Miriam's Mysterious Media

Distance of a Newspaper Week 12        Today I had the privilege of hearing from an apostle. Elder Ballard had a fireside for Provo temple workers. In his message he told this amazing story about a newspaper. His ancestor had joined the church and moved from England to Utah. Later in the story a man showed up to give a newspaper to the daughter. She was told to give it directly to her father, and no one else. She did as directed. When her father got the paper, on May 18th, 1884, he noticed the date and location the paper had been printed in. The paper was dated May 15th and was printed in England. It is a miracle that such media of the time could even be there that fast. Elder Ballard then told us how he looked up that old newspaper to find out what had been written on it. The article he found contained all the information necessary to do temple work for the friends and family of his ancestor. The reporter had been so amazed by the grave stones at the church, that he wrote down ev

Christmas Devotional Week 11       With Thanksgiving break over it is now time to get back to posting! Today I got to watch the Christmas Devotional, broadcast by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There were many messages that brought the Spirit. My favorite part of the whole broadcast was the song they chose to end with. It was the Hallelujah Chorus. The voices were powerful as they presented such a magnificent piece. I felt excitement at the upcoming holiday. I know that the media we chose to give our attention to will affect our day to day lives. Even this one song had power over a small moment of my evening. 

Titanfall Week 10       This past week my husband talked me into getting a cheap X-Box with a couple of games. He was especially excited about one game in particular, that he had loved playing. He was so thrilled about this opportunity, he pulled out his phone to show me the trailer of the game Titanfall. Right off the bat there were 2 curse words. My husband apologized, not remembering there being any. Barely any time past when there was a death. It started me off on my coding brain. In the whole short clip I counted around 14 deaths. These had no consequences and were portrayed as the right thing for the hero to do. As soon as the clip ended my husband looked at me for my response. I think he expected the usual "Oh, I don't like first person shooter games, the end." However, the first words that escaped my mouth were, "Fourteen people died in that clip." We both decided despite the lack of carnage, (since it was machines with people inside fighting other

Star Trek Week 9       This past week I re-visited some old Star Trek episodes and I was quite surprised by the differences that the old have compared to the new. In the Star Trek originals there are many references to religion and Christianity. In one episode Spock says about a man who died from eating some fruit, "His name... was Adam." In another episode Uhura ends the show with the words, "Captain, they weren't talking about the Sun. They were talking about the Son of God." I find it quite interesting how the newest Star Trek I've seen, Star Trek Enterprise, has developed. There is no religiousness to be found. There is also a great deal of sex and questionable material. The violence is more real. These shows are in the same universe, yet the time at which they were created vastly impacted the content of the show. This example of the two Star Trek series demonstrates how people in our society are being desensitized to the violence and sex in the med

The Riddle Week 8       This past week my younger sister excitedly handed me an earbud to show me the music she was listening to. I was very surprised by what I heard. I wasn't familiar with the song. She started lip-syncing the lyrics. They were very entertaining and I was enthralled at once. The message of the song was whether to trust someone, or whether it is better to betray them before they can do anything to break your trust. The song is from the play the Scarlet Pimpernel. Many lines made me pause and think. My favorite one is at the beginning when the girl voice sings,  "Just see how virtue repays you - you turn, and someone betrays you. Betray him first, and the game's reversed!" My sister made quite the face as she forcefully sang those words. She was so animated throughout the whole song and I was amazed at what we expose young adolescents too. This play is about guillotine of the upper class and how a person works to undermine this. The mess

Seen in Day's Past/ The Skirt You Wear Week 7       This past week in class we were prompted to count acts of violence that occurred in a short clip from the children's movie "The Incredibles." Since that class media I have been exposed to has had a filter on it. By that I mean, I can't watch a movie without counting how many acts of violence were portrayed. The best example I have of this is when my husband showed me a movie from his childhood: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.       This movie's target audience is kids. However in the movie, and one scene particularly, the king keeps failing to murder his wife. It is meant to be comical, but when taken out of context a viewer could find this rather dark. He is trying to kill her, and it is funny. In this clip from the movie there are 4 attempts on the life of the woman, not including one from earlier in the movie. I don't think I ever noticed that aggression in kids movies has always kind of been around.