Gone

I'm not that fussed about symphonies, they tend to wander or dissolve into bombast. Concertos often make more 'sense'. I think Rossini's overtures and many of Bach's intros as well as Mozart's overtures and more intimate works are as thrilling and less contrived. I admire you for liking Bruckner... I'm unable to enjoy most music written after Schubert. Stuck in the classical enlightenment am I. my music needs to be logical, rational, harmonic and should sometimes make me laugh, as well as cry and quiver with astonishment. There's so little time left to me that if I stick only to works from say 1600 - 1850 I can never hear them all enough times to tire of them. so listening to other music seems a waste of my precious time.

I read a paper recently that pointed out that 'real' USA aid to other countries is the lowest in the 'developed' world. I haven't the figures, but it was something like .02% of GDP. Denmark, in contrast gives about 4% of GDP!!! All US aid is tied to selling US goods and services. It is never without strings and usually all the money ends up back in USA corporate pockets. The myth of US generosity is a myth -- almost every country they reckon they are aiding suffers either a revolution or a puppet dictator thrust upon them, like Chile, Panama's Norriega, Afghanistan, Iraq, most central American countries, Indonesia with Suharto,.... on and on... American meddling has caused more misery than anything else. Apologies for being such a wet blanket... my country is no better!

I saw this in the 70's and, of course, fell in lust with the hero. The film is very important... At this very moment, 5 young Australians are rotting in Indonesian jails because they carried drugs to Bali. Three will face a firing squad in a few week's time... one boy is only 18 and a sweetie.
I love Turkey. Lived and worked there in the Sixties... I think the criticism of the film's red-neck attitude is a little harsh. After seeing the film, my love for the people of Turkey didn't change. Governments are always different from the people... look at the USA! according to books and films, many USA jails are almost as bad. I am so sorry that Islam seems to be rearing it's ugly fundamentalist head there. poor Ataturk must be turning in his grave, as must the USA founding father5s seeing the overtaking of secular USA by fundamentalist religion, and I deplore the invasion of the Kurds and refusal to give them autonomy... but again that is a government decision and the USA is partly to blame again... A great film, thanks for the reminder.

Violence works - for them. it keeps many, if not most gays out of the public eye. We are fearful of homophobia -- all couples are more or less. Singles aren't so obvious, so don't suffer the same abuse. We have always kept a very low profile in public.

I wonder if he is... I suspect so... how lucky he was to get 'discovered' at such a young age... so many aspiring young actors never get anywhere at all. it is astounding that although the world population has tripled since 1960, the number of actors have shrunk to a tiny pool of famous names who get all the work and all the money. that's why we all know the names of just about every actor on the planet... very sad... like the only computer software now is microsoft... soon there will be one brand of everythinbg.

I've heard that spinal fusion is always risky and should only be used as a last, desperate resort. How old is your son? If he is in great pain then addiction to pain-killers seems a reasonable price to pay... it is cruel to force people to suffer simply because their only relief has been decided by bureaucrats in government to be an addictive drug. that's why people suffering dreadfully from nausea cannot find relief by simply taking marijuana - the best known anti nausea drug... oh no, our all-wise government has decided it is better to suffer than use the dreaded leaf

If you read Christopher Hitchens critique of the Clinton era, you will be appalled. If a Democrat gets in you will be appalled -- nothing will change. the 2 parties are identical, bot kept in power by big corporate money. Vote Nader as a protest.

The light emitted by the ones we bought was too white so we went back to the old ones... it's odd... people buy these bulbs so they can still leave every light in the house on -- turning unused lights off would save much more, and meanwhile airlines are cutting fares to increase passenger numbers, so everyone can afford to take unnecessary flights, and every flight across the pacific puts as much greenhouse gas into the air as a small town in a week... homo sapiens? homo stupidus.

I feel so sorry for film actors... they work hard but never see their audience. Never get to hear a theatre full of people clap and applaud them. and they have no say over what the final product looks like, scenes are filmed out of order, they often don't even know the actors they are not on scene with, not do they know what the final thing will look like... it's no wonder they are always attention-seeking, unhappy, changing spouses, drug addicted and doing anything to be seen and gushed over. I'd hate it. I want a live audience, not a mechanical cyclops.

It never made it to our News bulletins! I'll email them and ask why.

I feel as if I've walked in on a performance of West Side Story... 'There's a place for us....' I too have quit blogster.... the clientele have become somewhat red-neck. Is there a way of unsubscribing?

And here I thought MTV was a spin-off from Mary Tyler Moore...[We don't have MTV in Australia -- we are pure.]

Nice one... thanks. One small quibble... ones sexual orientation is scarcely a preference... there's no choice in the matter. it's as silly as to say "I prefer to be blue eyed"... sorry mate, you're a brown-eye.

What a bizarre tale! But tell me, Why was having sex with another adult added to the list of charges? Is that also illegal in Wisconsin?

There is confusion here about what is or is not a 'moral issue'. The things everyone is writing about are not moral issues, they are religious dogma issues. Sexuality, per se, is not a moral issue, it is natural behaviour. Morality is only concerned with human survival. Behaviour that promotes happy healthy humans is moral, activities that work against this are immoral, and all other activities such as who you sleep with, what sort of clothes you wear... are neither moral or immoral until they impinge on the happy survival of other humans.
Hollywould, why are you happy for women to wear trousers, but affronted if men wear dresses? isn't that sexist? As for men wearing dresses, 90% of all cross dressers [transvestites] are heterosexuals. It is very unusual for gay men to indulge in that sort of behaviour. Just as 90% or thereabouts of gay men do not like or enjoy watching drag queens. Most gays are indistinguishable from hets, unless they choose not to be.
I do agree that a teacher's private life is not a suitable topic for the classroom.