I will discuss how confusing diets and nutrition labels can be! Come and learn why diets are so confusing and how to read through the misleading marketing techniques on packaging to assure you are making the wise choice for your health.

How can you tell if something is credible or fake news? Reliable information helps us make good decisions but with the proliferation of social media, sometimes it is hard to tell if we should believe it or delete it. We tend to want to believe those things that align with our world view, but is it true just because we want it to be? What is opinion and what is fact? Let's sharpen our critical thinking skills and discover some tools that we can use to help us figure it out. We will learn what drives fake news, how to recognize it, and how to not pass it on.

Throughout their history, humans have sought remedies to ameliorate or cure ailments. Various potions were developed by different cultures using locally available materials and folklore. Some worked; many did not. This presentation will deal with some of these so-called “cures.” From soft drinks to other elixirs composed of exotic ingredients, all with supposed health benefits. It will also feature a few of the people who were part of this enterprise, including Franz Mesmer, James Graham, William Radam, Lydia Pinkham, Senator Dudley J. Le Blanc, and the Kellogg brothers.

The formation of the powerful Hollywood studios turned Hollywood into a worldwide phenomenon. These “factories” included rosters of extremely talented actors, directors, writers, cinematographers, and a whole host of other creative departments that churned out so many wonderful films. During the Golden Era that spanned the late 1920s until the late 1940s, each studio developed its own specific “personality” or style. We will look at each of the major studios: MGM, Paramount, Warner Brothers, RKO, 20th Century Fox, and the minor ones: Columbia, Universal and United Artists. We will watch scenes from many of their great films. We will also learn how they started to lose their grip on the industry that they created.

This course will explore the state of the news media and their audiences today, attempting to examine whether or not truth can be found there, and if so, how people of faith and people in general might be more successful in extracting it.