This past week I took my twelve year old daughter to see the film, “The Hunger Games.” I knew the film was appropriate for her age, because my daughter’s school had already taken her to see it as part of a field trip.

The movie depicts an oppressive regime in the future that holds an annual contest. Each of the nation’s 12 districts is required to send one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18. Twenty-four contestants are placed in an elaborate arena, supplied with weapons, and told to kill each other. The lone survivor is named the winner and lavished with riches.

The film has significant artistic merit. It is brilliantly executed. It is thoroughly engaging.

It is also the most viciously barbaric film I have ever seen. I do not say this because of the number of people who are killed (though it is depressingly high). I do not say this because of the quantity of gore (which was remarkably small considering the death count). The barbarism of the film is firmly rooted in the psychological horror of each death.

The premise of adolescents being killed by their peers is shocking. But the film mixes this premise with the natural and familiar brutality of adolescent bullying. Adults are capable of great and vicious violence. But adults cannot match the sheer joy and glee that some adolescents express during acts of brutality. The image of a group of attractive and popular bullies, laughing and romping, as their most recent victim lies humiliated and beaten on a school house play ground, is deeply disturbing. When the victim lies dead in an arena, it is grotesque.

Before the games, the contestants live in squalor in the districts. They are brought to the capital city for two weeks of preparation, where they briefly live lives of luxury. Fabulous parades are held in their honor. They are fawned over and treated like celebrities. The girls are dressed in elaborate gowns. They are interviewed by charismatic television hosts. They smile and giggle as they talk about their hopes for the future. By the end of the games, they are butchered piles of flesh.

Moreover, none of the contestants are prepared for death. When a soldier or policeman trains, they must feel death always looking over their shoulder. All adults know that they will one day die. Adolescents are the only people who cling to the myth that the end will never come. The movie makers capture this adolescent ignorance with stunning accuracy. There is, therefore, no death with dignity in “The Hunger Games”. There is only shock, surprise and horror.

A girl lights a fire, is found, pleads for her life, and murdered. Another girl falls asleep, is awakened when a nest of genetically modified wasps are dropped on her, and screams in horror as she is tormented to death by a thousand stings. Another girl pleads for help from her ally, just before she is slaughtered. A boy begs to be killed as he is eaten alive by dog like creatures.

I am genuinely impressed by the skill of the movie’s makers. They have delivered an exquisite feast of horror and violence. I am equally appalled that they have marketed this feast to adolescents.

Two young boys were inspired by the film, “The Matrix”, to massacre their fellow class mates at Columbine. That film featured highly stylized violence. Adults killed adults. The hero fought against “people” who were, in effect, computer programs.

What is the potential for violent inspiration from a film that depicts children killing children? Will the film’s brilliant mimicry of bullying and adolescent denial of death increase the chance that violent fantasies will be acted on?

Even if no one is ever inspired to commit one violent act because of this film, I cannot believe that anyone under the age of 18 is emotionally equipped to see it. We cannot feed our children horror, violence and brutality without reaping a harvest of spiritual desolation.

Of course, the film makers are trying to make some kind of moral or political point. But in choosing their audience, they have committed a singularly immoral act.

I am most shocked by the quiet with which this film has been sold to our children. I have searched the internet for reviews. Criticism is virtually nonexistent.

Years ago Pope John Paul II called ours a Culture of Death. I always liked our Polish Pope. I thought he was a sweet and wise old man. But I am not Catholic, and therefore never placed any special importance on his words. When he called ours a Culture of Death, I thought he had clearly missed the mark, indulging in metaphysical hyperbole.

Surely he was a prophet. We are no longer content to devour endless violence and call it adult entertainment. We are sitting quietly by as Hollywood peddles it to our children.

We are not on a slippery slope. We are at the bottom.

The Holiday season is a very busy time for carpet cleaners. Your mother is coming for Thanksgiving. Your grandmother is coming for Christmas. And suddenly the floors don’t look nearly as clean as you thought they did.

