Here are some projects that I’ve had some success with lately:

Little White Lie, a film by Lacey Schwartz, available for streaming on Netflix and through the film’s website, as well as on Amazon and iTunes.

Usually I post about one media item per week,  almost always a book but once in awhile a film.  I think the last film I wrote about was Poverty, Inc.  And I’ve already done a book post this week. But I’ve been going around with a line from this film echoing in my head:

1.  In Washington D. C. a group of friends is sitting in the back yard having a party.  Suddenly the barrel of a gun appears between two of the women.  The gunman points it at the head of one woman and then the other.  “Give me your money!” he yells.  “Give me your money or I’ll kill you!”  The group is frozen.  They can’t do what he wants because none of them has any money.  Someone tries to reason with the guy:  “Wouldn’t your mother be ashamed of you if she knew what you were doing?”  “I don’t have a mother!” he screams.  “Give me your money before I shoot!”

Then one of the women who’s had the gun pointed at her head speaks up:  “Would you like a glass of wine?”  The man is completely taken aback.  He lowers the gun.  “Yes, I would,” he says.  He takes the glass, then eats some cheese.  In the end, he says, “I think I came to the wrong place” and leaves, carefully

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In a recent post I said that my intention was to look at the “real” Pollyanna.  This character appears in a book of the same name, published in 1913, and has gone on to live a long life in adaptations for stage and film, the most famous being the 1960 Disney version starring Hayley Mills.

Pollyanna is known for playing the “Glad Game” (not the “Gland Game,” as I originally typed it), taught to her by her father, in which she tries to find something to be glad about in every situation.  The original inspiration comes when Pollyanna expects to get a doll from the “missionary barrel” but finds only a pair of crutches.  Her father tells her to look on the bright side:  She can be glad that she doesn’t need them!

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about John McCain for the past few days; if you want to know why, take a look here.

The photograph, taken in 1967, is of McCain being pulled from Truc Bach Lake in Vietnam after his plane was hit by a missile, the start of his 5 1/2 years as a POW.  What I find so interesting, and so helpful, in this story is that McCain didn’t act perfectly in this situation, and he admits that he didn’t.  It would be foolish of him, and of us who read about him, to condemn him because he didn’t meet an impossibly ideal standard.

Fascinating broadcast last week on This American Life about how hard it is for most of us to cross a threshold and go over into another set of ideas or behaviors.  So many of us (and I have to include myself in this, much as I hate to do so) are timid. We have to see that others are crossing the threshold too, and then maybe we’ll do it.  And sometimes this is a good thing, as it helps to preserve the social order.  So, on this segment of the program hosted by best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell there’s the example given of mob behavior, especially riots. Psychologists have always tried to puzzle out why a group of people will do things that they’d never do on their own.