Editor’s Note: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” is a line from an editorial by Francis Pharcellus Church. Written in response to a letter by eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon asking whether Santa Claus was real, the editorial was first published in the New York newspaper The Sun on September 21, 1897. “Is There a Santa…
Movies
Part 2: On Unfulfilled Hopes, Shattered Dreams and Baseball
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — Do you ever feel like you are marking time, waiting for something to happen? Something that is supposed to happen, but the timing is not yet right? I was thinking that recently when watching the movie “Field of Dreams.” “The one constant through all…
The Secret But True Story of Network News and The Happy Pill
Satire – Fiction – Film Proposal -Â By Glynn Wilson -Â WASHINGTON, D.C. â Here’s a movie script idea for Netflix or one of the other streaming companies. FADE UP FROM BLACK – A secret cabal of corporate executives are huddled in a conference room in a New York skyscraper. They are watching video clips…
Operation Zap: A Novel and Film by Aaron Murphy
Editor’s Note: In 1992, while working as a staff writer and reporter for a chain of newspapers on the Gulf Coast, I stumbled onto a dangerous story involving electromagnetic fields and pulses being developed by Naval Intelligence in Pensacola, Florida. The stories I wrote about it were so controversial that a rogue agent working for…
Whatever You Do, Look Up. Otherwise We’re All Going to Die
Movie Review: âDonât Look Upâ – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Some streaming movie fans are reeling away from the outrageous silliness of one of the top watched films on Netflix this year, “Don’t Look Up.” It’s an American satirical science fiction film written, directed and produced by Adam McKay, another in a…
Alabama Song Writer Grayson Capps on the State of the World and Religion
Sunday Reader – By Glynn Wilson – So I’m following the light, doing what I do, and somehow with assistance from Mother Nature, my Cherokee ancestors and smarter aliens on some exoplanet, I made it back to North Carolina this week from a month-long trip to the Nation’s Capital just long enough to see Donald…
Alabama Scientist Mark Hainds Publishes Book as First to Hike Mexican Border
By Glynn Wilson – Like many a fellow traveler before him inspired by the American landscape, Missouri country boy turned middle-aged Alabama forester Mark J. Hainds grew impatient with his life of teaching, raising a family, and conducting research to conserve and propagate the return of the longleaf pine forest in the South, long ago…
Movie Review and More: Gary Webb, Dark Alliance and Kill the Messenger
By Glynn Wilson – Surfing around on Netflix for something to watch during the holidays, it came to my attention that the film Kill the Messenger was available. At the outset let me say that the Gary Webb story is one I’ve purposely avoided getting involved with for many years, even though I followed it…
Appomattox Court House: Robert E. Lee Surrenders to Grant, Ending Civil War
By Glynn Wilson – APPOMATTOX, Virg. — We didn’t make it here in time for Memorial Day, but National Park Service rangers and volunteers say nearly 500 people showed up for the playing of “Taps” and holiday weekend programs. I don’t know for sure, but considering that Confederate sympathizers seem to generate more engagement these…
Kodachrome on Netflix: Author Tom Wolfe Dies at 88
Photographer Rowland Scherman Was There
Expedition of Rediscovery Western Journey Timeline
By Glynn Wilson and Walter Simon – On a mission to investigate whatâs going on with the pipeline protest in Cannonball, North Dakota and the privatization of the national parks out west, we departed from Mobile, Alabama on Friday, Sept. 23, and drove for about 8 hours to Jonesboro, Arkansas, where we hooked up with…
Oliver Stone Warns Against Surveillance Capitalism and ‘Pokémon Go’
EDITORS NOTE – I knew there was something fishy about this Pokemon game. – By Jordan Riefe – Controversy and Oliver Stone have never been strange bedfellows. He courted it with movies like âJFK,â âNixonâ and âNatural Born Killers,â and last week, he made headlines in the unlikely milieu of Comic-Con, where he spoke about…
I Can See Clearly Now the Continuing Role of COINTELPRO
Michael Moore Says His New Movie ‘Where to Invade Next’ Will Change America
Filmmaker Michael Moore is launching the national release of his new documentary “Where to Invade Next” on Friday, which is said to be both his happiest and “most subversive” movie yet. In the film, Moore travels to countries throughout Europe and also Tunisia to “pry loose from them the tools they’ve been using to make…
Oscar Nominations for 2016 Announced: ‘The Revenant’ Tops List of Films
The competitors in the 2016 Oscars race were announced Thursday, in an event that was live-streamed from California. The winners will be announced on Feb. 28. The most nominations went to “The Revenant,” with 12, followed by “Mad Max: Fury Road,” with 10. “The Martian” was cited seven times, and “Carol,” “Bridge of Spies,” and…
‘Aquanox: A DeltaWorld Thanksgiving Solstice’ Premiers Saturday Night
DeltaWorld Entertainment, a new fun, worker-owned company on the Gulf Coast, announces its first public launch Saturday night in downtown Mobile at Portal Studios. “Aquanox: A DeltaWorld Thanksgiving Solstice,” a short film co-produced by Glynn Wilson and Walter Simon, will premier Saturday, December 19, beginning at 6 p.m. Summary In the year 2050, an environmental…
Two Old Stories Resurface: I Must Weigh In on Bush AWOL
Selma the Film: Clearing Up the Controversies
By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — If you are really any kind of patriotic American — Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, libertarian, whatever — you must be willing to acknowledge that what happened in Alabama and Washington in 1965 was a pivotal moment in U.S. and world history. By “pivotal” I do not…