There’s a coffee stain in the den, a red wine stain in the dining room and what have the kids been doing in the FROG? Cleaning the dirty carpet will make a major improvement in the appearance of your home.

Because this is a popular time to get your carpets cleaned, we recommend that you book your appointments early. Here are a few hints to consider when you choose a carpet cleaner:

1. Some people choose a carpet cleaner based on price. This motivates many carpet cleaners to cut corners in their carpet cleaning process. The results are usually disappointing.

2. Many carpet cleaning coupons and deals are not as good as they seem. The $49.00 dollar whole special often becomes $249.00 when the technician arrives.

3. Be careful when renting a carpet cleaning machine. These machines are underpowered, and only moderately effective at removing soil.

When you need your carpets cleaned for the Holidays, call Rainbow International at 762-9707. Our Superior Six Step System is the most effective way of removing soil from your carpet. Rainbow International cleans carpets in Charleston, North Charleston, Kiawah, Seabrook, Johns Island, Wadmalaw Island, James Island, Hanahan, Mt. Pleasant and Summerville.

(The following presentation was given at the West Ashley Referral Group (WAR).  WAR meets every wednesday morning at 8 AM at Hale Accounting in Charleston, SC.  Visitors are welcome.)   

Good Morning. I’m Jim Belton with Rainbow International.
In the past I have spoken with you about Water and Fire Damage, because that’s the work that provides the most revenue for us. But today I am going to talk with you about a very different service, and that’s carpet cleaning. The reason is simple. There is a 50% chance that you will have water damage some time in your life. There is a much smaller chance that you will have a fire. But the experts all agree that you should have your carpets cleaned once a year. In the last year you have not gone one week when you did not meet someone who needed to have their carpets cleaned.

I am frequently talking with people who express concerns about carpets and their health. And in fact this was a burning issue in Sweden during the 1970s. There was a prominent group of Swedish scientists who were really annoyed. They were always trying to take pictures of their beautiful blonde children, but their photos were ruined because their children kept coughing right as they snapped the picture. They asked themselves, “What is causing these allergic reactions?” One of these scientists decided to look at carpet under a microscope. And what he found alarmed him.

A large concentration of dust mites, pollens, spores and other allergens were trapped inside the fibers of the carpet. A huge national campaign was launched to remove carpets from the floors of Sweden. Like any good Swede, they involved the government. They tore out carpet and replaced it with hardwood floors, tile and concrete.
When they began, carpet covered 40% of all Swedish floors. Within 20 years, they covered less than 1%. And the incidence of allergies – increased by 300%.

How could that be? They had removed the carpet which was trapping large concentrations of allergens. Wht were their children still coughing?

Incredibly, the Swedish scientists did not realize until it was too late that that they had removed the most effective air filter in their homes. The dust mites, pollens and spores were not created by the carpet. They were trapped by the carpet. And now those allergens found their way into their children’s lungs, which is why it is so difficult today to find photographs of beautiful blonde Swedish children who are not coughing.

Most people get their carpets cleaned because they look dirty. But I like to remind people that as we clean their carpet, we are also improving their indoor air quality by cleaning their 600 square foot air filter.

Now what I have noticed about everything that I have ever done in my life, is that there is a right way to do things and a fast and easy way to do things. And we live in a society that continually pursues fast and easy, and simultaneously laments the loss of hard work, honestly done the right way.

So when I opened my business I decided that everything that I did would be done according to the highest standards, not because it was easy or expedient. And it so happens that when it comes to carpet cleaning, there is an organization that sets the international standard on how to clean carpet. It’s called the Institute for Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification, and since that’s a mouth full, it’s otherwise known as the IICRC.

So I developed a six step system, based on the IICRC standard, to clean carpet. What I didn’t realize is that this dramatically separated us from virtually every other carpet cleaner in town, most of whom used a one or two step system to sort of clean carpet.

What are these six steps?

