You still have five days to enjoy and be a part of the 2009 17th Annual Pan African Film Festival (PAFF). Check out their Web site, select movies or panels and make it a point to be a part of African American film history.

Remember being forced to sit in history class in high school?

Oh, sure you learned a thing or two. You learned a bunch of stuffy facts that are now lost in the dusty attic of your brain. You learned that the classroom window is a great place to look while wishing you could fly away somewhere.

So how about learning something about people who really did fly - home, across the ocean, and in space. Read “Black Wings” (c.2008, Smithsonian / Collins, $21.95 / $25.95 Canada, 180 pages) by Von Hardesty, and give the past some real air time.