Cerritos Families

Many movies fill the screen with more violence than “Hunger Games.” But many movies allow us to be filled with hope as we exit the theater. “Hunger Games” left me unfilfilled, imagining how much better the story could have been.

Not that it had no value; the main characters remained untainted by cruelty, true to their ideals to the end. But I enjoy standard-format fantasy films in which the hero returns home better than in the beginning, with some form of rising above the evil that often fills much of fantasies. “Hunger Games” failed to fulfill that basic requirement, for the final victory was basically only survival.

Without giving away too much, I’ll compare the story to “The Truman Show.” But “Hunger Games” is a little more unbelievable in where cameras are hidden. The main difference is this: “The Truman Show” ends with the hero surviving and escaping a huge prison; “Hunger Games” ends with at least one hero surviving (I’ll say no more) but with all the world still imprisoned by a world-wide dictatorship. Both movies end with a world that is hardly better off than before. But Truman gained personal freedom, guaranteed for the rest of his life. Do not expect anything like that in “Hunger Games.”

Having said that, I have been informed that this is taken from the first of a series of books, and a more positive end is in store for a world oppressed by tyranny. That does give us hope.

Now to technical details.

The acting and effects were almost without blemish, notwithstanding the weird costumes. An exception was in the beginning: Hand-held camera jitters make this part of the movie difficult to watch, and it failed to make the story more realistic to me. It really was an artistic disaster with those hand-held shots: overdone and too long.

Two of the dramatic events appeared to me too much like cliches, and one of them seemed to have no logical purpose. The romantic aspects were limited and welcomed, for they were fresh, not cliches.

Be aware, especially with children and teenagers, that more than half the teenagers in this gladiator combat environment show us the worst form of violence, and these are children being killed, sometimes for apparent sport. For those who enjoy simple hero-survival, this can be a satisfying movie; just don’t expect very much.

Movie Review: “Super 8″

For most adults with taste and for most children, stay away and save your time and money [re: Super-8]

Texas Marfa Lights

The new hypothesis, outlined in the news release “Unmasking a Flying Predator in Texas,” has received little support from most scientists who have recently become aware of the idea. It involves a group of intelligent flying creatures that glow brightly with intrinsic bioluminescence . . .

The spelling “teradactyl” is incorrect, meaning “pterosaur,” but not everyone can win a spelling bee. Some Americans refer to this feather-less flying creature as a “flying dinosaur” or a “prehistoric bird” or a “dinosaur bird.” It comes in two flavors: Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed) and Pterodactyloid (short-tailed).

So what is a “teradactyl expert?” This also comes in two flavors: paleontologists (who study fossils) and cryptozoologists (who study eyewitness reports of apparent living pterosaurs). This might lead to controversy, when people use the same word (“pterosaur” if they are particular about the correct spelling) for two different meanings.

Attacks on “Pterodactyl Expert”

It was just a few commentators on a cryptozoology.com forum thread who initiated the attack. But it was a rather vicious attack, with one of the assailants using the name “ape man.” The question may appear simple on the surface: Am I (Jonathan Whitcomb) a “pterodactyl” expert?

A Live Teradactyl

 Jonathan Whitcomb, the forensic videographer, interviewed natives with professional experience in getting to the unique aspects of each sighting.

No, it’s more likely something else, not a school that attracts molesting-teachers.

Without mentioning any names of schools, teachers, or students, we can use reasoning to reach tentative or temporary conclusions, rather than assume guilt and stick it onto a particular name. We can assume a teacher is probably guilty, when several students accuse that teacher of misconduct, whether abuse or something else. But when a school is named by the news media, and later one student names a different teacher in that same school as guilty of the same offense, we can assume it more likely that the student is telling a lie than that the second teacher is guilty.

In a perfect society, no student would ever lie and no teacher would ever molest. But in this world, students that lie are probably more common than teachers that molest. Of course the law needs to take its course, investigating according to its own rules, but we who are spectators through news media need to avoid unnecessary assumptions of the less-common more-serious offenses. Child molesting is a serious crime, not an offense to be taken lightly, and that applies to both careful police investigations and careless public accusations.

That is not to say we ignore the individual testimony, but we should not publicize it as we do with multiple testimonies. We have enough bad news without any news media hammering us to assume the worst in every situation.

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Preschool Reading Education

I help the children by training in word recognition. Short words are shown to them, with only two or three words at a time used. This offers the preschoolers an opportunity to gain confidence: They will be better able to handle the potential surprise around second or third grade, when it becomes obvious that some words do not sound out in the traditional way . . .

This is unrelated to the “pterodactyl” joke of August-2011, in which a statue of a surfer, in northern San Diego County, was discovered to have become ensnared by a huge model of a pterosaur. The big birds or pterosaurs that flew over the middle of the city of San Diego, on November 4, 2011, at about 8:00 p.m., was no joke to the two men who witnessed the spectacle. One of the flying creatures was following the other one, at only about a hundred feet above the neighborhood around the Holy Cross Cemetery. The wingpsan of the leading pterosaur was estimated at twenty to thirty feet, and it had a long straight tail.

“Big Bird” in San Diego?

The problem with notifying the news media, in this case, was that just three months previously somebody had played a practical joke. A statue in northern San Diego County was found to have a model “pterodactyl” fixed onto the top. This was carried in the news, becoming well-known in the San Diego area. What news reporter would thereafter give serious consideration to a report of two giant pterodactyls flying over the middle of San Diego?

In many cases, using a licensed child care home is less expensive than babysitting or using a child care center (or preschool facility). In addition, a child may need to play with other children, which is not usually an option with babysitting, and a childcare center may have too many children, which can be overwhelming to a child.

Long Beach Child Care

This large family child care home in Long Beach, California, Whitcomb Family Daycare, provides quality care and preschool education to children from families of various countries and cultures. Late in 2010, these children represented three countries in Europe, one in Africa, and the countries of Australia, the Philippines, Mexico, Peru, and Columbia. Most of the children themselves were born in the United States.

Long Beach Child Care Looks to Cerritos

Music exposure might not be unique to this home child care, but a Google search with “‘free piano lessons’ ‘child care’” gives six out of ten (Google page one) results for Whitcomb Family Daycare pages; obviously they have been marketing free piano lessons . . . In addition, they [Jonathan and Gladys Whitcomb] emphasize their recently-started reading program “WORDS,” to help pre-schoolers quickly learn to read complete words as early as age three. “WORDS” involves visual learning: images being combined with the words for those images.