Standard Mode of Dress rearing its ugly head in Forsyth County

Remember the crazy fight that a lot of good folks here in Rockingham County, North Carolina fought in 2007 (at right) against Standard Mode of Dress: the euphemistic term for what are really school uniforms? It took about four months and the Board of Education had previously approved of the policy... but in the end, with a lot of passion and a little creativity, the board then reversed its decision and the school uniforms went down in flames.

Now comes word that much the same is happening to some of our friends a few counties over in Forsyth. Janet Marsh, the mother of a student at Wiley Middle School, alerts us to this story at the Winston-Salem Journal website. The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Board of Education unanimously voted to implement Standard Mode of Dress at Wiley Middle during its January 13th meeting. But opponents of the policy contend that many parents felt too "intimidated" to rise in opposition because of how the information on those wishing to address the board was being recorded at the meeting and because of this, several parents feared retaliation against their children. There was also a sense of "restless urgency" regarding how fast the board pursued the policy, Marsh said. And in an e-mail to The Knight Shift she shared more of her concerns...

"I am a NOSMOD mom at Wiley Middle School and the administration is trying every trick in the book to push this measure through before anyone can really object. I was denied a request for an open forum for discussion and ended up having to stand outside the school for three days in the pouring rain trying to hand out my "Ten Good Reasons to Oppose SMOD" flier before the final ballot was issued. I won't bore you with all the gory details, but many of the parents at our school who would like to object won't come out as we had to put our names on the ballots and they feared repercussions."

Janet Marsh has asked me to pass along the link at the Winston-Salem Journal to the readers of this blog, and even if she hadn't asked I would have gladly shared it with y'all anyway.

And on behalf of those who have fought this kind of thing before, we wish our brethren in Forsyth County all the best in their own struggle against school uniforms! :-)

Read More

Standard post-LOST episode reaction: "Jughead"

Awright, before I say anything else, I gotta get this off my chest...

That was the cheesiest-looking hydrogen bomb prop that I have ever seen.

It wasn't the device itself that bugged me. That actually looked the right size and shape of the first Teller-Ulam "gadgets". But to have it suspended from that tower, hanging off the ground nose-downward (and test bombs do not look like deliverable warheads, guys) by those cables, as if it were one bad drop away from blowing Lost Island to Kingdom Come...

Lost hasn't done hokey all that much. But that was the hokiest thing on this show to date.

But with that out of the way...

"Jughead" was definitely one of the best episodes of the series yet! Early word was that we would get answers to some hard questions about the show's mythology. So let's see: possibly the origin of the Others, Daniel's mom, a ton of background on Charles Widmore (who had a whiff of sympathy for once), Richard and how he knew to be in Tustin, California in 1956...

Did I miss anything?

One thing I can't help but think: that the young female Other who took Daniel out to the bomb... might her name turn out to be Eloise?

And I'm wondering if sometime later this season or next, after all the time-twisting settles down, if a certain long-buried nuke is gonna be found. Hey, Anton Chekov's rule of drama is: "If a gun is shown on the wall in Act 2 it must be fired in Act 3, if a gun is fired in Act 3 it must be shown on the wall in Act 2".

Jughead is certainly one honking big gun on the wall, yah? :-P

Read More

Final WATCHMEN poster hits the Intertubes (along with more goodies... like Rorschach's mugshot photo!)

I soooooo want this hanging on my wall right now...

And the Warner Bros. marketing department is being very clever indeed. Check out this mugshot photo of Walter Joseph Kovacs AKA Rorschach (played by Jackie Earle Haley) that's just been released. And if you head over to the Flickr account for that radical right-wing fringe magazine The New Frontiersman you can find some "vintage" news photos of Dr. Manhattan during Operation Wrath of God, which took place in Vietnam in 1970. In the world of Watchmen, anyway...

The movie comes out March 6th.

Read More

Tonight's episode of LOST, titled "Jughead"...

...is, not to put too fine a point on it, said to be "a powerhouse" of a show. That's the word from some folks who've told me they've seen it already. One person said that if you want answers to questions, they'll be coming in spades tonight.

That's all I know at this point. Neither do I understand why this episode bears the name of an Archie Comics character for a title. Maybe there's a DHARMA station in Riverdale?

Read More

Why has Old Dutch Galaxy Food Center apparently pulled out as an advertiser on WGSR Star 39?

Could it possibly be because of a certain anti-Barack Obama sign that WGSR general manager Charles Roark devoted obscene amounts of airplay and screentime to this past Friday afternoon, and then again on Monday?

The answer to that question is, evidently, "yes".

Old Dutch Galaxy had been a major advertiser for WGSR. A chain of four grocery stores around the Danville and Chatham area in Virginia, Old Dutch Galaxy had been running updated commercials every week (on a station that was still running spots for the Reidsville Christmas parade last week, mind ya...).

