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The wacky world of quantum mechanics has claimed another victim from the world of common sense. Specifically the equivalence principle long understood to mean that gravitational mass and inertial mass are identical. Einstein was the first to publish about it, building on work already established by Galileo and Newton.
Their thinking begins by pointing out the important distinction between kinematics, which is concerned purely with motion not how it arises, and dynamics which focuses on the origin of motion. In the classical world, this has no bearing on the effects of inertial and gravitational mass.
However, in the quantum world, the way states are prepared has huge significance. They point out, for example, that the wave function of a particle in a box does not depend on mass at all whereas the energy wave function of a harmonic oscillator depends on the square root of the mass.
That leads to an interesting idea: that it is possible to create combinations of gravitational and electromagnetic boxes and oscillators in which inertial and gravitational mass play different roles.
It turns out that physicists already play with exactly this kind of set up: the so-called atom trampoline, in which a matter wave falls under the influence of gravity but is bounced by an electromagnetic force. They calculate that the energy eigenvalues of the atom are proportional to the (gravitational mass)^2/3 but to the (inertial mass)^-1/3.
That's an amazing result. The kind of energy spectroscopy of atoms or Bose Einstein Condensates that can spot this difference ought to be achievable, if not now, then very soon within the next few years.
If successful, these kinds of investigations will provide an entirely new way of studying the nature of mass and, perhaps more importantly, of investigating the puzzling relationship between general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Dare we say "intertial drives" or at least "inertial dampeners"? Hyperspace, here we come! :-P
Seriously though: this is very, very cool stuff and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it.
At E3 today Nintendo head honcho Satoru Iwata unveiled the Nintendo 3DS. This is the latest iteration of its acclaimed DS hardware... and it does games in 3D.
But here's the kicker folks: the Nintendo 3DS pulls off three-dimensional gaming without those funky glasses!
And this highlights the biggest reason why I'm not about to buy into the 3D television "revolution" going on right now (incidentally ESPN's new 3D channel is showing up in the updated listings but it's not only not airing yet, my receiver box is snidely informing me that I need a 3D capable set in order to pick it up at all). This is such a rapidly evolving technology, it makes the least amount of sense to be an early adopter than I've seen with burgeoning new gear ever. Especially given that the glasses needed to enjoy 3D television sets are priced around $150 each.
The cost of the glasses aside, television is much more a casual experience than watching a film in a theater. People don't usually do things like eat dinner and fold laundry while at the local cinema, but they do those things all the time while a TV is going on. Who wants to keep putting the glasses on and taking them off while watching 3D television? And are there going to be enough glasses to go around when friends and family come over for a visit? Do guests get asked to bring their own glasses over for a Super Bowl party?
People by and large won't want to be hassled with things like that. And that's why 3D television isn't going to seriously take off until there is 3D screen technology that doesn't rely on wearing the glasses.
And that, Nintendo and a few other companies are on the cusp of bringing to market. Given the early raves about the 3DS coming out of E3 in Los Angeles, this could be a big factor in encouraging demand for spectacle-less 3D. Hey, Nintendo broke new ground with the Wii, and now Microsoft is rolling out the very promising Kinect for its Xbox 360 console (with Sony to follow suit on its PlayStation 3).
Good money sez that if you ain't plunked coin down for a 3D set yet, you might wanna wait a bit. There promises to be even better stuff in the pipeline and headed to store shelves sooner than later.
Remember when the Mir space station came crashing and burning out of the sky nine years ago? I was watching that on TV and among friends we jokingly quoted Kirk's line from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: "My God Bones. What have I done?"
Well, this ain't the flaming destruction of a space vessel for once. This is the atmospheric re-entry of the HAYABUSA Asteroid Explorer mission, videoed from a NASA DC-8 over Australia. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched HAYABUSA in 2003. A few years later it landed on the asteroid Itokawa. Then HAYABUSA scooped up some samples and made the five-year journey back to Earth, using a high-tech ion engine to return its precious cargo.
The capsule containing the asteroid samples has been located at its calculated arrival point in western Australia (gotta love mathematics aye?). And soon the asteroid rocks and dust will be in laboratories undergoing analysis.
That is about as successful a space mission as I have ever heard of in any recent memory. Congrats to JAXA and the HAYABUSA crew on a job well done!
Nokero, a company in Hong Kong, has developed a solar-powered lightbulb with an eye toward markets in developing countries. The N100 solar LED lightbulb "is about the size of a standard incandescent bulb and has four small solar panels in its rainproof plastic housing. Five LEDs and a replaceable NiMH battery inside provide up to four hours of light when the device is fully charged. People hang it outside during the day and then turn it on at night." According to the company, using the lightbulb around the equator will give it a better charge than those in more northern or southerly latitudes. The LEDs are said to last 50,000 to 100,000 hours while the solar panels are good for 10 years.
One bulb is $15. But for $480 you get 48 bulbs.
A solar-powered lightbulb. Truly we live in the age of wonders! :-P
Star Wars: The Old Republic is looking so good that I have quietly but seriously wondered if this is going to be a real video game at all. What if it's just a front for a "covert operation" by George Lucas to sow the ground on a fertile part of the Star Wars mythology that hasn't been done yet? So far we've seen Star Wars: The Old Republic trailers, online comics, extensive bios and background material, at least two hardcover novels to be released later this year...
What if Star Wars: The Old Republic is like what Shadows of the Empire was in 1996: everything that comes with marketing a video game, without an actual game?
(Look, Star Wars conspiracy theories are few and far between. Indulge me a bit willya? :-)
But while we're waiting for the game itself to materialize on store shelves, BioWare and LucasArts have just released a new Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer at E3 2010. Check it out!
Dang. That looks as good as anything we've seen in a live-action Star Wars flick. Maybe even better. Dare we hope for a CGI-rendered Episodes VII-IX someday?
If Lucas writes it and gives it to BioWare to animate, I'd buy a ticket for that (something I didn't even do for the Star Wars: Clone Wars theatrical release).
We spent seven hours almost nonstop (braking only for a dinner break) on the technical rehearsal for The King and I this afternoon and evening! Considering that we had been told this could have gone into 10 p.m. and beyond, it went better than expected. This was sort of a "rough cut" of the full performance: with the exception of costumes and makeup, we go through everything in the show with all the props and set pieces etc. It's mostly to get the lighting and sound all right, but also to make fine adjustments on actors' blocking and such. So we scheduled for plenty of time today to get it all straightened out.
