Meet the SnowsWritten by Arleen M. Kaptur
For those who live and work in Northern parts, snow and cold are around for what seems like forever. Those in warmer climates can only dream about snow, snowpeople, and carrot noses. Wherever you call home, these snow munchkins can be a joy to have around, and a bit of whimsy when life crowds in a bit too much. Children and adults can build snow families right in their own front yard with Mother Nature supplying essentials. But anyone can "create" a snowperson with a myriad of craft scraps. Styrofoam balls in various sizes are great for making lightweight and easily decorated snowpeople. Felt, and even worn-out white socks that are filled and given button noses, scarves, gloves, add to fun of winter or wintry thoughts. You can wear snowmen/women on sweaters, on children's coats or fleece tops just by cutting out, embellishing and sewing or using fusible backing so that your special creations stick when going gets cold and wet. Several snowpeople on a window ledge with snow covered pine cones are sometimes just touch needed to brighten up an area. Coloring pages offer a variety of patterns to choose from - country version of thin or old-fashioned robust, smiling, and cheerful lot.
| | Family Safe Movies - Editing Hollywood To Create Clean Films For All The FamilyWritten by Mark Falco
The declining moral standards of society, fuelled in some large part by television media and mainstream movie industry, has been much bemoaned by parental groups, religious organisations and other guardians of our collective morality but without an awful lot of impact being made. The perceived decay of traditional values and weakening of moral fibre continues daily to a point where things which would have made a dock worker blush 30 years ago now proliferate into mainstream network media channels and even into children's programming slots with sensory-numbing regularity. There can be few parents reading this who haven't sat through a movie they would have loved to have shared with their children but for one or two unsuitable scenes. Or who have been simply unable to enjoy a movie everyone is talking about due to level of sexual content, violence or other unsavoury content. Renting a Hollywood movie is almost guaranteed to ensure you an unhealthy dose of sex and violence and with censorship boards becoming increasingly liberal, PG rating bar allows more and more questionable content to limbo under it. Well now, all that is starting to change with help of a few of society's good guys. We've all heard of slogan "sex sells", but hey guess what? "NO sex” sells just as well and has opened up a whole new industry for DVD rental and retail sales. Family Edited movies are new 'big thing' to hit entertainment world with a few pioneers such as Cleanfilms.com stepping up to scrub Hollywood clean! A family edited movie is basically exactly same movie you find on shelves of your local rental store but with all offensive content edited out. Edited scenes typically include removal of foul and offensive language, including non-religious reference to deity, removal of graphic violence, nudity and sexual/overly suggestive imagery and reference to them and basically anything which is liable to cause offence on moral or religious grounds. The editing is akin to that seen on network television channels with professional editors ensuring there are no obvious breaks in flow of movie, so that only clue viewer has that they are watching a family edited DVD is that there is no offensive content. Of course, you will not find every movie can be edited in this way, so choices are limited, simply because a lot of movies will not longer be watchable after adult content has been removed!
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