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December 21, 2014
At the Blue Gray Café...
... you can talk about whatever you want.
And, please, if you need to shop: Use The Althouse Amazon Portal.
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49 comments:
Why haven't Americans mastered the use of "whether." In Standard American English, one says, "You need to decide whether to eat, drink, or be merry."
Simple, but the form it takes throughout the media is "You need to decide whether to eat, or whether to drink, or whether to be merry."
I just had this weird exchange with a friend on FB. She was bitching about how the song/scene "Ding-Dong, the witch is dead" had been excised from this year's showing of "The Wizard of Oz". I lamented how another classic has fallen victim to the censor's knife, and mentioned my favorite hobby-horse about how Cartoon Network has censored the Warner Brothers cartoons collection. Someone later down the thread made a posting that blamed conservatives for these cuts.
Whaaaaat?! Are there really many liberals out there who believe that conservatives are the driving force behind the broadcast/movie industries censoring "the classics"? I understand why one can be liberal & lament that the liberals in the film industry are such philistines, but to think that nowadays such censoring is done at the behest of conservatives really takes such a level of stupidity that it must take years to work up to it.
@jimbino
It's to eliminate ambiguity. The first way could mean that you need to decide whether to do all 3 things together or none.
Last year Vermont proclaimed with much smug their universal health care system was the model for the nation. This week they abandoned their system.
Of course Vermonters were correct. Just not in the way they wanted to be.
I suspect we will not learn from their fine example.
I do not know of any great movies about the Civil War. John Ford made many great movies that took place after the Civil War and at least one great movie that took place before the Civil War, but he made no great movie about the Civil War, as far as I know.
I am from the South but I hate Gone With the Wind. So boring! Although the book's not so bad. And Glory is yet another Hollywood movie about white liberals patting themselves on the back for being white liberals. So what is the great movie about the Civil War?
I lamented how another classic has fallen victim to the censor's knife, and mentioned my favorite hobby-horse about how Cartoon Network has censored the Warner Brothers cartoons collection
How about this one?
Speedy Gonzalez is banned from English language networks as racist, but he appears on Spanish language TV, including commercials, all the time.
So what is the great movie about the Civil War?
Gettysburgh was pretty good.
Of course it was originally a mini series that Turner released as a 4 1/2 hour film.
As I am the best - the best - politico in the US of A, let me predict:
NYC Mayor will not run for re-election, for another term. He will have no support of the unions.
He is Clinton supporter. So, watch out for the HRC distancing herself from him.
thank you Gahrie, I am adding it to my queue!
Also adding Ken Burns documentary, I've only seen a bit of it.
What is going on here?
Peculiar road alignments in the distance.
Surveyor's laths in foreground - 3 in a row, but then no more?
Sharknado 2: the Second One is funny bad. Not as awesome as Buckaroo Banzai or Snakes on a Plane, but one of the best cheesy bad movies I've ever seen. It's in my top 10 bad movies, easy.
The Ed Wood movies are not actually funny, so don't bother. Ed Wood, on the other hand, is amazing.
"Shhhhhhh! I want these Baptists to like us."
My favorite Bill Murray movie is still this one...
but St. Vincent is awesome, too.
You might like Gods and Generals. Robert Duvall as General Lee. Pretty good Bob Dylan song.
Ann says,
"It's to eliminate ambiguity. The first way could mean that you need to decide whether to do all 3 things together or none."
I don't think so. In English, both "and" and "or" can be either conjunctive or disjunctive; it has nothing to do with the use of "whether."
"Whether" needs to be repeated only when the context changes, as in "I haven't decided whether Obama is a bad president or whether to get out of bed today."
Would you say, "I haven't decided whether Obama is a good president or whether he is a bad one"?
'Cross the Green Mountain
Happy Solstice! Enjoy the additional seconds of sunlight tomorrow!
I think a better name than single-payer is single-middleman. The government collects the money, pays their employees, puts money in their retirement accounts, and pays your medical bills.
We all love to support a middleman financially, right?
Grundoon said:I think a better name than single-payer is single-middleman. The government collects the money, pays their employees, puts money in their retirement accounts, pays your doctor 60% of his bill and tells him to get lost. Doctors choose another field. Waiting times increase. FIFY
If you are not into The Lost Cause type of romance of the south, two realistic films are Cold Mountain which is about the mostly pro unionist mountain folk in western North Carolina, and The Outlaw Josey Wales which is about the a typical Missouri raider band after the War ended.
