” and the flicks, internet liberator Carl Malamud has made a whole whack load (524 at last count) of U.S government movies available via PublicResource.org’s channel on YouTube.

A visit to the site automatically starts one of my all-time faves, “Duck and Cover,” because I was there, ducking and covering exactly like the kids you see cowering under their desks seeking shelter from atomic destruction. So to kick things off, let Bert the Turtle turn armageddon into a catchy ditty for you.

Perhaps the best way to review the films is to click on “playlists,” which brings them up clustered by authoring department. Here, in 15 recent videos you can, for example, see the Chicago Police Department explain the religions of the world. (Bizarre, yes, but the ones I’ve seen aren’t that bad at all. Honestly.) The Federal Aviation Administration playlist has films on “How Airplanes Fly,” “Flying Floats,” and a real classic, “Recording Fingerprints for Ten-Print Submission,” which demonstrates the “FBI recommended techniques for collecting fingerprints on the ten-print submission card.”

Slaw readers might be particularly interested in The House and the Courts playlist. In 74 films you’ll see arguments in significant judgments, some actual (C-SPAN) and some, like United States v. Aaron Burr, reenactments.

There’s real meat and real merriment here, along with the dull thud of government-speak, which is only to be expected. Well worth a few days of poking around.