Ophelia, I had read somewhere that Barry Lyndon was an idea that Thackeray more fully realized in Vanity Fair . Ah well, just thought I would throw it out there. Actually, with some of the discussion on humor in this thread, I'm thinking that No Country for Old Men might be a good book choice. It is...

Grrrrrrr...Heller.... Penelope, I don't know if this will help make you look more forward to the book, but I wouldn't categorize Heart of Darkness as war lit. There's definitely some violence to it, and the colonialism that we've been discussing. But there isn't any real combat or even much threat o...

Well, technical or no Frank, it's dance. It's rhythmic body movement accompanied by music. As I said, I wouldn't necessarily call the first video good dancing, but it's dance. As for the comparison I drew to the skill and body mechanics in martial arts, I was speaking specifically to the third video...

You dont want me yelling at you now do ya? Meh, I'd probably just tune you out then. ...that does not mean I am not also considering the separation issue. O.K., then let me say that you had never mentioned separation, nor did I infer from what you had written that the issue for you was separationis...

How's this for an idea: WE (the rest of the world) should vote in US presidential elections. Or perhaps YOU (the rest of world) could spend that energy compelling your leaders to organize some influence away from the U.S. Maybe then you'd realize that you are as powerless as U.S. citizens are in st...

Mad, I've been on the forum a couple times now and keep forgetting to drop this title off for you. Richard Posner wrote a book following the 2000 election, Breaking the Deadlock: The 2000 Election, the Constitution and the Courts , in which he argues that Gore and his legal team exhausted all their ...

Ophelia, Thackeray is one of those writers I've always meant to get to, but haven't yet. At around 800 pages, Vanity Fair might fall out of the guidelines for an official discussion as far as length is concerned. But I heard that Thackeray's Barry Lyndon is also very good. Plus, it's supposed to be ...

Gee Frank, that sounded a bit judgmental, if not actually hateful. I'd definitely call that dance and, though I didn't see anything really astonishing in the videos Chris posted, the guy in LanDroid's is extraordinary. I can't imagine the muscle work going on there

Though it seems this is a fairly typical way to approach political campaign discussions in this country, I don't find it really indicative of the way that I consider campaigns in their entirety. I don't ever really consciously decide on the top issues that will inform my choice. Of course, there are...

But if he's going to be a topic of discussion, let's talk about what he's actually likely to do rather than speculate based on a three-second sound byte from YouTube. Yes I understand that's what you think. I'm assuming you want the discussion to be more like: Huckabee's plan to eliminate federal i...