Gone With The Wind is a classic because it is mostly true from the women's point of view on the men's stupid war with the North that caused horrible family member deaths, starvation, loss of everything to Carpet Baggers and northern enforced poverty for 90 years.
You might like Gods and Generals.
That's the prequel to gettysburgh...a lot of the same actors.
thanks Meade, adding it to queue
Merry Christmas everybody!
@Saint Croix, try "The Horse Soldiers," John Ford directing with John Wayne starring. "Gettysburg" (without the 'h') is good, provided you fast forward past Martin Sheen as General Lee. I can add my recommendation regarding "Gods and Generals," but there is a short scene between Stephen Lang, as Stonewall Jackson, and Frankie Faison, as his slave that you will want to fast forward through.
awesome Big Mike I love Ford, missed that one somehow
" try "The Horse Soldiers," John Ford directing with John Wayne starring."
That is based pretty accurately on a true story.
@St.Croix: "Shenandoah"
It's drama but good drama:
Snippet
"So what is the great movie about the Civil War?"
I don't know about great but Cold Mountain was pretty good. My wife and I watched it together and found it romantic.
You might say one movie could never catch the story of a mighty war like the Civil War but one speech at Gettysburg, a speech only eleven minutes long, did.
You might say one movie could never catch the story of a mighty war like the Civil War but one speech at Gettysburg, a speech only eleven minutes long, did.
Anyone interested in Gamergate might like my latest take on the quinnspiracy.
GWTW was a great movie, but no one wants to give a pro slavery movie much respect any more. The Horse Soldiers was ok, but, again, it was rather tolerant of the whole slavery thing. If I remember right, the Southern belle was served by a slave who was fanatically loyal to her white mistress.......Hollywood used to gloss over the evils of slavery. Now they probably luxuriate in them. From what I've read, slavery wasn't a monolithic institution. The slaves at Monticello were treated like family (which, of course, they were), and the slaves on Jefferson's other plantations were treated like slaves.......Maybe someday they'll get it right. Or maybe someday it won't matter.
I want a giant bag of Skittles for Christmas.
..and so is fucking Wilson!
Can I just take a minute to say how awful I think the Elf on the Shelf is? I would never be caught dead with one at home, but the teachers love to play the game and I have to keep reminding my son that, even though he knows it isn't real, he can't spoil it for the other kids.
The Seahawks look Super Bowl ready again. They win next week and they have home field in the playoffs.
The Packers are good but I don't see them winning an NFC Championship game in Seattle. The Packers are a mediocre road team.
I have spent some time reading the old WPA Slave Narratives (mostly from the area I live in, North Georgia)
There were more contented slaves than the media or government schools would leave you to believe (imagine that!)
I went there and pulled a Georgia narrative at random:
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
Georgia Narratives, Volume IV, Part 4
Jane Mickens Toombs of Washington-Wilkes
I found many of the stories fascinating.
Humperdink: I work in a doctor's office. For our most commonly billed procedure code, Medicaid pays $38.69, and the standard rate for it is $75. So, barely over 50%. And, so many claims are bounced for various BS reasons that he has to pay me to come in and untangle them to actually get paid. In addition to a 30-hours-a-week biller, and a full-time receptionist.
Doc takes home less than blue collar tradesmen after paying his loans and overhead. Tells everyone he can to not even consider medical school, or if they must, not to practice in the USA.
Monday morning finds the media saturated with police shooting grief porn.
Everything is entertainment, but what weird audience it must be.
I'd been playing archived Mark Steyn hosting Rush and had forgotten the incident entirely, as a baseline normal human reaction unprompted by The View news.
Not to mention his malpractice insurance.
Anyone notice?
American troops battle ISIS for first time as they see off attempted attack by militants on Iraqi base
I added Shenandoah and Cold Mountain, thanks guys.
I also added 12 Years a Slave, I've been avoiding it.
I avoided Schindler's List for years, for similar reasons, but that movie turned out amazing. Amistad was just mediocre, I thought.
It's tough to make a movie about atrocities. People don't want to see it!
Cold Mountain, the book, is far more entertaining.
The time the Cold Mountain folks appeared on Family Feud was pretty good, too.
Cry Me A River......Joe Cocker has passed away.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly?
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