One thing that was a new experience for me is that today was the first time in four shows that I was fitted for a wireless microphone. Feels like I'm in the real big leagues now!
And I've wound up with one additional role - albeit one that will go uncredited - for this performance. What is it? Hmmm... don't wanna say here, but for those of you who know me fairly well and who might remember how long it took for me to learn how to whistle, you might appreciate this especially :-P
Five more days 'til the curtain opens for the first time. Tomorrow night: our first dress rehearsal! And having seen what some of the actors look like in makeup already, I am becoming increasingly curious about what I'll look like as a man of Siam :-)
The World Cup kicked off today in South Africa. Let's hear it for soccer!
I have nothing else to say. The only reason I made this post is because if made one about "World Cup" and included the words "soccer" and "sports" and "South Africa" and probably also "Uruguay" and "Argentina" and "Spain" and "Belgium" (can't forget our good friends in Belgium... yeah hey to you too Benny) then The Knight Shift blog is no doubt going to get slammed with a wazoo of hits during the next 72 hours or so :-P
Seriously though: good luck to everyone!
(And lest y'all think I'm completely clueless about the World Cup, I'll have y'all know that I not only watched the Three Tenors in Concert live during the World Cup in 1994, but I'm also a proud owner of the CD too!)
Exactly seven days from now, Yours Truly and dozens of others will be going through a five-step makeup process to make us look Asian. An hour and a half later the curtain opens on Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of The King and I.
Between now and then lies "Tech Week": where all the wires and cables and lights and plugs and whatnot get set about and we run through this show full-strength a few times, on the lookout for "wardrobe malfunctions" and any other problems that might present themselves in the run-up to Opening Night.
Here's some of the set that the crew has put together...
Looks like something out of a Persian bordello, aye? That's the King's dais (which if you come to the show, you will see me perched on in Act I, Scene 2 :-)
Costume fittings were this morning. I got to try on my attire for the role of Phra Alack. I'm gonna look like either a Scottish Liberace, or the glitziest royal court eunuch ever. The getup that I'll be wearing for the "Small House of Uncle Thomas" ballet scene was still... ummm... being worked upon. All I really know for sure is that I'll look like a ninja. Make of that what you will.
Everyone is totally jazzed about this show! Lots of good people have been working for the past two months and more to make this happen and it's really been something to see it all come together during the past couple of weeks. We know it's gonna be awesome and we hope that you'll be able to come and enjoy the show! Click here to visit the Theatre Guild website for more information.
That's the word from no less an authority than DreamWorks Studios' website. We heard a few weeks ago that a big-screen feature based on the board game Monsterpocalypse was in very early production. That John August might be getting attached already (he previously wrote the screenplays for Burton's films Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride) suggests considerably more movement afoot than we might have previously thought.
In the meantime however, those clever and industrious folks at Team Covenant have put together this jaw-dropping fan-made trailer for a Monsterpocalypse movie. It premiered at MonCon 2010 in Tulsa a few weeks ago and it totally captures and conveys the atmosphere of Monsterpocalypse!
Well done, Team Covenant! And dear reader: if you'd like to share this with others (you know you wanna) please point 'em to MonsterpocalypsetheMovie.com (easy to remember aye? :-)
Anakin Skywalker, also known as the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader, has a "borderline personality" described as "a prolonged disturbance of personality function in a person (generally over the age of eighteen years, although it is also found in adolescents), characterized by depth and variability of moods." So sayeth a group of French psychologists who studied the Star Wars villain and found that he suffered from severe mental illness.
According to the study which will soon be published in the journal Psychiatry Research, Darth Vader was examined per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSMV IV). Of the nine borderline personality disorder criteria, Anakin/Vader fulfilled six of them. Five are required by the DSMV IV to be diagnosed as suffering from the disorder.
From the article...
For instance, the future Darth Vader showed both impulsivity and anger management issues as an overexcited, lovelorn Jedi. He went back and forth between idealizing and devaluing Jedi mentors, such as a humorless young Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Abandonment issues also surfaced. Skywalker had a permanent fear of losing his wife, Padme Amidala, and he went so far as to betray his Jedi mentors and companions to try to prevent her death.
Two displays of dissociative episodes took place when Skywalker tried to distance himself from stressful events. The first episode took place after he slaughtered a local tribe of Tuskens responsible for his mother's death. A second episode occurred following his murderous rampage among young Jedi trainees, as he voiced paranoid thoughts about Obi-Wan Kenobi and his wife.
Lastly, any "Star Wars" fan would recognize Skywalker's identity issues and uncertainty about who he was. His fateful turn to the dark side and change of name to Darth Vader could represent the ultimate sign of such identity disturbance, the researchers said.
So Darth Vader has issues. Geez... ya think?!? I thought that was pretty obvious, personally.
It's prolly just a matter of time before some enterprising psychology student hits the federal government up for a $100,000 grant to go to Gotham City and study the criminal insanity of the Joker :-P
But none of them will turn you into THAT kind of a zombie, thankfully! And the image on the right is the first pic to come from The Walking Dead, an upcoming horror series on AMC helmed by director Frank Darabont (he made The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile so he probably knows what he's doing...)
Apologies for the absence, dear readers. Of which no less than three of you have insisted today that I must return 'cuz apparently this blog has become a daily fixture in the lives of some! I shall endeavor to do better but what can I say? I'm a busy lad, with many irons in the fire. And Lord willing I'll get to begin sharing some of those sooner than later.
But first: yay for Beta Pictoris! For at least the past two and a half decades this has been a candidate star for having a planetary system. And now thanks to the European Southern Observatory's honkin'-big 8.2 meter Very Large Telescope, we've got the first observation of an extra-solar planet orbiting a star (namely, Beta Pictoris).
Click to enjoy an extra-huge aperture of astronomical goodness!
Click on the above link for better explanation about how neat this is. And thanks to Shane Thacker for finding this story.
I'm thankful that websites like GeekTyrant are around to make note of good stuff that I've otherwise been too busy to keep track of.
Namely, that today - June 7th, 2010 - marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the release of The Goonies!
