TV Picks June 1-7, 2008

All Times Eastern

VARIOUS

Weekly Roman Observer

Familyland TV At 10 a.m. Mondays, 2:30 a.m. Tuesdays and 11 p.m. Thursdays, hear reliably reported news about the Pope and the Church, direct from Rome.


VARIOUS

Pledge Week Shows

PBS Among the new specials this week: Songstress Vickie Carr hosts Fiesta Mexicana, which places singers and musical groups in beautiful settings to perform pieces from all over Mexico; Timeless, a National Parks Odyssey, which features spectacular views of 14 parks out west; and Visions of Israel, which flies us over Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land to see Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other sites, such as Mount Carmel, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea Scrolls’ Qumran caves and today’s cities. Check local listings.


SUNDAYS, 11 p.m.

Hero Ships

History International This new weekly series employs on-site visits, interviews and archival film to profile historic U.S. fighting vessels. Tonight’s subject, the 1790s frigate U.S.S. Constitution, never lost a battle, earned the proud nickname “Old Ironsides” and survives to this day. Next up each week this month: the submarine Nautilus, the aircraft carrier Hornet and the battleships Texas and New Jersey.


TUESDAY, 3 a.m., 6:30 p.m.

Glendalough: A Mystical Journey

EWTN On St. Kevin’s feast day, come to picturesque Glendalough in Ireland’s County Wicklow to visit the site of the monastery he founded there in the sixth century A.D.


WEDNESDAY, 3 a.m., 6:30 p.m.

Christians of Nineveh

EWTN This documentary by Elisabetta Valgiusti, founder of Salva i Monasteri (Save the Monasteries), introduces us to Iraq’s community of Christians, now beset by Muslim persecution after centuries of relative coexistence, and shows us many churches and monasteries in the Mosul region, which the ancient world called Nineveh.


THURSDAY, 10 p.m.

Tougher in Alaska

History Longtime Alaskan Geo Beach, host of this new weekly series about life in the Last Frontier state, tonight leads us on a 450-mile trip on the Alaska Railroad, a major freight and passenger lifeline. Along the way, he joins the rugged and resourceful crews in loading coal, maintaining tracks and clearing snow.


SATURDAY, 4:30 p.m.

Deserving Design: A Kidney for a Friend

Home & Garden TV Amanda Jolley has donated a kidney to help save the life of her friend Judy Baird, so program host Vern Yip decides to reward her and her husband Dale by redesigning their pool pavilion and master bedroom.


SATURDAY, 5 p.m.

The Belmont Stakes

ABC See if Big Brown can become horse racing’s first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. Post time will be 6:25 p.m.

Dan Engler writes from
Santa Barbara, California.

Michelangelo Mirrored

In this, the 500th anniversary of Michelangelo’s completion of the Sistine Chapel ceiling-painting project, a visit to a humble church in Goring-by-Sea, England, where a local artist has lovingly recreated the magnificent work detail by detail. By Joanna Bogle

Summer Reading

The Register reviews three books of interest to Catholics: A Guide to the Church: It’s Origin and Nature, Its Mission and Ministries, by Father Lawrence B. Porter, Good Discipline, Great Teens, by Ray Guarendi, and Infinite Space, Infinite God, edited by Karina and Robert Fabian