political cartoons

Political cartoons have long been a favorite of mine and sharing them with my AP government students this year has been very fun. I have often used cartoons in my U.S. history classes, but I always had to explain them to the students and they rarely seemed to really understand them or enjoy them. The bright kids in AP not only enjoy them, they sometimes have to explain them to me! The best site I have found for political cartoons of current events is cagle.com Here are a few of my recent favorites.

3:10 to Yuma

This film had its messages: about family and sacrifice and finding something bigger and more important than yourself to live and die for. However, the messages were not important enough to warrant the amount of graphic death it portrayed. Furthermore, the graphic images are not needed to show the horrors of senseless, wanton killing. Why do filmmakers think that spectators don't have enough imagination to understand horrible, multiple, senseless murder without actually seeing it? I do and I don't think I am particularly imaginative. Just as I can read a book (without pictures!) and be horrified, disgusted and moved to tears, I can do the same with a well-made movie. Maybe the filmmakers don't have enough confidence and faith in themselves to believe that they can make us "see" what they don't actually portray on the screen.

That said, I didn't completely dislike this film. I wouldn't recommend it without serious warning and without feeling badly that I was contributing to someone else's desensitizing, but . . . I was glad to see that Christian Bale had apparently made it to Santa Fe . . . (Newsies?)

Elizabeth

Last night we watched Elizabeth, with Cate Blanchett. (I think there is another recent Elizabeth I movie that I haven't seen yet.)

I always like history flicks, even if the history isn't perfectly accurate--what with revisionist history, whoever knows anyway? In any case, I don't know English history well enough to complain.

Blanchett was wonderful as the Virgin Queen--we always wonder if she really was, don't we. She played her as an intelligent, wily, ruler and also as a real woman who could be jealous and vindictive.


I don't think everyone would really enjoy this film. The people and their costumes were beautiful, but it was a bit slow moving. I knew that the Spanish Armada would be decimated by a storm. I suppose the movie would be more of a thriller if you didn't know that before watching.

Stardust

A fun fantasy, a faery tale. Certainly you could recommend this film to almost everyone--there is nothing that would offend. It has a nice message of true love, honesty, intelligence . . but it is not a "must see."

Michelle Pfieffer is a wonderful wicked witch, but Robert DeNiro is a bit strange as a pirate in drag.

Once

Once, a sweet little film. My husband was less than enthralled, but I kind of liked its simple tale. Actually, we both liked it more the next morning . . . its sweetness kind of grows on you. I went online and found out that for its $160,000 investment it did quite well AND the couple actually got together afterward. In fact the main characters were very worried that they would include that in the film and they didn't want it there. The story is just about the week they met, made music, and moved on--at least temporarily.

ImpressiveTexting

I have never been happier to live in Utah than during the week after the death of President Hinckley. I was thrilled by the every channel, every station, coverage of his life and the funeral plans. I loved hearing people talk about him. The outpouring of love for President Hinckley was seen and heard everywhere. By far the most touching tribute came on Monday morning. Apparently the word of President Hinckley's death spread to the youth by text messaging, followed quickly by the suggestion to dress up at school on Monday in his honor. During first period I noticed many kids dressed in their Sunday clothes. I asked one, an athlete, if he had a game that day (they often dress up on game days). He said, "No, some of us just wanted to dress up today." I asked, "Why?" "For President Hinckley" was his reply. I was amazed. The next hour a boy from Mexico told me the essentially the same thing: "because the Prophet died." I quit asking and just smiled at them the rest of the day--and felt bad that no one told the teachers of the plan.

the disconnected

I have been quite concerned about the disconnect of our current teens and young adults for several years. Supposedly they are very media-savvy and have connections to the world, but not all of them are using their connective possibilities as well as I think they should.

This first started to bother me several years ago when I noticed that youth are constantly connected to their ipods or other music devices. No one seems to care about connecting with other human beings they encounter. It seems like no one goes for a walk, run or hike anymore and just listens to their own thoughts or to the birds singing. If you are plugged in with your earbuds do you hear the fall leaves or the newly fallen snow crunch beneath your feet? I would really miss that in my life. I need some solitude and quiet to listen to nature and to my own brain waves. On a secondary note is the safety issue. If you are plugged in can you hear a car approach or an attacker?

Then I started to notice that some of the young adults I know hear very little news. Whether in their apartments or cars they listen to their own music list. When you listen to a radio station, even the most "all music" format will break in with important news or news of a crisis. This problem was evident a few weeks ago, with the death of President Hinckley. Though many kids learned about his death thru text messaging (which I will discuss in another post), some missed important news that they wished they had heard. For example, my daughter-in-law, who lives in SLC, did not hear about the viewing until it was too late to make plans to go. She and my son do not have television, never listen to commercial radio, and do not get a newspaper. I know they use the internet for news and information, but apparently they do not often access local sites. I mentioned to another daughter how much I enjoyed the overwhelming news coverage the week of President Hinckley's death. Because they, too, do not watch television or listen to commercial radio, she did not know what I was talking about. They completely missed the televised funeral.

That same couple got caught in this week's snowstorm on I-15. If they would have listened to the radio before they got on the freeway, they would have been forewarned and could have avoided several hours of standstill traffic.

They have ipods, laptops, DVDs, CDs, and internet access. They are plugged in, but not to the rest of the world.