Good Family Movies

Joyful Noise – Big Name Film that Popularizes Gospel Choirs and Competitions

Choir competitions are growing with the help of some related reality shows about vocal music and the help of this film, Joyful Noise.  If you like both Pop and Gospel music and want to see Dolly Parton in a food fight, then this is the film you need to see.

How George Lucas Presents the 332nd Fighter Group/US Army Air Corps and the North American P-51C Mustang Red Tails

George Lucas hopes to earn more than his filming budget with this movie about the Tuskegee Airmen. If and when he does, he will proceed on two additional films in a great trilogy. One will be a prequel that looks at the difficult training conditions offered the airmen in the Jim Crow South and the last will be a sequel to the fantastic Red Tails.

With the 70th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor passing in December 1941, we are losing vast numbers of our World War II survivors every day. I hope that they see Red Tails or someone takes them to see it and that they will be her to enjoy the next two films in the series.  If you know a WWII veteran, ask him or her if they want to go to the movies.

When Winter Came to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium – A Dolphin Tale

How any of us do not know a Wounded Warrior in our own community that has returned from Iraq, Afghanistan or someplace else with the need for help and understanding? This film shows how a little compassion for sea life and veterans brought a doctor and a team of engineers together in order to help both. Because of them and a baby dolphin called Winter, double amputees can run on two legs now and others compete with gusto in the Paralympic Games. Look for them in London of 2012 right after the Summer Olympics! You’re going to be delighted.

Bundle of Black History Resources

Dozens of well researched articles about various aspects of Black History are offered at the link below and many are such that you will not find them anywhere else.

A thorough review of related historic sites in Detroit, Michigan is followed by interesting lesser-known events in history, the settling of the American West by Black Cowboys as well as the usual settlers, political and war-related materials that spotlight Africans and African-Americans in wartime from before the American Revolution to the present,  recipes and ethnic foods, and several sets of coloring pages.

• American History and Culture Resources for Black History Month Projects.

These articles and links are among the best offered across the Internet to help readers understand and discuss the topics related to Black History in America and abroad and they make excellent source materials for school projects and re-enactments.

Black History Month is February.

Deadly Competition at Work!

With the New Year of 2012 has come a couple of  trends already that many employees and job seekers have not expected, especially in the light of economic recovery beginning around the USA. 

First, a few employers – or writers pretending to be employers – have offered some very harsh commentary on the Internet,  in emails, and in forum posts regarding employment for 2012.  Some have stated that illegal questions WILL be answered during interviews of job candidates “or else.” I think it is good advice to steer clear of these interviewers and think that the majority of job candidates out there this year will not suffer the inquisition and invasiveness of illegal interview questions.  Contact your local EEO to report such behaviors and ask additional advice if this occurs with you.

Another trend is the statement by some employers, or rather some reporting themselves as supervisors and bosses, that they expect to be able to call employees insulting names, curse them,  belittle them, throw things at them, and diminish them verbally in the workplace, all without consequence. They give the hackneyed excuse that they are either joking or that the target of abuse needs to grow thicker skin. This is not only illegal, but may be a mental illness.  See the links below for more help.

At the same time,  contacts in the UK assure us that name calling is not at all commonplace there, much less throwing things at employees and/or actually hitting them. This information lends even more credence to the fact that verbal abuse in the US workplace is perverse, not healthy.  Let us not permit it to become pervasive as well.  The body of related research and EEO case studies show that verbal abuse leads to physical abuse, even murder in the most extreme of instances. Stop it at the verbal stage by documenting it and speaking up – but not with name calling and profanity.

Bullying can kill a child at school and verbal abuse is a step down the same path in the workplace. Take care.

• Name Calling and Expired Psychological Classifications Have Become Profanity and Abuse

• Do You Know a Bully at Work? How to Handle the Office Bully and Abuse: Financial, Verbal, Emotional, and Physical

• Death In the Classroom – A School Bully Can Kill Your Child

• Sexual Harassment Cases and Results