I have long thought of The Goonies as the definitive Eighties movie. That it's just as enjoyable (maybe more even) a quarter century later, is witness to that. The Goonies was the kind of film that made you really believe that there might be an old treasure map hidden away in the attic of your house, just waiting for you and your friends to go off looking for pirate booty.
So Happy Birthday to The Goonies! And maybe someday we'll finally get that sequel that Richard Donner keeps mentioning every so often :-P
In what some are calling a devious case of "bait 'n switch", AT&T announced this past week that it was getting rid of unlimited data plans and moving to "metered" plans... and just after Apple moved a buttload of those nice shiny new 3G iPads too!
So if you too are at wits end on communication rates, you are in good company with Molly Wood, who contributes a persuasive essay on CNET News demanding that universal data plans make more sense...
And although some elements of the new data plans will work for some customers, AT&T is moving in the opposite direction it should be going. I'm tired of multiple data plans, artificial caps, and arbitrary monthly usage charges. And I'm tired of paying the same companies multiple times for what is, essentially, the exact same service. That service? Data.
Between multiple cell phones, high-speed Internet connections, and even digital TV subscriptions, most households are now paying for data delivery at least three times over, and frequently paying the same provider twice. This is ridiculous, and it's time for some major consolidation. It's time for a universal data plan. I want to pay once (maybe twice) for data, I want that data to be unlimited, and I want to be able to use it in any fashion I choose.
Mash the above link for plenty more soundness and sanity about how we should fork over coin for precious data. I'll second the good lady's notion. What sayeth y'all?
John Wooden coached UCLA to ten national championships. But since his passing last night he's being remembered by most as a teacher, a friend, and a gentleman...
This 1994 Pontiac Grand Am was purchased for $100 from a towing company in Michigan last summer. Its owner (one "Gabe") then set out to convert it into a Batmobile.
According to the story at GeekTyrant "After a few necessary repairs, work proceeded: Gabe sawed off the crushed roof and built a custom frame for the new roof and windows. Inspired by the Batmanesque charm of his creation, Gabe then rigged up and riveted on fins, reworked the nose, and spray-painted the car matte black. The car even features high-tech theft-prevention gadgets the likes of which even Wayne Industries couldn't develop. When thieves tried to steal the car last year, the steering wheel broke off. In the process of trying to hotwire the car, they also fixed the brake lights."
Click on the link above for more photos of the "Batmobile", which is now listed for sale on Craigslist. Price for this crimefighting car: $600.
Another rehearsal this evening. This one focused on the "Small House of Uncle Thomas" scene early in Act II. I keep thinking that the Uncle Thomas mask looks exactly like Chief Wiggum from The Simpsons and the mask for Simon of Legree resembles Gollum from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies.
"Wiggum and Gollum". Sounds like a law firm, aye?
I have to say, it's so weird doing this show at Rockingham County Senior High where I was once a student. We're using the J. Allan Lewis Auditorium (named after my late friend Allan "Doc" Lewis), on the same stage where I used to have drama class with Gene Saunders. Everything backstage even still looks exactly the same as it did all those years ago. It's almost enough to make me feel like a high school kid again :-)
The rehearsals will start to ramp up bigtime come Saturday. That's also when we'll be having our costume fittings and go through the makeup procedure for the first time. And speaking of that, I'm having a very hard time envisioning myself with Oriental features! Guess we'll find out what Chris Knight looks like as a man of Siam this weekend.
About three years ago, this blog's eclectic proprietor had to learn awful fast and hard about Viacom and its dispute with YouTube. If you recall, if you worked it out in your head then logically Viacom was accusing me of violating my own copyright after Viacom took my work without permission and used it for a show on VH1, and then accused ME of copyright infringement for posting the clip of that onto YouTube.
Well, I won that case as best I can imagine an individual could take on such a huge corporation and eke out a victory (again, thanks in no small measure to the good people at the Electronic Frontier Foundation). And I've been keeping an eye on Viacom ever since. One of the things that has galled me most is how Viacom and its mega-hypocrite of a CEO Sumner Redstone have shown such disdain toward independent content producers such as myself. And recently Viacom referred to people such as myself as a "sideshow": intimating that the original content we're coming up with isn't as "legitimate" as the bigtime corporate-produced material that's allegedly being uploaded to YouTube in violation of copyright.
I'll use the terminology that I used then: this is "bass-ackwards".
Well, an artist named Alan Lastufka has disclosed that he's been assisting YouTube in its defense against Viacom. Lastufka and several others have come together in what they are proudly calling "The Sideshow Coalition". I'll let Lastufka explain things in his own words...
We recently all wrote brief statements for the court to read on how we’ve used YouTube to not only reach an audience with our original work, but how we’ve made YouTube a home, a business, or a place for friends and family.
My piece focused on DFTBA Records, and how this little company Hank and I started, run out of my garage, promoted only on YouTube, is now supporting numerous musicians full-time, myself full-time, and making tens of thousands of listeners from every country in the world, happy.
And none of that would be possible were it not for YouTube.
If Viacom wins this lawsuit, YouTube may be forced to manually approve every video uploaded to the website, making it impossible but for a select few to post videos on the site. No longer would YouTube be a place for everyone, it would be a place for Partners who are legally bound not to upload copyrighted content. This is obviously not what YouTube, or any registered YouTube user, wants.
Our testimonials and personal stories will hopefully help the court decide in YouTube’s favor. Viacom doesn’t understand YouTube, or the community. And Viacom wants every registered user to have to pay for the actions of a very small portion of dishonest users...
You can help by bringing this case to the attention of others. You can simply tweet a link to this journal entry, or you can read the brief and write your own thoughts on your blogs.
If YouTube loses this case, we will all lose.
Here's the link to the amicus brief that the Sideshow Coalition has filed in support of YouTube. What I especially appreciate about this is that Alan Lastufka and his colleagues are rigorously defending productivity and originality, whereas if Viacom has its way this kind of home-grown industry will be greatly diminished if not outright quashed.
Needless to say, I am throwing whatever support and goodwill that I can muster behind the Sideshow Coalition. And I will gladly encourage everyone else reading this to do likewise.
Frank Miller is one of the most frustrating comic book artists that one can watch the career of. There's his classic stuff like The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City. And then there's his work like All-star Batman and Robin (particularly issue #2, you know what I'm talking about if you've read it). So when I heard that he was going to do a prequel/follow-up to 300 what most crossed my mind was "Oh Lord, he's going to attempt another The Dark Knight Strikes Again..."
