Amelia Earhart's Final Days...?

Amelia Earhart was an aviation pioneer and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Earhart earned her way as a faculty member of Purdue University in their aviation department in 1935. Her popularity was at a peak by this point due to her connection with Charles Lindbergh. Her celebrity status helped finance many of her aviation adventures back in the 1920s. While at Purdue University she was tasked with counselling women careers options as well as a technical advisor to the Department of Aeronautics. Working at Purdue paid off because their generous donation of a Lockheed airplane allowed Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan to attempt to circumnavigate the globe. The attempt started in Miami, Florida on June 1, 1937, from there she and her navigator travelled east and landed in places such as: South America, Africa, Indian, Southeast Asia, and finally landing in New Guinea where the last leg of the flight was to take place across the Pacific. Somewhere over the Pacific however through broken radio communication it seems the plane ran out of gas and crashed, never to be seen or heard from again.

Speculation on the whereabouts of the flight have been searched by people for years. Recently an expedition was made by Ric Gillespie and the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. There findings took them back to Nikumaroro, a remote uninhabited island in the southwestern Pacific. A discovery in 1940 of a partial skeleton that seemed to fit description of Earhart was found there but later lost. This group has been making visits to the island since 1989 and have uncovered numerous artifacts indicating a castaway presence on the island including female products. The group is hoping that DNA evidence will lead them to realize that Amelia Earhart was indeed a castaway on this island for days if not months before she died.

http://news.discovery.com/adventure/amelia-earhart-island-artifacts.html 

Celebrating a Legendary Film - The Godfather

Few films in history have been revered so much as The Godfather. Most people can easily associated quotes such as: "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" and "Leave the gun, take the cannoli." Even after forty years The Godfather is considered one of the best movies of all time and the "Holy Grail" of movie making. So many films over the last 40 years have aspired to reach the greatness that is The Godfather. It is strange to think about the classic characters and quotes that come from that movie and how different it could have been. Did you know that the studio was originally pushing for Ernest Borgnine to play the role of Don Vito Corleone, a role which Marlon Brando has immortalized in movie making history. There were some other high profile names that auditioned for the various roles in the movie but did not make the cut: Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, Sylvester Stallone, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Martin Sheen, and Steve McQueen. What an incredibly different film it would have been with any of these individuals in the various roles. When the movie was released on March 15, 1972 critics all over the world praised the film. Even today most critics place The Godfather in the top five to ten of best movies of all time. I know for me it is a great movie and is an important movie in film making history that can not go overlooked.

Controversy or Not?

So at the Gettysburg Military Park gift shop they decided after only one week that it was not a good idea to sell bobble heads with the likeness of John Wilkes Booth. Despite the fact that the bobble heads were selling like hot cakes they apparently got enough complaints from visitors that forced the organization to halt sales of the item. My real question for everyone out there is if this is truly a controversy or not? Are we actually that offended by the individual who shot a President of the United States that we can not have a likeness of him in bobble head form? Frankly I personally would not want to idealize such an individual but I would never put myself in a position to say an individual couldn't buy it. Regardless how you feel I thought it was an interesting story.

Preserving History in Massachusetts

I love the story behind this and being that I rarely give an opinion on here, I think I will this time. I wholeheartedly support the town in upholding this will. In 1661, a resident of Ipswich, Massachusetts, William Payne, willed 35 pristine acres along the shore, stating it should be for the benefit of the public school children and never be sold or wasted. This will spurred tenants to build 167 cottages along the 35-acres which generated nearly $2.4 million for the public schools over the previous 25 years. Now the trustees of the will are looking to destroy it and sell the cottages to the tenants in order to settle a lawsuit by the residents for rent increases. However, and thankfully, hundreds of residents have step up to fight this decision, saying it will break the will's intent and hurt the funds for the public school system. Many opponents of the settlements consider the trustees incompetent for having mismanaged the property for so long and having gotten the property in this mess in the first place. It seems like a tough spot that the property has been put in and it might be tough for them to get out of but bottom line is I hope they create a solution that will keep the property intact and maintaining the integrity of William Payne's will.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fate-of-351-year-old-will-sparks-bitter-dispute-between-trustees-residents-in-mass-city/2012/02/24/gIQAf62TYR_story.html

MLK Memorial: Plagued with Controversy

Ever since the announcement came through that Martin Luther King Jr was receiving a memorial at the National Mall many, including me, believed it was a long time coming. An individual who worked so hard to achieve freedom and equality for all in this country and sought to make this world a better place deserves to be remembered by all who tour the capitol of the United States. Tragically the memory of King has been stained with controversy after controversy since the beginning not making it worth the wait.

It started with the King family and their company Intellectual Properties Management. This organization has sadly spent years capitalizing off King’s name and reputation rather than believing that his words and inspiration are meant for the betterment of all mankind. They expected the Memorial Foundation to pay them handsomely for the rights to use King’s image and his quotes on the memorial. This process delay design and construction. Various individuals spoke out against this idea believing that if no one is making money off the memorial then why should they receive a fee. Despite that the Associated Press reported that the King family negotiated a licensing deal of nearly $800,000 in order to build this memorial. How ridiculous is this? In order to honor one of the country’s greatness individuals we have to pay someone to use his likeness and words. One can not help but question the motives of the King family and their desire require a license for this memorial.

In 2007, it was announced that a Chinese sculptor had been designated as the creator of the King memorial. This turned out a massive outcry and as human rights activists pointed out the sculptor had also sculpted an image of Mao Zedong. Gilbert Young, an African-American sculptor and artist, created a website dedicated to protesting this decision. He believed that African-Americans should be designated as the designer and builders of the memorial. Sadly for the most part this fell on deaf ears. And to add salt to the wound the foundations attempted to appease the protests and state that local builders would be used for the project however when it came time for everything to start, Chinese builders were used, most of them brought over from China to work only on this project.

Finally the most recent controversy is over a quote placed on King’s memorial which was changed and made him look like “an arrogant twit” according to Maya Angelou who was a consultant on the project. The quote from King originally said "If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter." However they paraphrased the quote on the memorial and wrote "I was a drum major for justice, peace, and righteousness." Not the greatest phrasing of words for someone who appeared to be very humble and unselfish individual.

It is frustrating to think that the Memorial Foundation would make so many wide ranging mistakes. I question if back room deals were made with Chinese officials to appease them in some way because we can see that it was done with the King family. Personally I feel like it is an embarrassment to the American people and the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. that so many terrible decisions were made in the making of this memorial. I would almost hope they would destroy this current memorial and try again from scratch because I feel like a better, less obtrusive, on could be made. 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/16/obama-volunteers-on-mlk-day-addresses-controversy-over-memorial-inscription/