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...
Saturday, June 27, 2020
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...
Saturday, June 20, 2020
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...
Friday, June 12, 2020
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...
Thursday, June 11, 2020
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...
Tuesday, June 09, 2020
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...
Friday, June 05, 2020
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...
Thursday, June 04, 2020
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...
Sunday, May 31, 2020
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.
...
Friday, May 29, 2020
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...
Saturday, May 23, 2020
"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. ...
Monday, May 18, 2020
"This mountain don't dare blow up on old Harry!"
Those were the words of one Harry Truman (no relation to that Harry S Truman) in the days prior to the eruption. Truman had a lodge on the side of Spirit Lake, in the shadow of Mount St. Helens. He lived there with twenty-some cats, and I guess being almost ninety years of age he was just too stubborn to listen to geologists who were screaming at him to get out...
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Forty years later and still the greatest...
Happy Fortieth Anniversary to Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, premiered May 17th, 1980 at the Kennedy Center and then wide release a few days later.
Now and probably for all time, the very best installment of the entire Star Wars film franchi...
Thursday, May 14, 2020
COVID-19: It's time to reopen America
I'm still choosing to be coy about where fate landed me after I left North Carolina almost four years ago. Even so, I still keep an eye on my old home state, and I'll forever be proud to have been a son of the Tarheel State (even if my basketball proclivities lay toward Duke, but I digress...).
Right now I'm sitting in some abject disbelief at North Carolina's governor Roy Cooper insisting on keeping the state closed for all intents...
Sunday, May 10, 2020
My mother, the monster
Maybe
I'm sharing too much with this post. But it hasn't been anything that I
haven't divulged already to some, if only to "get it out of my head" or
else lose my mind.
Only in the past few years have I come to
realize how much my own mother was a monster. There were moments when
she could be sweet and loving, but now I wonder if that was just a show.
That was the side she showed most people. But a few of us saw her for
what she really...
How much does a shadow weigh?
Work with me here. It's way too late at night, I can't sleep and this is the kind of thing I think about at this hour.
Here's the problem: "Does a shadow have mass, and how much does it weigh if it does?"
Remember how in Peter Pan, when Pete loses his shadow and has to sew it back on when he finally catches it? That's how this started (though why I was thinking...
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Gears Tactics a solid adaptation of a beloved franchise
Some longtime readers already know that the Gears Of War video game franchise is near and dear to my heart. One of my prized geeky possessions is a copy of the Gears of War 3 soundtrack signed by composer Steve Jablonsky Maybe it's something to do with how the first game came out on that Election Day in 2006: when my name appeared on the ballot for board...
