The 1948 motion picture “Song of the South,” has been in hibernation since a theatrical re-release in 1986. Although fans have clamored for a DVD release, it’s themes and subject matter have kept it in the vault, despite the opportunity for a 60th anniversary release this past year. Current Disney CEO Robert Iger made comments at a recent stockholders meeting that the movie may see the light of day in the future. Time is ticking, the movie goes into the public domain in the year 2039.
Category: SOI Blog
Ran across this interesting trivia on director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, The Village):
Not only are his parents doctors, but so is his wife and his nine other siblings. They all hold MD or Ph.D titles.
Here’s a site that will take your 30 second video and turn it into a flip book!
Fascinating Steel House Sculpture
I ran across this fascinating “house structure” made by artist/sculptor Robert Bruno in Texas. It’s made completely out of steel plate and he’s been working on it since 1974. Watch the movie as he describes the house and how he accomplished it.
Thomas Jefferson’s Koran
According to author Dr. William Welty, Thomas Jefferson obtained the Koran to research Islam and better equip himself to deal with an enemy, the radical Muslim Barbary Pirates.
http://www.khouse.org/articles/2007/691/
Coal, still the best fuel for US.
I’ve heard said that coal is to the US what oil is to Saudi Arabia. An item in my Electric Co-ops monthly magazine reminded me of this. It states that they are building a new coal fired power plant and moving away from “high priced” natural gas.
Another interesting note is that “environmental safeguards account for fully one third the” $1.4 billion cost.
Per Pupil Education Expenditure
According to John Stossel in his book Lies, Myths and Downright Stupidity, public education spends, on average, $10,000 per pupil per year. He maintains that public education is a wasteful government mandated monopoly. Our children’s education would be better served if competition was involved for those education dollars.
The Democrat Jack Ass
Andrew Jackson is credited with adopting the Jack Ass (or donkey as it is know known) as the symbol for the Democratic party. It was used by his opponents to characterize him during the election, but Jackson liked it and adopted it as his own.
According to Giving USA Foundation 76% of charitable giving in 2005 was by Individuals. Foundations gave 11.5%, Bequests 6.7% and Corporations a measly 5.3%.
More interesting Charitable Giving stats here:
The sounds of English consist of some 48 different phonemes which are required to pronounce English with an RP accent.
What is that, you may ask?
RP, or Received Pronunciation, is a standard accepted accent. Although only spoken by a very small proportion of the population, perhaps as small as 3%, it has great prestige and therefore a significant number of people either aspire towards it or their speech approximates towards it.
http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/08sounds/08sounds.html