Well, here's our first look at Xerxes from, well, Xerxes...
Here's the official title description from Dark Horse Comics:
Xerxes rose to power in fifth-century-BC Persia and became known as 'The King of Kings,' eventually raising and leading a massive army intent on ruthlessly destroying the hated Greeks who killed his father. Xerxes seeks nothing less than to become a god himself -- and achieves his wish!
Hey, if this means more of that freakish Persian army that we saw in 300, I'm totally stoked for this dudes!!
This might be what finally saves the newspaper industry, once the technology becomes feasible and widespread. It'll be just like those moving pictures in the Harry Potter novels and movies!
Sony has refined organic light emitting diode (OLED) manufacturing to the point where a color display can be built that's 80μm thick... which is just shy of the thickness of average human hair.
I guess this also means that Steve Jobs will eventually be making the iPhone and iPad even thinner than they are now :-P
Professional obligations have kept me from blogging as much as I'd like. I was hoping the next entry wouldn't be another obit.
Unfortunately that doesn't get to happen...
Word broke earlier today that Rue McClanahan, who'd already enjoyed a colorful acting career before becoming forever known for playing the sex-obsessed Blanche on The Golden Girls, has passed away at age 76 following a massive stroke.
Most of y'all heard that by now. He passed away Saturday. So in a few days' time we've lost Art Linkletter, Gary Coleman and Dennis Hopper.
He was quite the memorable sort, no matter what he was in: be it Easy Rider or Speed or the first season of 24 or even the otherwise atrociousSuper Mario Brothers movie (where he played King Koopa).
Somehow, his recitation of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" seems a most appropriate tribute to his life and career...
Rest in peace Mr. Hopper. And were I a drinking man, I'd open up a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon and raise a toast in your memory.
Something very similar to this happened to me in 2002, but I don't pretend to be an attorney so I couldn't do it as awesomely kewl as Georgia attorney Regina Quick did in court this week. I had to speed through a red-light camera intersection in Greensboro 'cuz the car behind me was about to rear-end me hard. A week later the citation came in the mail, and I didn't think it was fair.
So I filed a subpoena at the courthouse in Greensboro to have the source code for the software operating the cameras be given to me, so that I could "cross examine" it. 'Course, my real motive was to post it on the Internet so that better heads than my own could examine it.
Suffice it to say, my case was dropped like a hot rock.
At trial in Athens-Clarke Municipal Court on Tuesday however, it was the red-light cameras themselves which had been summoned to court in order to testify against two of Miss Quick's clients. The cameras were a no-show, and the judge found in favor of the defendants.
The story goes on to say that Athens-Clarke County is considering installing more of the cameras at intersections. Which tells me that they are another government jurisdiction with a budget shortfall, and is looking at making up for it by putting the safety of its citizens at risk. The Palm Beach Post this week ran a story in which it found that red-light cameras cause the rate of rear-end collisions to soar to more than double what they had been before the cameras were put in place. Figure that it's common knowledge by now that the duration of the yellow light at these intersections is usually much shorter than at a non-camera "assisted" intersection, and that the private companies under contract to run these cameras are profiting from each guilty citation, and there's a lot of reason to despise these things.
Remember: a robot is not a citizen. Not yet anyway. It doesn't enjoy the rights under the Constitution that you and I have. So if a droid sends you to court, dare it to take the stand.
First of all, and I don't know if anyone else has made note of this but this final season of Lost borrowed a lot from Marvel Comics' Earth X trilogy that Alex Ross and some others did about a decade ago. If you're not familiar with the series, a big part of the story (which consisted of Earth X, Universe X and Paradise X) was about an "afterlife" that the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe were stuck in, unaware that they were dead and because of that, unable to move on. The Kree hero Mar-Vell winds up getting himself re-born in the real world even as he's still in the realm of the dead (much like Desmond was working in the real timeline and the "alternate" timeline). In the end heroes and villains alike realize their state and get to "let go and move on" to a new world that Mar-Vell had been conspiring across space and time to prepare for them. All except people like Kingpin who decided they wanted to have power in the world of the dead just as they had in the living. The only other ones who didn't move forward were people like Captain America who - very much like Benjamin Linus did - chose to "stay behind" awhile and work some things out before being able to let go.
I've been thinking that ever since reading the title of the sixth season's premiere, "LA X", that the Lost showrunners might be more than paying a homage to what happens to be one of my favorite Marvel stories. And, looks like I might have been right :-)
Anyhoo, the series finale aired almost 36 hours ago but the discussion and debate is just getting started... and threatens to continue for the next thirty or forty years. It's pretty clear by now that we won't be getting solid answers to everything (and I'm glad that we aren't) but lo and behold we have got a few answers to some burning questions, thanks to Kristin Dos Santos from E! Click on the link to watch the video which puts to rest a bunch of mysteries. Such as... the Man in Black's REAL name!
Yup, he had one even though it wasn't ever mentioned on the show. But it did appear in the scripts though Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof decided against letting the audience in on it.
But in case you're wondering, the Man in Black's real name is Samuel (an old Hebrew name meaning "man of God"). Jacob and Samuel: I like that. Has some symmetry to it.
Other things noteworthy from the video: the "Kwon" written on the wall of Jacob's cave was Jin, since Sun was removed from consideration as a candidate by Jacob because, like Kate, she became a mother. Whoever it is that is protector of the Island can cause the Island's weather to also change (which will no doubt have many going back to look for the times when it started raining during dramatic moments). The voice that Locke heard in the cabin in "The Man Behind the Curtain" was that of the Man in Black/Samuel.
And the DVD/Blu-ray release will reveal what happened to Walt. I'm thinking that he has already "moved on" but his time on the Island wasn't as important as it had been to Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest. Walt still had all his life left to live and prepare for that moment, in his own way. Who knows: maybe Michael also was able to finally enter into it, eventually. And I'm wondering if that scum Keamy is now eternally damned because he chose to remain the bastard that he was when he was still alive. I can't remember any other time during the "flashsideways" that a character was shown to have died, and I can't imagine him ever wanting to go inside the church... but who knows?
Indeed, who does really know? Lost's departure with so much unanswered still, well... more and more I'm seeing how that's a good thing. It kept drawing faithful viewers because we all loved speculating and analyzing stuff, and set itself up to keep doing that even after the show itself had "let go".