1: We groom the carpet. Why? Well what is the first thing we do when we install new carpet? We lay down this beautiful, clean, carpet with all of the fibers standing wonderfully tall … and then walk all over it. And as we do, the fibers become matted and begin to lay down flat. When we groom the carpet, we separate the fibers a little and that allows us better access to clean the entire carpet.

2: We dry vacuum the carpet. A large percentage of the soil in the carpet is particulate soil. That means it’s plain, ordinary dirt. What happens when you add water to dirt? That’s right, you make mud. We can remove the particulate soil better before the carpet gets wet.

3: We apply a heated cleaning solution to the carpet. Our technicians carry 7 different cleaning solutions. Different homes have different kinds of soil. The soil in a home in West Ashley is going to be different from the soil on Folly Beach. The soil in a home where a 60 year old woman lives by herself is going to be different from a family with 2.5 children, one dog and two cats. Our technicians choose the right cleaning solution based on the soil in your home and the construction of your carpet.

4: We brush the cleaning solution into the carpet. This agitation causes the cleaning solution to mix with the soil.

5: We extract the cleaning solution with a carpet wand. The jets dispense a heated rinse that flushes soil out of the carpet and neutralizes the cleaning solution. Have you ever heard people say? “Don’t get your carpets cleaned, because the soaps they use attract soil. And it’s going to look worse in two weeks.” Those are people who used a carpet cleaner who did not properly rinse the carpet.

And finally Step 6: We use an air mover to rapidly dry the carpet. Why do we want to rapidly dry the carpet? Well it’s more convenient for the customer. But have you ever had someone say? “I got my carpets cleaned and it looked great for 2 weeks. But then all the spots came back.” There is an infinite amount of soil in your carpet pad. As the carpet dries, it carries soil from the bottom of the carpet, to the top. That’s why the spots mysteriously reappear. If you can dry the carpet quickly enough, this doesn’t happen.

Why does Rainbow International go to so much trouble to clean carpet? Why do we take 6 steps, to do what everyone else tries to do in one or two? Because we have this crazy notion that any job worth doing, is worth doing right.

I’m Jim Belton with Rainbow International. Whenever disaster strikes you, be it a flood, or fire or your children’s soccer team dragging an acre of mud into the living room, remember, There’s Always a Rainbow After the Storm.

Not all oriental rugs come from the Middle East.

Today we delivered a beautiful, handmade rug that we had cleaned that had been woven in the Caucuses. It is fascinating to see how different parts of the world weave rugs using very different styles. They reflect the distinct character of the places where they were created. The design in the rug was highly detailed. However, the colors were muted. Most oriental rugs are characterized by great contrasts in color.

Cleaning the rug presented several challenges. It showed very little chemical resistance. In order to keep the rug from bleeding, we used only the mildest cleaning solutions on the rug.

The rug was contaminated by pet urine. For this reason we applied a urine neutralizer to the rug.

We cleaned the rug using our Persian River System. This system uses flowing, filtered water to carry contaminated soil away from the rug.

Rainbow International will pick up and deliver oriental rugs to be cleaned in the greater Charleston area, including Downtown Charleston, West Ashley, Mt. Pleasant, Sullivan’s Island, the Isle of Palms, Kiawah Island and Seabrook Island.

We were recently contacted by a woman living in West Ashley who noticed a small patch of mold growing in one of her kitchen cabinets. She sprayed it with bleach, and waited a few days to see what would happen.

In a few days, half of her cabinets were infested with thick, black mold. That’s when she contacted us.

The water was coming from a small leak in a pipe that fed the ice maker. One small leak, and a few days time, transformed her kitchen into a festering mass of mold and bacteria. The water also attracted an astonishing number of roaches and other insects.

If you notice any signs of mold or water damage, do not wait! Small repairs become large ones in just a few days. Call Rainbow International at 762-9707. We perform free in-house inspections. We service Charleston, North Charleston, Hanahan, Summerville, Mt. Pleasant, James Island, Johns Island, Kiawah and Seabrook.