But the word from our friends around south-central Virginia, is that Roark's constant harping about a sign calling Obama a "bastard" and his mother a "slut" was way over the top and into the realm of completely inappropriate behavior.

I doubt that this lesson will be anything but lost on Charles Roark, who has abandoned responsible broadcasting ethics for tabloid-style trash that caters to the least common denominator.

Except now, WGSR has lost one of its bigger clients because of Roark's reckless behavior.

But I'm pretty confident that Roark won't care, and he probably even told the Old Dutch Galaxy guys as much when they pulled out, since cult leader Johnny Robertson can always be relied upon to make up for the loss via all those thousands of dollars coming in from "the Mysterious Texans"(tm).

Seriously though: I've been arguing for awhile that the image conveyed by WGSR's management is a detriment to the commerce of this area. Does anyone now doubt the veracity of that contention?

Read More

Some random musings on things...

A few months ago George W. Bush proposed wasting hundreds of billions of dollars of our money and it was called "bailout" and some politicians approved it. Today Barack Obama is proposing wasting hundreds of billions of dollars of our money and it's being called "stimulus" and those same politicians deride it as unacceptable.

I would like to quote "Oceania is at war with Eurasia, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia" to the Powers That Be, but sad to say, they most likely wouldn't get it.

And now that he's President, doesn't Obama have better things to do than to get into the proverbial "pissing contest" with a radio commentator who is nothing more than a shameless shill for the "other side"?

Don't we have better things to do than to even care about such a non-story involving two men with apparently arrested development?

Pat Buchanan is right: we have become an unserious people in a serious time.

Read More

ABC greenlights V remake pilot... and Hollywood threatens to make THE A-TEAM movie

The long, long, long-attempted effort to relaunch V - yeah, the 1980s sci-fi franchise about the humanoid lizards come to steal our water, rape our wimmunfolk and eat us for lunch (literally) - is finally getting off the ground at ABC. The network has commissioned a pilot episode, presumably that will premiere this coming fall.

If handled right, this could be a terrific show that might pick up the same fans who are currently hooked on Lost (which will see its final season next year). Unfortunately, V creator Kenneth Johnson is not aboard for this go-round... and I've long thought that if he had been given complete control over his original concept, that NBC could have had one of the greatest television series of the Eighties. Alas! Too many suits ruined that...

And speaking of NBC television shows from two decades ago, June 11, 2010 is the penciled-in date for the big-screen adaptation of The A-Team, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Unless this movie uses the original Vietnam War concept to springboard the plot with, and utilizes a convincing computer-rendered B.A. Baracus (with Mr. T's voice), this will bomb bigtime. Pity the fool who thinks he can tamper with The A-Team and get away with it.

Read More

Neal Hutcheson reports from courtroom: Prosecution was "petty and vindictive" against Popcorn Sutton, sought to put "sick and broken" man in prison

Yesterday this blog conveyed the news about famed moonshiner Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton (shown at right along with public defender Tim Moore) getting sentenced to 18 months in prison during a federal court hearing in Greeneville, Tennessee.

In the past 24 hours I have seen some positively unbridled fury from supporters of Popcorn Sutton, including on sites like Facebook (home to no less than three groups for people who believe the government should have left him alone to ply his trade in peace). The general consensus is that Popcorn wasn't harming anyone, and that the federal government has set out to "make an example" out of him, lest anyone else think that they should assert some liberty on their own. There are even some individuals who are publicly suggesting that perhaps a "storming the Bastille" is in order. I'm not gonna endorse or condemn such thoughts... but I am gonna pass along something that is no doubt going to make a lot of people even madder than they already are!

Neal Hutcheson is a well-known name not just across North Carolina, but throughout the southeastern United States and the rest of the country. He's a documentary filmmaker based out of the Raleigh area. Among his many credits are Mountain Talk and Voices of North Carolina, which have both featured appearances by Popcorn Sutton. More recently Hutcheson dedicated an entire film to Sutton and his art in The Last One. I've come to know him lately ever since he sent over a DVD of The Last One (and I just got it back last week, 'cuz everyone that I know practically has been wanting to borrow and see it for themselves!). Hutcheson has built up a solid reputation among the folks in this region and if he reports on something, I'm more than inclined to say that his word will be held as bond.

Well, Neal Hutcheson was in the courtroom yesterday when Popcorn Sutton had his sentence handed down. And earlier today Neal sent along the following report. I asked him if I could share it here for this blog's readers and Neal said "please do". So here it is, in his own words...