In a cyclical sorta way, I find that rather appropriate :-)
Dude Perfect, a group of guys from Texas A&M specializing in basketball trick shots. And they have set the Intertubes ablaze with this insanely awesome "nothing but net" shot from a low-flying airplane!
Check it out...
From what I understand, it only took them two attempts to make the basket.
...and I am still stunned and numb by how powerful and poignant that was.
I don't mind sharing this at all: the closing minutes of the series finale of Lost, very beautifully articulated many of the hopes that I have come to have across my life.
If you want to know what Chris Knight's image of Heaven is like, that final scene inside the church is pretty darned close: reunions, reconciliations, rejoicings... and moving on together.
This finale hit me in places that I didn't realize needed hitting upon. Lost on the morning after, and somehow I'm feeling more appreciative. More thankful. More hopeful.
This was only the second television series that I've followed this intently in my life. The first was Babylon 5. And in the end both of these shows brought me to tears for all the right reasons. But I don't know if anything has been as emotionally jarring as Lost became. Maybe that's because I watched it through all the way to the end with more lifetime behind me to make me consider it more.
Honestly don't know what else to say about this folks. I am just plain overwhelmed by this story and its magnificent conclusion.
Dear Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and everyone who has been involved with Lost during the past six years:
That was time well spent. All of it.
And in "The End", you brought it to a perfect, astounding and beautiful conclusion.
The greatest praise that can ever be given a story is the sense that the reader or the viewer is coming away from it a better person than he or she was before picking up the book, or tuning in to the show. And that the story now belongs on the shelf with the others, to be brought out again and enjoyed many more times in years to come.
Lost made me think a little more, cry a little more, laugh a little more... and it's leaving me a better person. And I shall certainly enjoy rediscovering this story and these beloved characters many, many more times during the rest of my life.
Best. Series. Finale. Ever. And just as Lost should, it leaves one having to think things through, even now.
To all of you on the west coast: you have no idea what awaits you. Nothing in your wildest dreams can prepare you for how good "The End" is.
But I give you fair warning now: keep the tissues handy.
To everyone involved with Lost: Thank you. You have delivered the greatest mythology that the television medium has ever produced. Thank you for bringing us along for such a remarkable journey.
This is Chris Knight, Lost viewer and blogger since 2005, signing off on the last post-show reaction to a Lost episode that I'll ever write.
Well, this is it. In a little less than thirteen hours from now Lost will have aired its series finale "The End" and this most iconic television shows of the past decade will belong to the ages.
I had originally thought of doing a "Top 23 Lost Episodes" feature on this blog, but everyone and his brother is probably doing that today already anyway. So instead, how about we take a look at what many consider to be the best and most unforgettable final chapters of some classic television series. Will Lost's stack up to these? We shall soon see...
10. The Mary Tyler Moore Show: "The Last Show"
One of the funniest television comedies ever went out solid, on-top and just plain hilarious right up to the final moments! This is how to end a sit-com, people! And hey in retrospect, having Betty White in it made it all the better! The "group hug" where everyone embraces and reaches for the tissues en masse has become one of the most beloved (and parodied) scenes in television history. Such a testament to a show that took its bow in 1977.
9. Star Trek: The Next Generation: "All Good Things..."
Some die-hard Trekkies are prolly gonna jump flunky all over me with "...but Deep Space Nine's finale was much better!" I can see where that can be argued but let's face it: "All Good Things..." broke the ground for how a Star Trek series should wind down (barring the inevitable movies 'course). Not just an excellent episode in its own right, but brilliant as a "bookend" piece to the pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint" seven years earlier. But personally, my favorite part of "All Good Things..." was the very last scene: Captain Picard finally taking a seat at the poker table with his colleagues. If there had been nothing further done with The Next Generation cast of characters, that would have been the perfect note to have closed their story out with.
8. Cheers: "One For The Road"
"Sorry, we're closed." Sam Malone straightens up a few things around the place - hearkening back to his appearance in the very first episode - and then a quiet shot of the bar at night. That's all that was needed for this, one of the most exquisitely executed finales ever for a television series. By the way, to date I've never seen an episode of Frasier and it's partly because of "One For The Road": this is how I most wanted to remember Cheers and its characters. With everyone happy and Sam realizing that he is indeed "the luckiest son-of-a-bitch on Earth".
7. Six Feet Under: "Everyone's Waiting"
Many have called this the finest series finale... ever! I don't know about that since in my mind it borrowed too much from the series finale of Blake's 7. But if you're gonna kill off EVERYONE among your cast of characters, Six Feet Under did it with dignity rather than forcing viewers to watch them get violently dispatched one by one.
6. The Sopranos: "Made in America"
"Don't stop..." Hard cut to black. The ensuing bewilderment was so thick it could have been cut with a knife. Three years later and loyal fans of The Sopranos still debate what happened to paterfamilias Tony Soprano in those final moments. Ultimately, it is simply... what it is. And I think that with the passage of time many others will agree that this was not only one of the best finales ever, but the spot-on perfect way to end The Sopranos' run.
5. The Prisoner: "Fall Out"
And then there are some television series that the passage of time does nothing to lessen the confusion and controversy! Witness "Fall Out", the last episode of The Prisoner. Look, I don't know of how else to put it than this: anyone claiming to completely understand "Fall Out" is either a genius savant, or outright lying. The only person in history who ever did "get" The Prisoner and its bewildering final chapter was series creator and star Patrick McGoohan... and he passed away last year. So strange was "Fall Out" that broadcasting network ITV's phone system crashed within a few hours of it ending and McGoohan had to go into hiding for several weeks because people kept coming to the door of his house demanding answers (Lost producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof should take note!). More than forty years later, The Prisoner fans are still trying to suss it all out.
4. The Fugitive: "The Judgement"
"Tuesday, August 29: The day the running stopped." Dr. Richard Kimble had been an innocent man on the lamb for 120 episodes across four seasons, trying to stay one step ahead of Lt. Philip Gerard while also trying to track down the one-armed man who was the real murderer of Kimble's wife. Until the "Who Done It" episode of Dallas this had been the most-watched episode of television in American history. Couldn't have ended better than this: Dr. Kimble a man exonerated, leaving the courthouse... and shaking hands with Lt. Gerard before starting out to begin a new life.
