The Hall of Fire

I don't like being reminded of the absurdity of The Shire's economics.

I think Aragorn would have cut capital gains taxes.

Jon Miller is very good. All the Giants announcers are, really. Speaking of announcers -- I don't think I'm ready for a Dodger season without Vin Scully. It just won't be the same. I started listening to him in 1983, when he was *already* a legend, and *already* a Ford C. Frick honoree in the baseba...

What I love about the Singapore Logic Puzzle is all the pettiness and spiteful behavior and interpersonal drama. What is with Cheryl, anyway? Why can't she just give a straight answer? Why does she have to give half the answer to one boy and half to another boy like she's sending out a coded WWII me...

During my latest reading of LOTR I was surprised at how charmed I was by Treebeard. Of course the introduction to him comes with a hint of malevolence -- I almost feel I dislike you both, he says to Merry and Pippin, and more chillingly he confesses that he might have trod on them ( taking them for ...

So any book information is behind spoiler tags? I haven't read the books yet, and I won't until the series is over.

Do the spoilers include the books or just the tv show?

I haven't read the books, and I don't want to run across any information about season 5 that book readers might know about.

It's a bad movie. It's disjointed. There is no coherence to it. There is no real narrative structure. The film-makers just make drama where ever they want to without any thought given to the characters or the story. ********* Legolas comes up behind Tauriel and surprises her. Tauriel whirls with an ...

This is a scientific question, not a religious question. Lots of religions have dogma regarding things that would be called "science" AKA physically observable phenomena. Yes, true, true, but it doesn't bother me one bit what the Catholics say about bread and wine becoming the body and bl...

Well, yeah, but surely you don't believe in a 7000 year old Earth". This is a scientific question, not a religious question. We have evidence, plenty of it, for the age of the earth. I guess if you insist on making it a religious question, even in the face of scientific evidence, then that cou...

Over and over Sam proves himself worthy of outside (divine) intervention: a gentle nudge toward the right choice, the right direction: I never was able to make the response I wanted to make to this and other toughts about the possibly divine guidance Sam received at crucial moments in the quest, bu...

Sass : As a matter of fact, I think you'll find that all evil, even extrapolating into today's evil, is ruled by short-sighted lack of vision. In a way, evil is blind. I don't think evil has to be blind. Sometimes a person sees exactly what will happen and does it anyway. Sometimes a person sees al...

It has always struck me as a foolish, not to mention short-sighted, conceit, and the author's contention that, yes, Sauron was that egotistical and in hubris was further incapable of imagining defeat, also leaves me unconvinced. His primary failing was lack of imagination, for all intents and purpo...

I think Sauron would eventually play at being good. There would be great works. Create a beautiful city with "new elves". I don't know where the new elves would come from. But he would have the one ring, and the three elven rings. He could do much with these. I think Sauron would make a ne...

Sass , I don't know what else to say in this argument. At this point I will just be repeating myself. You find my arguments unpersuasive. I have no new ones to offer. What else can I say? I am sorry. Are we talking about redemption in principle or redemption in practice? I really don't understand y...

Does anyone remember, earlier in the thread, when Griff mentioned all the copies of LOTR she has, including one with different colors of ink inside? I remember wondering "what is she talking about?" when I read about that particular edition. Well, I found it, I am pulling quotes from it no...

I think Gollum is redeemable. He has been alive a long time, and almost all that is left of him is twisted pettiness. But he has not wholly forgotten his life before the ring, and he still possesses free will. And I think Tolkien's description of Gollum's approach to the sleeping hobbits on the stai...

I do not agree ... I know what is meant when someone says that Sam lacks imagination, and yet the entire statement strikes me as wrong. It is Sam who tries to imagine what life was like for the dead enemy soldier he sees. That is empathy, and it comes from no experience that Sam has in his life. Tha...

And actually - a thought occurs. A miller, even a Hobbit miller, has some interest in tools, wheels, cogs, mechanical things. A blacksmith bends things to his will. We know that Tolkien did not think too kindly of machinery and industry. Well, maybe Sam would still have been the same, and maybe not...

Pity I don't get that. I like curling.

What's TSN?