In the Valley of Elah is a 2007 film written and directed by Paul Haggis, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, and Susan Sarandon. The film’s title refers to the Biblical valley where the battle between David and Goliath is said to have taken place.
Paul Haggis's In The Valley of Elah is based on actual events, although the characters' names and locations have been changed. The screenplay was inspired by journalist Mark Boal's "Death and Dishonor," an article about the murder case published in Playboy magazine in 2004.
It portrays a military father's search for his son and, after finding his body, subsequent hunt for his son's killers. The film explores themes including the Iraq war, abuse of prisoners, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following active combat.
The film tells the story of war veteran Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones), his wife Joan (Susan Sarandon) and their search for their son Mike (Jonathan Tucker). A soldier recently returned from Iraq, Mike has suddenly gone missing. Deerfield's investigation is aided by a police detective (Charlize Theron), who becomes personally involved in the case.
The Valley may refer to any of numerous locations:
Canada
United States
Elsewhere
The Valley may also be used for:
Film and literature
Music
Sports
Daniel Milton "Dan" Peek (November 1, 1950 – July 24, 2011) was a musician best known as a member of the rock band America from 1970 to 1977, together with Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell. He was also a "pioneer in contemporary Christian music."
Peek contributed lead and backing vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, and harmonica to their recordings during his tenure in the band. As a member of America, Peek wrote or co-wrote four Top 100 singles: "Don't Cross The River" (#35), "Lonely People" (#5), "Woman Tonight" (#44), and "Today's the Day" (#23), all of which he also sang lead on. "Lonely People" and "Today's the Day" also hit number 1 on the Billboard AC charts.
During this period Peek was "a spectrum drug abuser, alcoholic, you name it". In 2004 Peek released an autobiography about this era entitled An American Band: The America Story which was very difficult for him to write because of the bad memories it brought up.
Peek left the band shortly after the February 1977 release of the Harbor album. Years of life on the road had taken a toll on him. He renewed his Christian faith and had begun to seek a different artistic direction than Beckley or Bunnell. He went on to sign with Pat Boone's Lamb & Lion Records and found modest success as a pioneering artist in the emerging Christian pop music genre.
The term black people is used in some socially-based systems of racial classification for humans of a dark-skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups represented in a particular social context. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class and socio-economic status also play a role, so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of "whiteness" and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for "blackness" in a particular setting.
As a biological phenotype being "black" is often associated with the very dark skin colors of some people who are classified as "black". But, particularly in the United States, the racial or ethnic classification also refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry, or to exhibit cultural traits associated with being "African-American". As a result, in the United States the term "black people" is not an indicator of skin color but of socially based racial classification.
Leslie Berlin is Project Historian for the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford University. She is the author of The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley, a biography of Intel co-founder and microchip co-inventor Robert Noyce. She also contributed the "Prototype" column on innovation to the Sunday Business section of the New York Times from September 2008 to July 2009. She serves on the advisory committee to the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and is also a director of the IT History Society. She received her Ph.D. in History from Stanford in 2001 and also holds a B.A. from Yale.
Berlin's first book, The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley, is a biography of inventor-entrepreneur Robert Noyce
Some came down to hang out by the river
Others were waiting to find the night
We stood long just waiting for the picture
Looking at people to see what was right
Soon came the people
From over in the valley
Hundreds of them walking
Towards us in the rain
Then we turned around
And hid out in the alley
Met along the stones
Down Tomorrow Day Lane
Take away the road and no one will remember
How many journeys we hedged in the stone
Friends around will take away the wonder
Sharing a moment of being alone
Soon came the people
From over in the valley
Hundreds of them walking
Towards us in the rain
And we turned around
And hid out in the alley
Met along the stones
Down Tomorrow Day Lane
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ...