"Pandora's Promise"

Along with the documentary that I watched for my paper, I also watched the 2013 documentary "Pandora's Promise".

My dad is a nuclear Engineer, so when I read the summary and watched the trailer it interested me. I have grown up having nothing but positive thoughts about nuclear power because it is my family's source of income. But growing up, in science classes I started to hear the negative accusations and effect of nuclear power plants.

After I read about the documentary on the list Dr. Kyburz's list and watched the trailer I showed it to my dad and he asked if I wanted to watch it with him. I few nights later we watched the documentary. It was kinda weird for me in the beginning watching it with him because there were a lots of nasty things said as the film opened. The nuclear industry is my dad's lively hood, this career of over 25 years and how he supports his family and, in the moment, I kinda regretted having him watch it. 

The documentary then went onto discuss the common misconceptions of nuclear energy and give facts to them being untrue. They also included explanation of the the real and valid danger of nuclear energy, explaining how it can go wrong, but also the procedures plants and the NRC have to keep the public safe at all costs. There was a lot of information about the formation of nuclear power and how it works. I knew most of this stuff just by talking to my dad over the years. 

There was one scene that really stood out to me; when discussing how nuclear is the only large threat to the coal plants, they showed articles promoting solar power THAT WERE FUNDED BY THE COAL PLANT COMPANIES! That was something my dad pointed out after too. It's crazy because they know that things like wind and solar alternative energies will not keep you with the public's demand for power by themselves. On days when it is not super windy or sunny then the coal plants will have to fill the demand.   

The topic comes up in any discussion about Nuclear Power; they explained the disaster at Chernobyl Power plant in Russia in 1986. Anti nuclear activists will yell about millions of people and babies dying because of this event, but the documentary provided evidence and records of not one person dying due to overexposure of radiation in or around the area of the disaster. 

This came as a surprise to me because I always assumed that everyone is the area was killed. Then the documentary said that 20% of people around the world will get cancer in their lifetime and many will die. Obviously people in Russia and in Japan after their nuclear malfunction in 2012 will freak out when they get cancer and blame it on the nuclear plant, when humans will get cancer and die of it anyway, nuclear plants or not. 

I really liked the documentary and I encourage others to watch it. There was a lot that I did not know and there was a lot explained that added to my knowledge of nuclear power. (I also got to spend time with my dad while I watched it, which does not happen too often). 

Kayla Audrey  

Documentary Review

I watched the "My Kid Could Paint That" Documentary, directed by Amir Bar-Lev . As an art student I really enjoyed it and found it  inspiring. I do a lot of realism, what you see is what you get, art. I like architecture and shoes and faces; I have never even tried my hand abstract art.

Marla's story is so sweet. She was only three when she started painting and sold her first painting for $250. I loved the one picture of her sitting on the dinning room table in her diaper painting. I loved the home videos of her painting, not only to see how she creates her work, but to see this very small person painting on a huge canvas! It's adorable seeing her choosing her paint color and brushes and creating. 

Abstract art to me has always been a little intimidating because I can never imagine how to begin. Where on the canvas? What color? And an even bigger question to me, when can you tell when the piece is complete? When I create my art I like to visualize it. Some people can visualize abstract; I am not one of those people.

One of the journalists that covered Marla's story, Elizabeth Cohen, made an amazing comment at the end of the documentary. She said, 

 "The whole story is really about grownups. She's just a little girl painting in her house"

Ahhh I loved that quote because it's so true. If you take away all of the money and the news articles and all of the speculation, you just have a girl who loves to paint-and paints very well. She's also four years old and has way more success than almost any other artist alive. All artists are waiting for their big break and for the public to acknowledge their work. Marla had the art work in a frenzy for her work, and I think had a lot of artists, who have been working for years and years, very jealous. She's a four year old, doing abstract art. She has not been practicing for years and she really has not  sacrificed anything, other than her privacy during the end of the documentary, and she's doing it for fun. People are coming to her and paying thousands of dollars. Who wouldn't be jealous of her? 

Even though I am not an abstract artist, I would like to try a piece or two this semester. Maybe I will post them to my blog, if I like how they turn out. 

-Kayla Audrey 

2018