2013 Summer Movies: #2 Pleasantville

Made in 1998 and starring a host of big name actors such as Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon along with several other familiar screen faces.  Don Knotts has a hilarious role throughout the movie and look for his reaction at the end of the film as he's driving away.

Pleasantville was filmed in color, then individually manipulated to replace color in certain sections of the film.  The effect is succinctly describe here: http://video.about.com/desktopvideo/Pleasantville-Effect-With-Final-Cut.htm

Rated PG-13 for language and thematic elements dealing with sexuality. (It's generally implied that people turn to color after engaging in some sort of sexual behavior but people can also turn to color for other reasons such as love, anger or even just things not in the norm for that individual.)

The movie creates a good background for discussing everything from art to book banning and censorship to racism and nudity vs. pornography to sexuality. When do we stand up as opposed to when we stand "with the crowd" and go along?  The standing with the crowd and the standing up happens on both sides of the color situation in Pleasantville, giving a nice contrast of how hard it can be to determine which side to join in some battles because both sides have tenants with which we agree.   The last movie, Stand and Deliver, was pretty straight forward and definitely worth watching with some discussion thrown in.   We just ended up discussing Pleasantville quite a bit more both during and after the movie.

2013 Summer Movies: #1 Stand and Deliver

Stand and Deliver rated PG made in 1988 starring Edward James Olmos, Andy Garcia, and Lou Diamond Phillips.  Educational movie about Calculus and the AP test.  Daisy didn't think that she would like it but she did. Hedgehog said it was good and the teacher was funny.  Mica also liked this film

Sunday Randomness # 401: Life Flight in the Intermountain West

 

Sharing a video from a safety demonstration. (Lift off is around the 45 second mark.) Learn more about Life Flight at: http://intermountainhealthcare.org/services/lifeflight/Pages/home.aspx

Author #110: Maritcha as biographied by Tonya Bolden

Born in 1848, Maritcha lived in lower Manhattan  for the first part of her life. After the Draft Riots her family moved to Rhode Island.  When she reached high school there was no where for her to go to school.  Maritcha spoke before the Rhode Island state legislature at the age of 16 to petition them to grant that she be allowed to attend the Girls' Department of Providence High.  Her plea was granted.  In her compositions she often wrote about slavery, the Draft Riots, the Civil War and the Underground Railroad.  A teacher questioned the sincerity of the pieces and their authenticity-suggesting that Maritcha had used her imagination.  "'The half has never been told.' was Maritcha's typical terse response."  Maritcha later became a teacher.  Maritcha: A Nineteenth -Century American Girl  was written by Tonya Bolden after she read Maritcha's memoir written after Maritcha retired as an Assistant Principal in Brooklyn, New York.

Sunday Randomness #29 BYU Fudge

Pralines and Cream Fudge-caramel, pecans and white fudge

Italian Cream Fudge-swirls of milk chocolate fudge with a browned sugar type fudge

German Chocolate Fudge-milk chocolate fudge with a coconut topping

pecans, caramel, white fudge and dark chocolate fudge

same as fudge above-don't remember the name-it was the fudge of the day

Milk chocolate fudge with walnuts

side view of walnut/milk chocolate fudge

Available in these flavors and more at the BYU bookstore in Provo, UT.    ( We bought the fudge for our own delicious consumption and were not paid, compensated or otherwise given any incentive to write the post other than our opinion that the BYU bookstore has great fudge.)

Authors #107-109 plant the trees of Wangari Maathai of Africa

 Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa by Jeanette Winter  I like the simplicity of this book-focusing on how Wangari started with just nine seedlings in her Kenyan backyard back in the late 1970's.

 Planting The Trees Of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola  With this book we see more of the devastation of drought from cutting down forests for firewood and clearing the land to grow commercial crops, many of which do not provide enough complete nutrition for the sustainability of life.  She helps the women of Africa to see that they must and can be part of the solution by planting trees.

Mama Miti written by Donna Jo Napoli and illustrated by Kadir Nelson

The last book, Mama Miti outlines a few of the specific trees that Wangari tells the women to plant.  She had them plant everything from fruit trees, to trees for firewood, trees with leaves that cured some problems in cattle such as cattle gall, and trees that would help form natural fences to protect gardens and livestock from predators.

She also encouraged women to use the trees to filter water, provide shade and restore the land so that they could again grow traditional crops such as sweet potatoes, maize and sugarcane.  With the reforestation came other benefits such as the return of frogs, birds and other animals.  By 2004, thirty million trees had been planted and the green belt movement had spread to thirty African countries.