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I would like to thank everyone who sponsored, supported, volunteered, and welcomed our filmmakers and guests to Tupelo and the 9th Annual Tupelo Film Festival because it was a wonderful event that provided great opportunities for our filmmakers, guests and community.
The festival is an avenue for networking, offering educational opportunities, hosting independent screenings, providing workshops, opening doors to showcase our city for film locations, presenting special award recognitions, forming filmmaker tours, and creating fun night-time social events where all can come together to relax and have a good time at the end of the evening. I have received many comments stating that the ninth festival was the best yet; this would not have been possible without your support.
Many wonderful experiences happened for the filmmakers both during and after the festival. Thanks everyone for your support!
Pat Rasberry
Director of Tupelo Film Festival/Tupelo Film Commission
Filmmaker praises Tupeloand quality of film festival
Thank you so much for selecting “Treasures from the Rubble” to premiere at your 9th Annual Tupelo Film Festival. So many wonderful things happened at the festival for me personally and for my hometown of Fayette, Ala.
The documentary, which was a labor of love and a tribute to the Fayette Art Museum, brought 82 people from Fayette, many of them community leaders and a wonderful group of people from Columbus, where a smattering of Fayette natives now live. The mayor of Fayette, Ray Nelson, was delighted to meet your Mayor Jack Reed, Jr. Rep. Johnny Mack Morrow of the Alabama Legislature highly commended your festival and Tupelo, and was proud to walk on the stage of the Lyric Theatre to present a Resolution from the Alabama House of Representatives honoring me and the documentary. Because of what happened in Tupelo, many people whom I don’t even know have written that the event has been an inspiration to the town of Fayette.
Sitting in the audience of the Lyric Theatre were not only friends from Alabama and Mississippi, but also New York and Miami. I am so glad that “Treasures from the Rubble” appeared first in Tupelo.
Alexandra Branyon
Fayette, Ala., native, Amagansett, N.Y.
‘Affirm and create’over ‘deny and negate’
The June 16 Daily Journal brought us another interesting contrast of views, however pale, as Dr. Holliday and Rev. Hull had a pillow-fight over political party-switchers. I call it a “pillow-fight” because nothing was made over except the Democrat stand for marriage equality, and both agreed that is a bad thing.
Where was the discussion of candidate honesty, integrity and loyalty? Is it not dishonest to run your campaign and garner your votes under the banner of one party and then switch to stand with the other? Is that not false advertising and flying a false flag? I was always taught to dance with the one you went with to the party. The time to change is before the dance, not after.
I have voted Republican since Barry Goldwater’s campaign; but, this year, the frightfully mean primary campaigns convinced me that I want nothing to do with a party that is working so hard to deny women the right to modern health care, to deny certain classes of voters access to the polls, to deny all, except the rich, access to essential medical care and to deny human rights to gay people. Instead of the “deny and negate” attitude of the Republicans, I’m going to the “affirm and create” message of the Democrats.
As to Ed’s and James’ agreement of opposition to same-sex marriage, I must disagree. I believe every human being is equal in the sight of our creator. I believe that our Constitution declares every person to have equal rights under the law. I cannot find any wording in the Constitution which excludes any class or type of people from those rights. To grant the full rights of marriage to any couple while denying them to others is simply unconstitutional.
Those who base their opposition to same-sex marriage on biblical text need to read the scripture in the context of its times. Christians should carefully note that Jesus said not one word on the issue.
One of the great benefits of our Constitution is the freedom to practice religion as we see fit, and it is not fit to impose a particular religious view on other people.
Bob Spencer
Tupelo
Objection voiced aboutJC Penney’s ad campaign
“The customer is always right” is a familiar maxim that marketing majors have been taught for years. As a college bookstore manager, my husband always follows this rule because his goals are to keep his customers happy and to keep them coming back.
Apparently, JC Penney’s company is following a far different strategy – “Let’s just insult our customers by attacking their moral views.” Case in point – their recent Mother’s Day catalog I received with my Sunday, May 6, Journal showing loving “mothers” – including Wendi and her partner, Maggie. (Their lifestyle choices and names were printed twice on two pages lest I miss the relationships.) JC Penney’s is not content to advertise t-shirts, underwear, pants and accessories. Now, they want to also persuade their customers that homosexuality is normal, an alternate lifestyle.
I realize that we live in America – the land of the free. And yes, Maggie and Wendi and others have the right to live the way they wish. However, I do not feel that a clothing company should be in the business of trying to educate its customers on morality. Their job should be to sell clothes.
Laurie McBride
Booneville