I am a bad Star Wars fan (for abandoning the sequel trilogy)

There is a rumor... rumor mind ya so take this with an industrial sized salt lick... that somewhere in the Disney Vault there rests a cut of Star War Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker that is drastically different and better than what was released theatrically last Christmas.  This cut was allegedly assembled by George Lucas: the Maker himself.  This edit supposedly...

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First trailer for DUNE is epic!

Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune just dropped its first trailer.  And it looks insane!!  The film itself is due in December and here's hoping that the theaters (and everything else) will finally be wide open because this looks to be a movie screaming for the big screen experience.  Love the reveal of the sandworm!Turn your peepers toward this, ladies and...

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To this blog's friends in Texas and Louisiana:

Thoughts and prayers going out to you as Hurricane Laura approaches.Longtime readers know how much hurricanes and other tropical systems interest me.  This one already rivals Katrina.  I hope this blog won't be as busy with Laura as it was with Katrina fifteen years ago.(Has it REALLY been that long?)Hurricane Laura as of 06:44 pm EST on August 26 2...

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A scenario

 Something put together during the hour of the wolf: that time between 2 and 3 in the morning when you can't sleep and your mind is running through a myriad of thoughts all at once...It goes like this: America is thrown into turmoil as a result of a November election that sees no clearly declared winner and in fact is endemic throughout the country's state and local elections. Factor in that the United States is still in the midst of COVID-19...

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Unreliable Narrator, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Sequel Trilogy

Many of you  by now are hearing the rumors: that Kathleen Kennedy is on the way out as matriarch of the Star Wars franchise.  That the operation will soon be run by either Jon Favreau or Dave Filoni.  That the entire sequel trilogy is going to be scrapped and "re-made". Personally, I doubt that last one is going to happen.  Because I can't but think of...

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In memory of Charlie Daniels...

Daniels and his band performing "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" in concert: ...

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It's June 27th! Time to play... THE LOTTERY

The classic 1969 short film adaptation of Shirley Jackson's eternally controversial horror tale: For a film now over fifty years old it holds up exceptionally well.  I think every college freshman English class in America shows this to its students.  Sharp-eyed viewers will spot a very young Ed Begley Jr. in th...

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On race and human nature

Several years ago I went to hear James Earl Jones give a lecture. He said something I will never forget. "Who am I? Obviously, I am partly African descent." But then he added "I am also part Cherokee. And also part Irish. Who am I?" Jones elaborated that he was a person of many ethnic backgrounds, and that "it is not right to call me an African-American." It was more important to be simply an American, with all of the nuances that come...

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On race, history, honor, and statues

This might upset some people. I can understand. Bear with me here though... In 1828 the United States Congress passed what came to be called "the Tariff of Abominations". It was meant to protect northern industry. Instead it inflicted enormous harm on southern manufacturing and agriculture, especially the cotton industry. And no place was more hit by the consequences of the tariff than South Carolina. This led to the Nullification...

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Fried chicken... in an air fryer!

A few weeks ago Amazon delivered a Ninja Foodi air fryer/pressure cooker into my grubby little paws.  Since then I have had a fistful of fun cooking just about everything in it!  Hot dogs come out exactly like baseball park wieners, and I'm getting the hang of baby back ribs.  This past week a friend told me that you can cook steak in it.  I didn't believe...

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Regarding "racial justice"

A thought that occurred tonight: The notion of "racial justice" is a wrong one.  The problem is that to have any kind of justice at all there must be a baseline standard against which to compare and contrast and ultimately judge.  "Racial justice" does not really possess that.  Which race is the standard?  Black, white, Hispanic, Polynesian, Brazilian... what? I will posit that "racial justice" introduces far more problems than...

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This article was a heartbreaker to read...

Let me preface this by stating from the start: I know fully well that bad cops exist.  There is a city in North Carolina that I am forever going to loathe going through because of one incident that involved both city police and county sheriff's personnel, and that was almost twenty years ago (oh the perils of being a puppy-eyed cub reporter getting knocked around by...

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A photo for our time

I've posted this photo before.  It seems more timely than ever.This picture ran in newspapers across America in the winter of 2012.  It depicts a family friend and fellow farmer, John, along with my father Robert Knight.This photo hangs on the wall in my office at my job.  There is rarely a day when I don't stop to admire it.  It says so much, without saying...

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Have been thinking more about the George Floyd case...

Some additional notions that I have been pondering, though I said earlier that there would probably be nothing more that would be remarked upon:1.  The death of George Floyd was a tragedy, make no mistake about it.  But it was not necessarily a racially-motivated death.  It is now coming out that the officer who knelt on Floyd's neck already had an established...

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All that I'll likely post about the George Floyd "protests"...

Some are seriously suggesting that the looting taking place in the "protests" (note: they are not protests, they are bouts of purposeless violence) are justified because "white people looted" for thousands of years and that's "loot" that now fills the museums. Which is the most ridiculous thing that I've heard all month and believe me, I heard ridiculous this past month. ...

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FORCERY is fifteen years old!

It really does seem like just yesterday when we were slathering that fake blood all over Chad's legs, and making a springtime drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway look like blizzard in the Colorado mountains.  And turning a cousin's living room into Skywalker Ranch.  So much happened since then and yet, our cast and crew became a family that has endured.  More...

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"The End" came to LOST ten years ago tonight (plus: some personal theories)

It seems like an entirely other world ago now.  When the wait between new episodes could be not just weeks but months away.  There was no "binging" a series on a regular basis.  And streaming television was still yet to come. I was in a different place also.  Still reeling from a divorce.  Wrestling with the worst symptoms of manic depression. ...

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