Just adding my note of sympathy. I bailed out of doctoral program (in History, not the sciences) because the advisor I had sought out moved to a different school (the guy was a mensch, offering to bring me along to a better program as part of his package, but my wife and I simply could not afford to move at the time).…

No worries! I got the reference.

It's getting to the point where a guy can't flash his frilly panties in public without having his whole gender identification called into question.

I think that was an edit of my original language, which was, to be fair, unclear.

Yeah, this, exactly. Sorry if it was unclear. I would hope it would go without saying that I'm not in favor of terrorism or random murder of innocent people. I just think that mitigating circumstances make justice a slippery subject for people in Hama's position, and I was trying  to point that out rather than endorse…

It took me a trip to IMDB to place her as Agnes Skinner, but now I can't not hear it.

She also wrote "The Tale of Zuko" in Tales of Ba Sing Se. I meant to include that in the stray observations because the two are tonally similar, especially in how they see Zuko.

Excellent read from both of y'all!

Cracked me right up.

So, we're moving these reviews to Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday. I have so many other things demanding my attention on Mondays that I can never finish these in any sort of reasonable time for my editors to do their magic. Just wanted to let y'all know.

Nice! I like that viewpoint.

Looking for screenshots today (and I'm sorry, but I could capture practically nothing thanks to an extra-slow connection), I saw white lotuses all over the man's palace. The walls of the room where he gives Sokka his sword have a white lotus motif, and the sparring area out front has a couple of white lotuses (loti?)…

Hey La Pipe! I've been reading The Fellowship of the Ring to my 7-year-old, too. The voices I do are definitely influenced by the movie.

I was thinking of the White Lotus Society as a drinking club that got out of control, but then I realized that one could describe the Nazis the same way.

Give it a try! The first four records generally just kill.

I'm holding off for dramatic tension!

Now I'll have Yacht Rock in my brain all day!

Ha!

Yeah, I really liked that fight, too. Kind of the essence of judo: defeating your opponent without raising a hand.

Good point!