The Death of the Rainbow

By -
This past week in Arizona we've seen multitudes of rainbows due to extraordinary amounts of rain. We've achieved 7 months of typical rainfall in the past several weeks and the rainbows have been incredible -- full rainbows across the sky, double rainbows on top of double rainbows, rainbows eight colors deep.  I swear the next rainbow I see will rain casino tokens down from the sky. 

Anyway, all the excitement over rainbows reminded me of my favorite inspiring TV show from my youth, The Reading Rainbow.  I wanted to learn more about how the show started and the people behind the show so I conducted some in-depth ten-minute google research.  My web sources indicate new episodes stopped production in 2006 and PBS finally cancelled airing of the show in August of 2009. So instead of a inspirational moment we will eulogize the show.

The Reading Rainbow's mission was to bring the love of learning to kids, ages 4-8, making the bridge from paperback books to "fat" books (that's apparently kid lingo for books full of words and no pictures).  The show centered around WHY you should read and was known for LaVar Burton's line before the book reviews "But, you don't have to take my word for it."  These book reviews were by the kids for the kids, (imagine a 7 year old Roger Ebert). In addition the show didn't rely on make-believe story lines but rather showed behind the scenes documentary info about how things are made, how things grow, and who writes the words behind the pictures.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Vegetable Gardening is like Business

By -
Image
How vegetable gardening is like business Each morning this week, as I’ve surveyed the leaves of my vegetable garden, I’ve noticed a different caterpillar. First it was my baby tomatillo plant. I found the green bulbous body hanging on to the stem of one of the sprouts. I think I shrieked. It was my first encounter and, clearly, this was the culprit who ate holes out of the leaves while we were on vacation. I extracted him onto my garden shears and marched him straight down to the waste bin. I brushed my hands off and thought, “Good riddance. You won’t make a mess out of my plants again!” Then, yesterday afternoon it was my romaine lettuce. A thick green slimy belly weaved his way between my plants.  He looked similar to the tomatillo terrorist but he was even bigger (like 2 inches long)! After researching caterpillars, I believe that he and his friends are some sort of moth caterpillars. A moth had to have found my greenery so pleasant that it felt the need to leave
Read more

Corn fields inspire underground library

By -
Image
The Morrow Plots are corn fields located on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus.  During my freshman orientation campus tour in 1995 our group was told these cornfields are the oldest in the U.S. (first grown in 1876) and have been preserved as such an important part of the University's history that the undergraduate library was built three stories underground as to not cast a shadow on the cornfields, risking inadequate sunlight conditions. Wikipedia says that the University master plan at the time (1966) required a large open plaza at that end of the campus, thus also demanding the library be built underground.  Whatever the true reason for building an underground library, the innovation seed was planted and architects had to find their inspiration.  I finally made it back to UIUC in September and here are a few photos of the library and Morrow Plots: You can find more photos and information from the UI Histories Project: Click here
Read more

Summer of the bean

By -
Image
Last week I declared to my husband that this will be the summer of the bean. I will be inspired by beans. I will eat beans whenever possible, either by cooking them myself or ordering them at restaurants. Richard agreed but couldn't help following it up with a Bean-O joke. So go ahead and crack your jokes, I can handle it. But the fact is that beans are good for us. Or I read it somewhere anyway. Beans are a great source of protein and since my husband mainly only eats fish and soy proteins, I’m looking for something else that I can sink my teeth into on a regular basis when I eat dinner with him. Something nice and earthy with a crunch or a mush. Something that can go in salads, soups, stews, casseroles, or as a standalone dish. Something that can sit for hours in my crock pot. What’s better than a bean? To prepare for this, I beaned up late last week and bought every bean I could find at Safeway, except not the red kidney beans because I read that they are toxic unless p
Read more