"You should know that the prosecution used a video clip made twenty years ago (of him capping a still) to make the case that Popcorn was strong enough to continue making liquor. The judge made it explicitly clear that the idea that he would resume operations if he was let out on probation was behind the rationale that he needed a prison term to stop him. The prosecution knew of course that the clip wasn't made last week, and that his health plus house-arrest & monitoring would be more than enough to prevent him from doing anything prohibited, as the past ten months of house arrest has proved. So, if you leave aside the debate about whether moonshining is a serious offense or not, and take the government's case at face value, the public would have been 'protected' & served without putting a sick man in prison. What the prosecution did was petty and vindictive: The sick and broken man they saw in that trial wasn't putting on an act; I had been with him for three days and that was the best he had looked in all that time.

"I just think people should know what happened there. The litmus test here is for people to substitute moonshining for something else they don't sympathize with, you know just lay all that aside, and ask if it was necessary, as the prosecution insisted, to lay prison time on him. Obviously it wasn't. He's been under house arrest and monitoring for ten months and, along with his health, its kept him from doing anything prohibited.

"The judge did question the age of the video, so that thought came up. But the prosecution was directly implying that the video demonstrated he was capable and because of that could not be deterred from making moonshine without a prison term. And that was disingenuous. And they knew it. The fact is that Popcorn had embarrassed them for a long time."

So... apparently the prosecutors used "evidence" that didn't pertain at all to this particular case in order to malign Sutton, and they convinced the judge to deliver a harsh sentence even knowing that Sutton is not currently in the best of health.

Does anybody else think that there is something horribly out of kilter with the "justice" of this situation?

Read More

Report and photos from the orchestral scoring for WATCHMEN

Good friend Marco van Bergen directs our attention to this story at ScoringSessions.com, showing us composer Tyler Bates and an 87-member orchestra recording the music for Watchmen. Gobs of photos at the link, some of which depict scenes from the movie. According to the report, the Watchmen soundtrack will be released by Reprise Records on March 3rd 2009, three days before the movie comes out in theaters.

Read More

A glimpse of what's coming to America?

Riots erupt in Reykjavik, Iceland after the citizens of that country, feeling more than a little ticked-off now that their country has gone bankrupt, vent their rage against their government (which has now collapsed)...

Mash down here for more about what's going down over there.

I've never been to Iceland, but I've met enough folks who have visited the place to know that the people there are a pretty hardy and patient lot: it takes a lot to get 'em riled up, especially this bad. The country's banks have failed miserably, and its coalition government has now finger-pointed itself into oblivion.

Gotta wonder if we might see this same sorta thing happening on our own side of the pond in the not-too-distant future...

(Thanks to Phillip Arthur for passing along the link.)

Read More

Cover art for Star Wars horror novel DEATHTROOPERS

Awright, who else is seeing this, and thought that we must be getting a Star Wars/Hellraiser crossover...?

StarWars.com revealed the image earlier today. Deathtroopers by Joe Schreiber is the first ever true horror story set in the galaxy far, far away (no, I'm not counting the "Galaxy of Fear" books either). The novel is scheduled for release later this year, fittingly enough just before Halloween.

Read More

DAMNED REVENUERS! American legend Popcorn Sutton sentenced to 18 months in prison (FREE POPCORN!)

Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton, the legendary moonshiner and genuinely unique American character, was sentenced today in federal court in Tennessee to a prison term of 18 months, after earlier pleading guilty to the charges stemming from the raid on his still last year.

And adding insult to injury, Sutton "agreed to allow his moonshining photos and videos and criminal history to be used to further the education and deterrence goals of Project Safe Neighborhoods."

In other words, rather than praising Popcorn Sutton as the living cultural resource that he is, the sons of bastitches from the government are going to force Popcorn to go fully against his unique sense of identity. The lesson here could not be more obvious: "Conform to the state or we will hurt you."

No, I don't have any sympathy for those assholes. If you want to see what is destroying America, look at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents, the judges, and everyone else who has conspired, against an overwhelming tide of public sympathy with Popcorn, to quash him good.

Grrrrrr...

Well, I'm gonna keep the "Free Popcorn Sutton!" icon in the margin of this blog, as ongoing testament against how our own government is all too often the enemy of freedom and liberty. "Change"? My ass!

Read More

Cult leader Johnny Robertson: In his own words

Longtime readers of this blog already know about cultist Johnny Robertson and his self-proclaimed "Church of Christ" (which is nothing like the mainstream Churches of Christ that most people know and respect). About how Robertson, flunky/second cousin James Oldfield and their "Religious Review" charade go around the area accosting the decent (and in my mind, legitimate) churches, and then televise their harassment on WGSR... which is now widely acknowledged, Robertson is the de facto owner of.

Robertson, and what he represents, is not real Christianity. There is no love, no humility, no thankfulness for the grace of God that comes out of what they have been doing. All that Johnny Robertson has ever demonstrated that he is capable of producing is hate, and spite, and division, and... dare I say it? Yeah, I will: evil.

But... why should you have to take my word for that?

