The site for ranting and reporting by John Masters
I would classify things in this category that were related to arts, literature, cinema, performance. Things that make us and the world better.
I came across an article at the Christian Science Monitor on-line today about hunger in America. I spent some evenings working in the homeless shelter in Winston-Salem some years ago, and have, as a result of that experience, developed some perspective on the problems of poverty and homelessness in America. I wish I had some solutions, but I don’t…just a sense of what the world is really like.
Read moreI know it’s a bit late, but I thought I’d write an update from our Thanksgiving trip to North Carolina.
Read moreI’m not sure if Joshua played a role, but it seems the pastors of America’s fastest growing megachurch, Without Walls International Church, is having a bit of a crisis of leadership. Married pastors Randy and Paula White announced at last Thursday night’s service that they were getting a divorce.
Read moreLions for Lambs begins after two determined students at a West Coast University, Arian (Derek Luke) and Ernest (Michael Pena), follow the inspiration of their idealistic professor, Dr. Malley (Robert Redford), and attempt to do something important with their lives. But when the two make the bold decision to join the battle in Afghanistan, Malley is both moved and distraught. Now, as Arian and Ernest fight for survival in the field, they become the string that binds together two disparate stories on opposite sides of America. In California, an anguished Dr. Malley attempts to reach a privileged but disaffected student (Andrew Garfield) who is the very opposite of Arian and Ernest. Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. the charismatic Presidential hopeful, Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise), is about to give a bombshell story to a probing TV journalist (Meryl Streep) that may affect Arian and Ernest’s fates.
Read moreSix months after the rage virus was inflicted on the population of Great Britain, the US Army helps to secure a small area of London for the survivors to repopulate and start again. But not everything goes to plan.
Read moreIt remains dry, but it’s been very cool the past few nights, getting into the 40’s. There could be some frost tonight north of here and inland. Lay’s nephews are over to spend the night, as two of them have birthday’s next week. We won’t be here. Lay and I will be traveling to North Carolina. While I’m taking the whole week off, Lay will be working Monday and Tuesday, so unfortunately, we’ll be on the road Wednesday. I am not looking forward to that.
Read moreThe North Carolina State Baptist Convention claims that it allows for autonomy for their local churches, and has only a few requirements for membership in state convetion…mainly that you send money and hate homosexuals. Well, the members of Myers Park Baptist Church had decided to be Christian rather than Southern Baptist in their thinking, so today the Executive Committee found this church is not “in friendly cooperation with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina” and today the membership as a whole gave Myers Park Baptist the boot. The decided to not go without comment…
Read moreNobody used to notice Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), the quiet driver to one of the inner city’s leading black crime bosses. But when his boss suddenly dies, Frank exploits the opening in the power structure to build his own empire and create his own version of the American Dream. He comes to rule the inner-city drug trade, flooding the streets with a purer product at a better price. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is an outcast cop close enough to the streets to feel a shift of control in the drug underworld. Roberts believes someone is climbing the rungs above the known Mafia families and starts to suspect that a black power player has come from nowhere to dominate the scene.
Read moreAfter Mr Brooks (Costner) receives a “Man of the Year” award, we find out he is a serial killer haunted by the voice of his alter ego inside his head.
Read moreI watched most of an excellent and touching Frontline episode last night on PBS. It was called The Undertaking. Thomas Lynch is a writer and poet in a small town in Michigan, and he’s also a funeral director. His family has been caring for the dead in his hometown for three generations. Given my background, this certainly caught my attention. I was not disappointed.
Read moreHigh-school student Sam Witwicky buys his first car, who is actually the Autobot Bumblebee. Bumblebee defends Sam and his girlfriend Mikaela Banes from the Decepticon Barricade, before the other Autobots arrive on Earth. They are searching for the Allspark, and the war on Earth heats up as the Decepticons attack a United States military base in Qatar. Sam and Mikaela are taken by the top-secret agency Sector 7 to help stop the Decepticons, but when they learn the agency also intends to destroy the Autobots, they formulate their own plan to save the world.
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