Movies: ARK: Evan Almighty, Maya Lin Chapel Haley Farm

I got a call to Substitute at the Alternative High School. I LOVE going there. It's my favorite place to Sub. The kids, work mostly independently, doing computer modules or whatever. I think there is a lot of lost opportunity as to the potential that is being lost, but hey, I'm not the Principal-yet. LOL.

So every Friday kids are released at 2. I don't know why. Lunch is at 11:30 (I had a really nice SUB sandwich from Central Kitchen), then they watch a movie. The Homeschooling part of me despises this. In Public School there is simply SO MUCH WASTED TIME!! AWWCCCKKK. Makes me crazy. Maybe what it does is create a space for "community"...yah--maybe.
Anyway, somehow it fell on me to do the CHOOSING. Wow. That is huge. I had a list of 8 different movies, and when I got to Chart Hits EVERY one of my choices was not available. (Maybe a GOD thing?).
I had a student with me, and asked for suggestion from Movie Place Person. We ended up with EVAN ALMIGHTY.
My friend Char had gone to the theatre to watch this, and LOVED it. I am not much into movies until recently.
SO...the High School kids LOVED it.
Has great themes, Home, Family, Personal Responsibility, Political involvement, Community awareness, YES all that.
Can be a definite recommend. Today, my 11 yr old watched it, we watched all the "EXTRAS" in the DVD. HIGHLY entertaining--the lost scenes, how the ARK was built etc. I found this especially interesting as I am a Children's Defense Fund Emerging Leader (Fellow)Class of 2004, -- A quick side trip: Maya Lin, the builder of the Vietnam Veteran's Wall in Washington DC also created an "ARK" in Clinton Tennessee. Her design, with a budget of $3 million, was inspired by the Children's Defense Fund logo, a child's drawing with the text: ''Dear Lord, be good to me. The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.''
I sang in that chapel area, and was moved to tears. The Alex Haley Farm is a retreat operated by the national nonprofit, the Children’s Defense Fund, and is the only place in the world to have two buildings by Lin on the same site.

The picture doesn't even begin to do it justice. It is..HUGE, Inspiring, awesome.

No other way about it...ARKS are COOL. In the movie, ARK= "Acts Random Kindness" ie: pay it forward.

Steve Carell -I love him from Office Space, and he is great in this.
GOD is Good, LOL

Change the World-- Great theme. Go forth...And ARK. ....


(just to show you, THIS cool pic of the BIG back of my head was at B SMITH's, in Washington D.C. in April 2007. WOW...isn't my hair perfectly streaked?? And my sparkly top!!! OH MY!!!)

STARTLING STATS, Children's defense fund

Imagine coming into this world with a prison cell
already reserved in your name.

Dear Donna:

That is the tragedy that awaits at least one in three Black boys. Millions of poor American children are condemned to prison by the time they reach their teens because they are failed at every turn in their lives — failed by their family, the child welfare system and the juvenile justice system.

Consider this:

* Today, 580,000 Black males are serving sentences in state or federal prison, while fewer than 40,000 Black males earn a bachelor's degree each year.
* A child is born into poverty every 36 seconds and born to a teen mother every 60 seconds.
* Between 2000 and 2006, the number of children living in poverty increased by 1.2 million to reach 12.8 million children. One in six children is poor.



Support CDF Efforts to Dismantle the Cradle to Prison Pipeline
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Frankie, who first appeared in juvenile court on a misdemeanor assault charge when he was barely ten years old, embodies this tragedy all too well.

Taken from his mother at birth, he was passed from one foster home to another for the first eight years of his life. At the age of ten, this troubled, depressed young boy hit an adult, the police were called and he took another step towards the adult criminal system.

Frankie was failed from birth by all those adults who should have protected and nurtured him — his family, the child welfare system and the juvenile justice system.

For a nation that claims to be the world's greatest democracy and a beacon for justice and freedom, the "Cradle to Prison Pipeline" is a national disgrace that costs billions of dollars, ruins tens of thousands of our children and deprives us of the young talent that could build a brighter future.

Join the CDF Cradle to Prison Pipeline® Initiative to dismantle the “pipeline” and
help children like Frankie!

With your help CDF will:

* Continue to demand that public officials renew and increase funding for existing programs, such as early childhood education and health care, which are designed to keep children out of this pipeline.
* Partner with the faith community to create safe havens from the streets and help nurture the minds, bodies, and souls of our children.

Please join us… your contribution will make a critical difference as we launch this new movement for America's children.

Stand with us, and help prevent any more children from following Frankie down that pipeline to a prison cell.

Sincerely,


Marian Wright Edelman
President

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