3. M*A*S*H: "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen"
The one television episode that almost destroyed the entire New York City sewer system! With 77% of the country's TV sets tuned in to the last episode of M*A*S*H after an eleven-year run, so many people waited until the show was over to use the bathroom: all those toilets flushing at the same time wrecked havoc with Manhattan's water pressure. Curiously, for an episode of M*A*S*H that was two and a half hours long (as opposed to its regular half-hour format) this is probably the least funny episode of the entire eleven seasons. Looking back, it was like Alan Alda wanted to ramp up the "war is hell, dammit!" for the last episode even as the ink was drying on the armistice in Kaesong. But even so, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" remains a most fitting capstone to a sitcom about war and dying that lasted nine years longer than the actual Korean conflict.
2. Babylon 5: "Sleeping in Light"
You know that this series finale stands out from the rest when even the credits rolling at the end are enough to break your heart (thanks in no small part to composer Christopher Franke's epic score). Creator J. Michael Straczynski fought tooth and nail for five years to bring Babylon 5 to this: the final moments of the series, set twenty years after the story proper. And when it came time to turn out the lights on that last best hope all alone in the night, who better than Straczynski himself (playing the technician, and just look at that mixture of relief and sorrow on his face) to hit the switch? This is just about the most PERFECT episode of television in the history of anything. There hasn't been a show like it or since... and I really don't know if anyone else will come close to pulling off what Straczynski and his crew did with Babylon 5.
And the #1 Greatest TV Series Finale (so far) as listed by The Knight Shift's eclectic proprietor is...
1. Newhart: "The Last Newhart"
Awright look, I gotta get this off my chest: I am absolutely positive that I read somewhere back when this show was running that the name of the town in Vermont where Newhart took place was "Johnnycake Lake". I read that in a television listing magazine that came with the local paper, but to this date I haven't seen that name given anywhere and in fact most authorities say that the town's name was never given. Maybe it's called "Newhart": which sorta has a Vermont-ish/New England sound to it. But anyhoo, even before this episode aired twenty years ago this week in 1990, it was arousing no small amount of crazy interest. Most of it had to do with the rumor that Bob Newhart's character, the longsuffering Dick Loudon, was going to get killed off! The tidbit about him getting hit in the head with a golf ball had even leaked out well in advance. What happened? Well when Dick really did get conked on the noggin by the errant ball and began slumping down in slow-mo, many viewers immediately turned their TVs off, numbstruck with horror! But those who kept watching were treated to one of the most clever and funniest wraps to a television show ever: Newhart's character Dr. Robert Hartley from The Bob Newhart Show waking up bed in his Chicago apartment and telling his wife Emily (Suzanne Pleshette) about "the dream I just had!" The idea to have the final scene take place on the bedroom set of The Bob Newhart Show had been that of Newhart's wife. And the episode is also memorable for featuring the only occurrence during Newhart's eight-season run in which Larry's brothers Darryl and Darryl actually spoke ("Quiet!") I hope and pray that more Newhart season DVDs will be coming out: 'twill be worth it just for the buildup to "The Last Newhart".
And those are the ten greatest and most memorable finales to various television series, up 'til now, per my rough reckonin'.
Might Lost join the ranks as one of the most renowned? We'll find out tonight. But no matter what, these ten and others that I could also mention (including St. Elsewhere and The Cosby Show) will definitely stand the test of time.
Well, not tragic for me anyway. But this will come as absolutely heartbreaking news to the very many would-be suitors who have written in during the past several months asking if my extremely beautiful, incredibly sweet and saintly-in-spirit cousin Lauryn was taken.
She is now! :-)
Now don't y'all worry: I shall continue to post pictures of her whenever there is dire need to publish something aesthetically pleasing on The Knight Shift (which is more often than not). However this will affect some changes to my task.
So to celebrate the occasion, and to mark the passing of the shotgun some of my duties, here is a new photo of Lauryn... along with her FATHER, the elusive and enigmatic Bob!
Perhaps someday I shall be able to also post a photo of Lauryn's brother Robbe, if he ever walks back out of that jungle...
Of all the clever logos that Google has done to mark various occasions and moments in history, this is by far the kewlest. Tomorrow is the thirtieth anniversary of the debut of Pac-Man, and Google has a fully-playable Pac-Man logo up!
Use your keyboard's arrow keys to move Pac-Man around the maze. Other than the customized Google design it plays EXACTLY like the arcade original: including 255 screens and the 256th "kill screen". It even has the act breaks!
Thanks to Chad Austin for the heads-up! And hey, while we're on the subject of celebrating video gaming's first bona-fide hero, how about we also play "Weird Al" Yankovic's never-officially released parody of The Beatles' "Taxman"? Here's a homemade music video of "Pac-Man"!
Many egotisticial nutcases in history have had pastimes. Fidel Castro almost made it as a professional baseball player. Charles Manson wrote songs. Even Hitler painted roses.
And apprently local cult leader Johnny Robertson of the Martinsville Church of Christ (part of what many are now calling "Sons of Hell" and "Stalkers for Jesus") is not exempt.
Here's the original photo that was sent in by "Code Name Exelsior"...
This photo was taken inside Martinsville Church of Christ's sanctuary. That's Johnny Robertson himself in the left of the picture, and fellow cultist/stalker (and partner with recently found-guilty criminal trespasser Micah Robertson) Mark McMinnis in the plaid shirt sitting down.
Have you spotted it yet? Is your "Spider-Sense" tingling?
Well if not, behold true believers!
I count at least nine and possibly more Spider-Man comic books sitting in a pile on the pews of Martinsville Church of Christ. The headquarters of the cult that puts out What Does The Bible Say?, A Word From The Lord and Religious Review on WGSR: live TV broadcasts where Robertson and his cronies do nothing but condemn everyone else for such imagined slights and sins as having church car washes and bake sales, instrumental music and books during church worship that aren't the Bible.
Yet there it is, most presumably during a worship service at Martinsville Church of Christ: a heap of Marvel Comics and within arm's reach of its head magus. And not only that but Marvel Comics featuring Spider-Man: a character whose fathers include two Jewish comic book legends (Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)! I could also note that Spidey's co-creator Steve Ditko also created Doctor Strange and worked on the New Gods at DC for awhile, so it could be argued that Johnny Robertson is also allowing "eastern religions" and pagan worship inside as he puts it "the church that you read about in the Bible".