During his show tonight I recorded what Robertson was saying. I'm going to post some of the more notable comments that he made, and let you, Dear Reader, decide for yourself what to make of this. If you are like most people, I would guess that you would ascertain that what you are about to read is a disturbing glimpse into a very dark soul, indeed.

Remember: I didn't have to make anything up for this post. Everything you are about to read are Johnny Robertson's own words, spoken during his What Does The Bible Say? broadcast tonight, January 25th 2009, out of WGSR Star 39 in Reidsville, North Carolina...

"I would wrap that stuff around their necks!"

"Why are we so strong in this area?!?"

"We are the most morally well-behaved people in this area!"
(Editors note: does "morally well-behaved" mean confronting people in their homes, having dissidents followed by fellow cult members, and outright lying about another church in the area by accusing it of child pornography?)

"I will tie that around their necks and they will never say it again!"

"I will make him look so bad...!"

"Sir you've never seen me mad!"

"He is all mouth! That is what all of them are!"

"I spend THOUSANDS of dollars to open the phone lines up!"
(Editor's note: earlier Robertson boasted that his self-styled "Church of Christ" takes up no offering... but he didn't care to mention that he gets practically all of his funding from wealthy cult members in Texas and other places far west of this area.)

"Because what you believe is not in the Bible!" (talking about Baptists)

"There is not a preacher in this town that knows as much Bible as I do!"

"They are all afraid of me!"

"I'm presenting myself just like Jesus did! Nobody could answer Him. That's what I'm doing. These guys can't answer me!"

"I believe the way I demonstrate that is the case is by answering all of these people that their doctrines are all too weak to shut me up!"

"There's no such thing as a Baptist!"

"THIS (referring to his cult) is the church that Paul was in!"

"There is a church that is determined to preach the truth and only the truth and that is the church that I represent, and that is why everyone is afraid of me!"

As Rod Serling might put it...

"Submitted for your approval."

It certainly does seem like something out of The Twilight Zone, does it not?

If anyone can tell me how Robertson is reflecting the love of Christ, the mind of Christ, or the grace of Christ with his words and his actions - and then daring to insinuate that only he comes with the truth of God - then I would certainly welcome such exposition in the comments for this blog entry.

And if you are a member of the Martinsville Church of Christ: are you really that proud to be represented by such a man who brags of being your minister?

Would any congregation be proud, for that matter?

Read More

Scientists claim: Tycho Brahe was murdered!

Tycho Brahe was one of the most accomplished astronomers in history. He was also quite the eccentric: for most of his life he wore a metal nose to replace the real one that he lost in a duel, he kept a dwarf human as something of a pet, and supposedly he died in 1601 from straining his bladder. The story goes that Tycho was at a party, had too much wine to drink and thought it would be the acme of "bad manners" if he did the sensible thing by going out to "drain the main vein" (as my old Bible study partner once put it).

Now a group of scientists are preparing to exhume the body of Tycho Brahe, more than 400 years after his death in Prague. Their motive for disturbing the great scholar's remains: investigating the possibility that Brahe was poisoned as part of a contract killing. The alleged mastermind of what may be a plot of murder most foul: Christian IV, the King of Denmark, using a count from the royal court as the hitman. Adding to the intrigue: scholars have apparently found the diary in which the murderer confesses to the crime.

Meanwhile, so far as we know, Zachary Taylor is still dead from ice cream gone bad...

Read More

The final scene from LOST episode "The Lie"

I've watched both "Because You Left" and "The Lie" twice more since Lost had its season premiere this past Wednesday night. But the very last scene from "The Lie" has so intrigued me that I've lost count how many times I've played through it again. Guess it's such a gothic, mysterious scene that in its own way touches on Lost's themes of religion and science.

So here it is if you also can't get enough of it: Ms. Hawking working in the basement of a church, in what looks to be a DHARMA station that we haven't seen before, before she tells Ben that he only has seventy hours to do whatever it is he's got in mind... or "God help us all":

Read More

Kay Yow, beloved women's basketball coach, has passed away

The sad news just broke in the past short while that Kay Yow, the longtime women's basketball coach at North Carolina State University - and considered by many to have been one of the greatest women's coaches the game has ever seen - has passed away at the age of 66 following a long battle with cancer.

Yow had been head coach at N.C. State since 1975, following stints as a high school coach and then at what used to be Elon College (now Elon University). She also coached the gold medal-winning women's basketball team at the 1988 Olympic Games. Yow was also a multiple Hall of Fame recipient.

She had been diagnosed with cancer in 1987, but she fought it into remission. Unfortunately, it had recently returned.

Yow was a renowned and beloved icon not just here in North Carolina, but across the sport and around the world. And, she shall certainly be missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family and friends today.

Click here for a chronology at the News & Observer following Yow's long and illustrious career.

Read More