The modern idea of animals for companionship is just that — modern. Even in a lot of cultures today the Western idea of treating a cat or dog like a surrogate child is pretty weird. To them, dogs just are living burglar alarms and cats are for rodent control.

Where would they get them from? The Haradrim? I thought they were supposed to be fictionalized Arabs rather than fictionalized Indians, but I suppose they do have elephants (or "oliphants"), so maybe curry as well?

Better than the tomato sauce on a saltine-thin crust from New York. You know, it's called pizza *pie*, not pizza *cracker*.

Oh, there's still *that* type of conservative still around, all upset that universities aren't all about teaching the Greek and Roman classics anymore because they actually accept that non-Western cultures might have produced something worthwhile as well

"one of the first senators from Oklahoma who was blind". That's awfully specific. So, he was following a long line of blind senators from less obscure states?

But it is so worth it for Willow's line "I think this line is mostly filler".

Which is a weird thing. I get the idea of the swastikas — the Nazis were trying to claim they were the descendants of the original Aryans from North India and environs as part of their Theosophy bullshit background, but the Celts (or at least the Irish) were often viewed as "lesser" people as compared to other…

Nah, the administration has their shirtless friend Putin for eye-candy.

No. *Some* film actors have a classical theatre background, but more of them rose from the ranks of modeling, TV ads, and soap operas, instead.

Banthas (the things Sand People ride) — they are the only cattle-like thing we see.

It's Bologna though. It's not exactly the sort of place that gets many tourists — outside the university, there's not much there to see. I imagine the city wants to get some of the tourism dollars that go to (relatively) nearby Venice and Florence.

You are confusing the mainstream right (which is bad enough) with the alt-right, which consists of literal Nazis and Klansmen, not merely metaphorical ones. They haven't changed their tune — just emerged from under the rock they were hiding under.

Slaughterhouse Five? There actually was a movie adaptation in the 1970s.

Exactly. The deaths were on Koresh's head. Like Jim Jones, he wanted his flock to be martyrs whether they wanted to or not.

How exactly should either of those cases been handled? Letting a massively armed cult engaging in statutory rape (mothers were often as young as 12) continue to exist? And ignoring the Cuban-American hysteria (no, modern Cuba is not a Stalinist nightmare), returning a child to a parent (unless said parent is a rapist…

Read his cousin's (once) famous book Looking Backward: 2000–1887 (about a 19th century guy who wakes up in the socialist year 2000). The utopians weren't imaging a Stalinist nightmare, but something rather like Star Trek that would be great to live in. Of course you can argue that utopias always get subverted and…

Not really. The creator of the pledge was Francis Bellamy — as far from being a supporter of totalitarianism as is possible but a believer of utopian socialism in which both the state and the concept of money would disappear. Which is a bit ironic given that most supporters of the Pledge today are right-wingers who…

Although just plain movie tickets aren't that cheap, even taking into account inflation, at least in the US. Movie tickets were under 50 cents in the 1950s (both according to my father and internet searching). That's about $5 in today's money. I remember paying roughly $5 in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but these…

"Springfield Mall, in conjunction with Nostalgia Licensing Corporation, is proud to present the Stars of Bonanza!" — "The Homer They Fall", Season 8, Episode 3.

To be fair, Lucas ripped off a fair amount of Star Wars from samurai movies, so it fits.