Johnny Robertson you damn hypocrite: sit down and SHUT UP, sir!
And you thought it was bad enough that Robertson gets the Bible all twisted and convoluted. Lord only knows how he would interpret the X-Men books.
But as one trusted associate put it when I showed this photo to him: "Of course, I did wonder if comic books is where Johnny Robertson gets his theology from."
Feel free to post whatever clever and snide captions and comments you can think of!
(P.S.: Speaking of hypocrisy, why is Johnny Robertson giving more than a quarter of a million dollars of his congregation's money per year to a multiple-convicted criminal, habitual thief and bisexual purveyor of "filthy" entertainment?)
The more that I've examined the so-called Sarah Palin "phenomenon" the less impressed I have become with the former Alaska governor. My respect for her would shoot through the stratosphere if Palin would completely ditch the Republican Party machine and seriously "go rogue". But as it is she's too beholden to the ones who "brung her to the dance".
But the biggest reason why I'm tremendously leery of Sarah Palin isn't so much with the lady herself as it is with her followers... and what Palin isn't doing to put the brakes on what she has become: a cult of personality.
I despise cults of personality. Lord knows we've seen too many of them in this country in recent years. The cult of personality surrounding George W. Bush was abominable. It might have been even worse than the one engendered by Barack Obama. The United States has suffered three consecutive administrations of Presidents with severe narcissistic disorders: God knows we don't need another.
I don't know what's more sad: that young Bristol's qualifications for the lucrative lecture circuit comprise of little more than being her mother's daughter and getting knocked-up, or that I know fully well that there will be gads of people who will pay good money to see her talk.
Like I said: cult of personality. And there's plenty of $$$ to be made from it.
Before anything else in this post, I'm gonna get this off my chest: I've never understood why Waterworld has such a bad rap. I saw this movie during its first week in theaters in 1995 and thought it was pretty good. Not overwhelmingly "excellent", and the science behind it is atrocious (namely that there isn't enough water in the polar caps to cover the Earth's surface if they melted) but Waterworld was still a great action flick that has only gotten better with age.
Anyhoo, that photo is Kevin Costner at the till of his vessel in Waterworld... and not Kevin Costner at the controls of his very own real life invention: the "Ocean Therapy" water cleansing system. Who'da thunk that all this time he was making Waterworld, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Open Range, that Costner was also working behind the scenes with millions of dollars of his own money to develop the system?
Well, it now looks like Kevin Costner's innovation is going to come to the rescue of the Deepwater Challenger oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. New York Daily News has the story...
Could there be a happy Hollywood ending to the Gulf oil spill?
Enter "Waterworld" star Kevin Costner, who has spent years and millions of dollars perfecting a device that cleans oil from seawater.
British Petroleum - desperate for ideas - gave the okay to test six of Costner's gizmos this week, said BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles.
Costner's high-speed centrifuge machine has a Los Angeles-perfect name: "Ocean Therapy."
Placed on a barge, it sucks in large quantities of polluted water, separates out the oil and spits back 97% clean water.
"It's like a big vacuum cleaner," said Costner's business partner, Louisiana trial lawyer John Houghtaling.
"The machines are basically sophisticated centrifuge devices that can handle a huge volume of water," he said.
The "Field of Dreams" star first got a team together to create the device in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.
His scientist brother, Dan Costner, helped develop the device, and together, the brothers formed Costner Industries Nevada Corp. to pursue various energy projects, including a non-chemical battery that could last 15 years.
The 55-year-old actor eventually sank $26 million into the Ocean Therapy oil separator project. He obtained a license for the device from the Department of Energy in 1993 and has been trying for years to promote it.
In 2007, he told London's Daily Mail that he had blown millions on "technologies I thought would help the world" and had nothing to show for it.
"I've lost $40 million-plus," he said. "But I knew that if I was right, it would change things in an incredibly positive way."
Last week, he was in Louisiana seeking redemption, demonstrating his Ocean Therapy contraption.
"I'm just really happy that the light of day has come to this," Costner said.
Though reporters largely greeted his ideas with snickers, BP apparently wasn't laughing.
At least 210,000 gallons of oil per day is gushing into the sea from the ocean floor where the BP rig exploded April 20. The oil company has tried several novel solutions, but none has worked so far to plug the leak.
The company is skimming the oil, spraying it with dispersant chemicals underwater and trying to burn it on the surface.
Nineteen percent of the Gulf's lucrative fisheries are closed, billions of beach tourist dollars are at stake and dozens of seagoing species are threatened.
Costner has 300 of his Ocean Therapy machines in various sizes. The largest, at 21/2 tons, is able to clean water at a rate of 200 gallons a minute - faster than the well is leaking, Houghtaling noted.
WOW!! This sounds like it could probably do a heap o' good. Gotta give Kevin Costner bigtime props for actively applying his mind and resources toward solving a problem like this. If ya ask me, that is what old-fashioned American ingenuity is all about :-)
Pixar animation artist Josh Cooley has been making a series of illustrations inspired by - in addition to parodying - those classic Lil' Golden Books that so many of us grew up with. And now this summer Cooley is coming out with an actual honest-to-goodness book of his work! Lil' Inappropriate Golden Book: MOVIES 'R' FUN! takes scenes from well-known R-rated movies and, ummm... "kiddifies" them.
Ever seen serial killer Buffalo Bill in a children's book? You have now!
This is the second time this week that grenades have been found at Goodwill Stores around here. On Monday a training grenade was found amid some donated clothing at the store in Mayodan.
So... what's the trend here? Some idiot kids "goofing off"?
Or perhaps we should heed the words of one Auric Goldfinger: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
(Seriously though: if this is "terrism" this has pathetic written all over it. I mean, trying to bring chaos down in a Goodwill store?!)
A STUDENT has been saved from a vicious assault - not by the boys in blue but the men in black.
Ninjas scared off three thugs who had the misfortune to attack the 27-year-old medical student outside their warrior school.
The German exchange student had been targeted by the men while he was riding the late-night train home, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
They demanded he give them his wallet but when he refused and got off the train, they followed.
They pounced as he made his way through a dark alley in Sydney's west.
They grabbed his phone and iPod and kicked him while he lay on the ground.
However, the men were spotted by a member of a nearby dojo.
Nathan Smith told his sensei and the rest of the students at Ninja Senshi Ryu and they rushed out to confront the thugs - all dressed in traditional black ninja garb.
