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There are some real gems in that book. By the way, what does a platform creek sound like (re: page 17)?

It reminds me of when, many years ago, I bought a German phrase book to help me brush up on it. It included some rather naughty expressions which, when translated into English, definitely wouldn't be considered politically correct nowadays.

They were, of course, in a chapter on what not to say in German. I can understand why those phrases were included in the book. A slight error in pronunciation or vocabulary could be quite embarrassing.

An Italian, a Scotsman and a Chinese man, are hired at a Construction site. The foreman points out a huge pile of sand.

He says to the Italian guy, "You're in charge of sweeping."

To the Scotsman he says, "You're in charge of shoveling."

And to the Chinese guy, "You're in charge of supplies."

He then says, "Now, I have to leave for a little while. I expect you men to make a dent in that pile of sand."

So when the foreman returns after being away for a couple of hours the pile of sand is untouched.

He asks the Italian, "Why didn't you sweep any of it?"

The Italian replies, "I no hava no broom. You saida to the Chinesea fella that he a wasa ina charge of supplies, but he hasa disappeared and I no coulda finda him nowhere."

Then the foreman turns to the Scotsman and says "And you, I thought I told you to shovel this pile."

The Scotsman replies, "Aye, that ye did laddie, boot ah could nae get meself a shoovel. Ye left th' Chinese gadgie in chairge of supplies, boot ah couldna fin' him neither."

The foreman is really angry now. He storms off toward the pile of sand to look for the Chinese gent.

Just then, the Chinese man leaps out from behind the pile of sand and yells, "SUPPLIES!!!!"

For sure and it will be all for nought. It will be a big show and when it's all over, it will still not be over. The findings will not be conclusive because they might offend, no government will take the actions needed to fix what is already know to be the problem.

And MSM will give it the (emotional) thumbs up....because it's 2016!

Captcha gone Italian! (not that there's anything wrong with that!)

Yes, "emotional" is the key here and that's about it. It's an exercise to spend money to accomplish nothing.

Inquiries are good at showing false intent, it's posturing in the most expensive and useless way to fix the problem but they will never have the will to actually do what is needed to fix it, it would require many more dollars and constitutional change.

Remember the AdSCAM inquiry? Money spent but no money returned, just a media circus, the people who tossed 40 Million dollars to the wind made a joke of it, made the presiding judge look like a fool.

Is there any classic movie that isn't being re-made/re-booted/revised/politically corrected?

For example, a re-hash--er, re-make--of "The Magnificent Seven" is scheduled to be released late next month. (It, of course, was a re-make of "The Seven Samurai", which was directed by Akira Kurosawa. Apparently Kurosawa was quite pleased with it being redone as a western, a movie genre he apparently admired.) I've also heard rumours that the Sam Peckinpah flick "The Wild Bunch" is going to get a similar treatment. I shudder to think how that's going to turn out.

Rarely has a re-make of a Hollywood movie ever been an improvement over the original. "The Maltese Falcon" is one which actually worked, but it was a re-make of a re-make The original was clunky and looked like a filmed stage play. It was re-made a few years later into an abysmally awful comedy--not even Bette Davis could save that one.

By comparison, the 1960s Jimmy Stewart movie "The Flight of the Phoenix" was subjected to a re-make about 10 years ago which was not only horrid, lacking the intensity of the original, but wasted the talents of Dennis Quaid and Hugh Laurie.

A few days ago, I began watching the re-make of "True Grit" and switched it off about halfway through. It was simply boring and lacked the fun of the original. Jeff Bridges, a great film actor, was miscast and his character came across as a constantly mumbling, quarrelsome drunk. Matt Damon spoke in a constant monotone throughout and his performance was worse than Glen Campbell's in that same role in the original.

When will Hollywood learn that fundamental law of the universe: "if it works, don't fix it"?

Hollywood has forgotten what's required for a good movie. One of the studio moguls (Sam Goldwyn, maybe?) said something like what's needed are:

1. a good story
2. good acting
3. all the rest

That's one reason many of the older movies are so much better than what's churned out today. They concentrated on the first two and the rest fell into place.

By the way, I saw the original "Ghostbusters" on commercial TV many years ago and I wasn't impressed but, then, I'm not a fan of most of that "Saturday Night Live" alumni have done. "Animal House", however, is one exception to that. John Belushi was terrific in that one!

Olympics, ghostbusters, et.al. and almost all broadcast TV is brain pablum for the mindless masses of chattering classes.

It's all bread and circuses.

Not that many of the cable channels are any better. For example, I remember when Bravo actually had some decent programming on it. Now it simply shows trashy Hollywood movies over and over again as well as re-runs of stuff that was shown on CTV.

I consider the cable channels as just more broadcast TV. None of it is worth wasting time watching. I have a computer connected to the livingroom flatscreen and that provides all the "entertainment TV" I have time for on my schedule, not theirs.

Oh, there's probably fewer than seven stories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces
Frodo is Luke Skywalker is Neo
Gandalf is Obiwan is Morpheus
Merry & Pippin are R2D2 & C3PO are Tank & Dozer
and so forth.

The only cable channel that I watch frequently is Turner Classic Movies. There's usually something worth watching on it.

I also take a peek at some of the stuff on AMC as well. "Better Call Saul" has to be one of the best shows on TV right now, even though it won't be returning until early next year.

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