Book and film review of Peyton Place (1957)

A few weeks ago I watched the 1957 film Peyton Place because I had read the book by Grace Metalious a long time ago and thought it pretty good, though not great. The film was pretty bad, though. I was surprised to learn that it had been nominated for nine Oscars but not surprised that it failed to win any. What prompts me to review it is that the way that the book was transformed into film reveals something interesting about the standards that were imposed unevenly on the two forms of art.
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Where the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant came from

As the Republican convention gets underway tomorrow in Cleveland and the Democrats the following week in Philadelphia, expect to see a lot of images of elephants and donkeys during the two events. In Sri Lankan politics, all political parties have an associated symbol that they choose for themselves. The symbols can be animals or inanimate items like a chair. These are prominently displayed at all party functions and are even present on ballot papers next to the party candidate’s name. This serves a practical purpose for voters who might be illiterate because they can identify whom to vote for by the symbol alone.
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The chaos behind Trump’s choice of Pence

It now turns out that the initial speculation that Donald Trump’s botched announcement of Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running was due to him not being sure he wanted him seems to be correct. Usually, such an announcement is made with great fanfare in the hope of gaining positive coverage for the ticket. But yesterday Trump made the choice on Twitter and Pence accepted the same way, a low-budget affair if there ever was one, just the kind of thing Trump hates.
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Call for assistance with media monitoring during RNC

Those who follow media coverage of the RNC convention may be able to help me with the monitoring of the media. In particular, I am looking for the following things:

• Use of police force and to what degree
• Crowd control techniques (mounted police)
• Dispersal orders
• Police/reporter interactions
• Acts of civil disobedience
• Use of: pepper spray, tear gas, wooden bullets, rubber pellets.

If you see any of those things in the media, it would help me if you could jot down the following information and email it to me.

1. Date:
2. Time:
3. News Outlet:
4. Any comments or observations:

Thanks!