On seeing the ninjas, the men fled, only to be later arrested by police.
"You should have seen their faces when they saw us in ninja gear coming towards them," the school's sensei, Kaylan Soto, told the Herald.
They also failed to notice a ninja, Nathan Smith, standing in the shadows outside the dojo. Mr Smith immediately alerted his sensei, or teacher.
Maybe all it takes to clean up the streets of crime is for some decent upstanding citizens to do things out of the ordinary... like dressing up as ninjas :-)
It was during Jacob's little campfire get-together that the image of a key came into mind. And that key went into the lock (or perhaps "Locke") in the door of six seasons' worth of mystery on Lost... and began to turn.
Can you see it? Could you feel it too, watching "What They Died For"? That all the threads are coming together in the tapestry that is Lost. The sense that this has been a well-orchestrated symphony of mythic storytelling, even during those times when some of us had doubt (witness the reaction many had to last week's "Across The Sea", which tonight's episode tremendously heightened appreciation for).
Everything has come full circle at last. Seeing our heroes on the beach, watching Jack crudely suture-up Kate just as she did in the very first episode, and then realizing that Jack is assuredly not that man of science any longer. He is now and forever a man of faith and the cup has been passed to him, both literally and figuratively.
Then there is Ben. He is going to keep us guessing right up until the very end. Even now, we don't know whose side is he on. But would we really want it to be any other way?
Everyone is coming together whether they realize it or not. From across the Island. From across space and time. From across an entirely other universe. The pieces are in place for the final gambit of this game that we've watched unfold for the past six years.
And in true Lost fashion, we have no clue how it's going to come down.
A brilliant, brilliant episode. It gets my full 10 out of 10.
And fittingly, there are 108 hours between now and "The End".
Those were the words of one Harry R. Truman. He also assured reporters and visitors to his lodge that "No one knows this mountain better than me."
The 83 year-old Harry Truman was speaking of Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington: the mountain on which he lived along with his 16 cats. For two months the long-quiet volcano had slowly been stirring in activity. Geologists became alarmed by the increasing swarms of small quakes and the appearance of a bulge on St. Helens' north side: indication that lava was building up beneath. Many tried to convince him to leave, but Harry Truman refused to go. It was nothing to worry about, he swore up and down.
A few days later, at 8:32 a.m. on the morning of May 18th 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. It was one of the most violent geological events in modern history. The entire northern face of the mountain was blasted away as 540 million tons of ash and debris was thrown out and across thousands of square miles.
Geologist David A. Johnston was stationed six miles away. Johnston had been one of the most vocal in persuading residents to leave the area during the buildup toward the eruption. The superhot flow of ash and steam took less than a minute to reach his location. Johnston's last frantic words before his radio went silent: "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" All that was ever found of David Johnston was the ruin of his United States Geological Survey trailer, discovered by workers in 1993.
As for Harry Randall Truman: he and his 16 cats are still on the mountain somewhere, buried beneath 150 feet of and thousands of tons of ash and debris. True to his word, he never left.
All told, 57 people died in the eruption: the deadliest volcanic event in United States history.
And that was thirty years ago on this day, May 18th 1980.
Word has reached me from a few places that on last night's installment of What Does the Bible Say? (or as many people call it "What Does Johnny Robertson Say?" and "The Martinsville Taliban Show") on WGSR, that local cult leader Johnny Robertson called me out by name for stating that his son Micah Robertson was convicted on May 7th in Danville General District Court on the charge of trespassing stemming from an incident on February 28th at Westover Baptist Church in Danville, Virginia.
It seems that Johnny Robertson - leader of the area cult calling itself "Church of Christ" (I now call them the "Sons of Hell", see Matthew 23:15 and some are now calling them "Stalkers for Jesus") believes I am being irresponsible as a journalist. It is his contention that Micah Robertson was not actually "convicted", but has had his judgment deferred for one year. At which time his transgression will be removed from the records. Which, I suppose I could note that this could be a parable about the quality of mercy that Robertson and his goons could stand to learn much from were they not so hard-hearted. But I digress...
If this isn't a conviction, then what is it? Micah Robertson certainly wasn't found innocent. And one doesn't find himself in the position of possibly having a conviction made permanent hanging over one's head like the proverbial Sword of Damocles unless that person did do something he shouldn't have been doing (in this case, harassing and intimidating a church congregation).
(I could also mention how Johnny Robertson apparently has nothing to say about my asking "Is it biblical or typical practice among your number for one of you to knowingly and consistently give huge amounts of God's money to an avowed atheist, bisexual habitual thief?". Guess he doesn't want to go there, aye?)
Anyhoo, Johnny Robertson has insisted that I should do a retraction.
He's not going to get it.
But, I am willing to demonstrate that I more than a fair journalist. Certainly more than Johnny Robertson and his "Religious Review" sham are...
The judge in the case has said that he'll take this off Micah Robertson's record if he behaves himself for the next year. I believe it is our duty to hold Micah Robertson to that.
If Micah Noel Robertson completely refrains from harassing churches for the next full year, and refrains from even MENTIONING on television any church other than his own Church of Christ for the same amount of time, and refrains from mentioning the name of the pastor or minister of any other congregation for the same amount of time, then I will print a retraction on The Knight Shift.
This means more than Micah Robertson having to keep his nose clean for the next 365 days. It also means that he's going to have to demonstrate nothing but his own doctrine for one full year.
Do I think he can do it? I doubt that he can. Martinsville Church of Christ, Danville Church of Christ and the rest of the local cult calling itself "Church of Christ" (which has nothing to do with the mainstream Churches of Christ) has proven time and again that it doesn't HAVE a real doctrine to call its own. All these loons have are a few handpicked verses of scripture backing up a doctrine that has never existed to begin with, and their unbridled hatred of everyone who doesn't belong to their cult.
In short: Micah Robertson has no purpose without being the bully that his father is grooming him to be. It's thuggery in the name of Christ and that is all that these people have. It can no more be expected of them to abandon and let die their hatred than it could be expected the government to stop wasting money.
But, I am giving Micah Robertson a chance. He can choose to take it, or not.
Until then, and possibly indefinitely, there will be no retraction because Micah Robertson was found guilty in court, and that should stand as warning to many other people about what he and his cult are capable of doing.
