Carol the Dabbler

Working that many hours, you probably wouldn't have the energy for socializing afterward -- so maybe just as well. Hopefully you do get a break now and then.

ST: Discovery is about to become available on broadcast television -- but only in the UK so far. https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-10-16/star-trek-discovery-will-be-free-to-air-for-the-first-time-on-e4-in-the-uk/

Apparently the "other" Trek film is still very much in the incubation stage, but that hasn't stopped fans from imagining it -- based on the filmmaker's previous work:

According to Variety, the fourth reboot movie isn't dead. They now have a different plot / screenwriter / producer, and are apparently assuming they'll be able to work things out with Chris Pine. Not sure how much of this is still just rumor, though. And has anyone heard about this other Trek movie that they mention? .

Do you have a dinner to go to after work? That "Noel" sign reminds me of a Home Improvement episode we watched recently, where four boys are in a Christmas pageant, each wearing a choir robe with one letter of "NOEL" on it -- but they're nervous, and at first they spell "Leon." A wooden sign is definitely safer!

You must be thinking of the sequel, "Raiders of the Lost Magic Lamp."

We just (re)watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, and noticed that in addition to John Rhys-Davies as Indiana Jones's loyal friend Sallah, the cast includes Kirin Shah as Abu. Not sure which character the latter was, but in 1981 Shah was in his mid-twenties. My best guess is he played the young fellow in Sallah's household, and if so, then one scene included both the future Gimli and stunt-Frodo. Yeah, it takes so little to impress me!

Well, there's logic in the everyday sense of the word, and then there's formal logic (which is a branch of either philosophy or mathematics, depending on who you ask). But yeah, everyday logic is basically just a matter of what makes sense to a person. I have the impression, though, that when Sherlock Holmes (of any incarnation) uses the term, he means something a bit closer to the rigorous formal technique -- though if he thinks that's what he does, he may be flattering himself just a bit.

It's just an innocent bystander, huh? OK, you think the cynics are basically agreeing with Tom Lehrer in "Folk Song Army"? (Which was written and recorded long before the 90's.) If so I certainly won't dispute their point -- but I do deplore their choice of target song. .

Ah. Well that could explain a lot. So it's kinda lost its religious meaning -- or pretty much any meaning? That's a shame, but it could explain the current contempt for it (or, as you say, for those who sing it).

You may be thinking of the Cromwell era, when the "idolatrous" murals in churches were painted over (literally "whitewashed"), though I think that was pretty much all of them, not just the ones that showed nudity. Cromwell's soldiers were also fond of using "idolatrous" religious statues for target practice (check the facade of Salisbury Cathedral). Oh, for sure! The peasant ladies were far too busy working to have time for fainting.

That's a pretty thin line, in my opinion. I mean, if singing a certain song is proof / evidence that one is -- what? silly? -- then what does that supposedly imply about the song? I might agree, except that Kumbaya isn't an idealistic song, exactly. When I was at church camp, back in my teens, the song was considered a prayer invoking God's presence, or at least that was my impression. Of course it's possible that some people (some who sing the song and/or some who hear them) don't know that, and think it's just a feel-good sing-along song with funny words in it. That does seem to jibe with the way it's been used in pop culture (e.g., at the end of "Spinal Tap," where the lyrics were changed to "Kumbaya my friend"). The negative comments quoted in that NPR article are mostly about people supposedly thinking they can solve the world's problems by "joining hands and singing Kumbaya." That sounds to me like an accusation of naivety rather than idealism. In any case, it still bugs me that they're picking on a hymn that means a lot to some people. Am I naive to think that they wouldn't do that to a hymn that was sung in standard English?

The overall write-up was probably some combination of the two -- Moftiss filtered through the BBC's advertising department. But that specific phrase "leaps of intellect" sounds like Moftiss to me. And it also sounds (to me, at least) a whole lot like my phrase "flashes of insight strung together with logic." So I'm guessing that they intentionally made Sherlock not quite as pure-logic as he'd like to think.

Just ran across a whimsical interview with Dave Barry (one of my favorite writers). It's on this page, but never mind reading it, just scroll down to the video (and ignore the subtitles, which I'm guessing were computer generated). This is probably more for people who've been wondering what Dave Barry's up to now, rather than people who are wondering who the heck is Dave Barry, but if you're among the latter, just bear in mind that Barry is rarely entirely serious (but just about always somewhat serious).

Why is it that so many people think it's OK to make fun of one particular religious song? I'm taking about Kumbaya, an African-American folk hymn. I suppose since it's partly sung in dialect ("kum ba ya" means "come by here," an appeal to God), some people may think it's just nonsense syllables, but you'd think they'd make some effort to find out, especially before they mock the song in movies and TV shows. It's not like the song's meaning is any big secret. I've been hearing these disrespectful comments for some years now, and just heard another one tonight (in a sitcom). I don't belong to any organized religion myself, but I sure wouldn't ridicule anybody's religious songs, especially in public, and especially in the media. Don't these people have any manners? Added: This NPR article dates the disrespect to circa 1990, which jibes with my own observations.