Movies!

King Corn (2007)
King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat-and how we farm.

Corn (2004)
Emily returns to her family's sheep farm in rural Pennsylvania after an affair with the politician who has fathered her baby. Doubted by the community she has returned to, she questions her own sanity as she tries to discover what is happening. Her journey takes her on a trip down the food chain, as she tracks a potentially life-threatening byproduct from the cornfield to the supermarket. Ultimately she has to confront psychological demons that haunt her as she grows into motherhood, and comes to terms with her own biology.

Children of the Corn (1984)
A young couple wander into a mid-western town where all the adults are apparently dead and the children participate in a cult that worships a malevolent force in the corn fields. Based on a Stephen King novella.

Food, Inc. (2008)
An unflattering look inside America's corporate controlled food industry.

Fast Food Nation (2006)
An ensemble piece examining the health risks involved in the fast food industry and its environmental and social consequences as well.

Booklist

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan

"The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth."

This book looks at people as omnivores and as such provided with way too many dietary choices. A section of the book is dedicated to corn's role in the current fast food industry and exactly how many items in the average supermarket are made from corn.

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
by Eric Schlosser
Examines the influence of America's Fast Food industry.
Stuffed Nation blog

Hopi Kachina Dolls with a Key to Their Identification
by Harold Colton
Information and pictures of the various Kachina dolls in the Hopi religion.

The Fourth World of the Hopis: The Epic Story of the Hopi Indians as Preserved in Their Legends and Traditions.
by Harold Courlander
Pretty much what the title says.

Corn Headlines

These headlines found on the Internet, feature contemporary issues concerning the use of corn and corn byproducts in present-day society. Corn is currently used in everything from biofuel to plastics to livestock feed, raising the price of corn and putting strain on the economy.

The Long-Term Stranglehold by Corn Ethanol on U.S. Biofuel Policy Continues
EPA Revises Ethanol Blend Wall

    With the EPA’s announcement that light fleet automobiles produced after 2006 are safe to use ethanol blends up to 15% (E15) without engine modification, the industry achieved a significant goal with the increase of the “blend wall.”　
     Assuming that in late November 2010, the EPA also approves automobiles from 2001-2006 to use E15 blends, approximately 60% of the light fleet passenger models will be consider safe for E15. This change would expand ethanol’s addressable blend market from approximately 13.7 to 17.8 billion gallons. Link

--------------------

Thursday, Dec 20, 2007 06:38 ET
The Fuel on the Hill

President Bush signed a new energy bill Wednesday, betting the farm that corn ethanol is the best alternative fuel for the future. It isn't.
Link
------------------

In Worries About Sweeteners, Think of All Sugars
Are you worried about high-fructose corn syrup in your diet?
Link
-----------------

In the Fields of Italy, a Conflict Over Corn
Published: August 23, 2010VIVARO, Italy — Giorgio Fidenato declared war on the Italian government and environmental groups in April with a news conference and a YouTube video, which showed him poking six genetically modified corn seeds into Italian soil.
In fact, said Mr. Fidenato, 49, an agronomist, he planted two fields of genetically modified corn. But since “corn looks like corn,” as he put it, it took his opponents weeks to find his crop. Link

-------------
New Uses for Corn & Ethanol
ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Corn-based industrial products are the single largest potential growth market for corn growers. Ethanol currently utilizes 4.2 billion bushels of corn, but as yields continue to increase and ethanol levels reach the blend-wall, additional markets will be needed. There is great potential to use corn-based materials to meet needs in many other large markets such as plastics, solvents, packaging and other consumer goods, which are currently petroleum-based.
Link

-----------

Blue Tortillas May Help Dieters And Diabetics
ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2007) — People with dieting blues should try swapping white corn tortillas for blue. A recent study suggests that the colored flatbreads are healthier, especially for diabetics and dieters, Sara Jensen reports in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. Link

If you answered yes, you’re not alone. Today, about 55 percent of Americans list the infamous corn sweetener among their food-safety worries, right behind mad cow disease and mercury in seafood, according to the consumer research firm NPD Group.

Corn Palace

    The Corn Palace serves as a multi-use center for the community and region. The facility hosts stage shows, as well as sports events in its arena. The World's Only Corn Palace is an outstanding structure which stands as a tribute to the agricultural heritage of South Dakota.

    The exterior decorations are completely made of corn, which is stripped down and new murals are created each year. The theme is selected by the Corn Palace Festival Committee and murals are designed by a local artist.　

Children of the Corn (1984) Trailer

New Uses for Corn



Samsung Reclaim “Corn Phone” Case
cardboard and ink
released in 2009
40% of the Reclaim casing was built using bio-plastic
materials extracted from corn.
 In 2008 Sprint established a clear environmenta
l vision by publishing a set of long-term environmental goals.






Corn in American Folk Art

 

Children Chalkware Wall Plaques
chalkware and paint
Miller Studio Inc.
1955

Corn Husk Dolls
corn husk and ribbon
circa 1981

Corn Husk Dolls

Seneca legend of the corn husk doll retold by Mrs. Snow, a Seneca craftswoman, in 1981:“Many, many years ago, the corn, one of the Three Sisters, wanted to make something different.

She made the moccasin and the salt boxes, the mats, and the face. She wanted to do something different so the Great Spirit gave her permission.
So she made the little people out of corn husk and they were to roam the earth so that they would bring brotherhood and contentment to the Iroquois tribe.

But she made one that was very, very beautiful. This beautiful corn person, you might call her, went into the woods and saw herself in a pool. She saw how beautiful she was and she became very vain and naughty.

That began to make the people very unhappy and so the Great Spirit decided that wasn't what she was to do.

She didn't pay attention to his warning, so the last time the messenger came and told her that she was going to have her punishment.

Her punishment would be that she'd have no face, she would not converse with the Senecas or the birds or the animals. She'd roam the earth forever, looking for something to do to gain her face back again. So that's why we don't put any faces on the husk dolls.”