​

1. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) - The Ecstasy of Gold (Ennio Morricone)
2. Cinema Paradiso (1988) - Final Theme (Ennio Morricone)
3. Once (2007) - Falling Slowly (Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová)
4. Goodfellas (1990) - Layla (Derek & The Dominoes)
5. Baby Driver (2017) - Bellbottom (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion)

It's human-made famine, often as a form of war or a byproduct of war.

Also, much of that aid has been syphoned off by dictators and corrupt officials, which in turn makes charitable organizations hesitate to give.

That said, the dictators and corrupt officials are only following the example of non-African corporations, who for more than a century have exploited Africa for its natural resource, and before that exploited Africa for its human slaves.

It’s really just in the United States and Canada that pickled cucumbers are called pickles. And that’s just because they were such a staple in those two countries. One reason pickling cucumbers was so popular is that cucumbers don’t keep in a cool cellar or in dried form like some other vegetables.

I think it's less about striking fear in the enemy and more about pumping yourself up. But really, music would be the least of my worries.

Casablanca was shot in two months. It helped that it was shot in a studio, and not on location.

Memento, Christopher Nolan's first hit, was shot in 25 days. Guy Pearce only acted together with the movie’s other principals — Carrie-Ann Moss and Joe Pantoliano — on the first day of filming.

Halloween, John Carpenter's first hit, was shot in 20 days over four weeks on a shoestring budget of $300,000.

Wow!!

Parks raise the economic value the neighborhood. Both homeowners and businesses like to be near a thriving park. Fees for recreational activities and an increased tax base easily cover the costs of building and maintaining parks. Even in very urban areas, developers can often be persuaded to build parks in return for permits, and it's a win-win, since the park improves the value of the development.

Parks improve water and air quality, protect groundwater, and prevent flooding. They provide buffers to development. They provide a place for recreation and exercise and reconnecting with nature for children and adults alike -- and often for pets, too. Organized adult-supervised activities at parks keep children and teens out of trouble, reducing juvenile delinquency and crime.

A surplus is any resource or asset — farm goods, manufactured products, money, oil and other natural resources, land, or anything else that normally has value — above what is useable. It’s a problem for a seller in a market economy because it either can’t be sold at all or has to be sold at a loss.

It’s a good thing for a consumer who has excess assets that can be sold, invested, or saved for future use. It’s a good thing for companies, too, if we are talking about excess profits that can be distributed to owners and shareholders, invested in growth, or saved for future use.

So a surplus is not inherently good or bad. It depends on the nature of the surplus and the business of the person or company that accumulates it.

How about terraforming Earth first by solving global warming? If we can’t do that, we don’t stand a chance on Mars.

The book is terrific but it’s a collection of short stories. Ray Bradbury’s stories inspired Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone and indirectly inspired similar shows like Black Mirror.

Yes, pretty much all of them. Translations are by their nature suspect.

But I have heard that the English translations of Frederick Hegel are actually easier to understand than the original.

I really don’t think that was Joyce’s motivation. He was just having fun. And in fact Finnegan’s Wake did not initially earn good reviews, even from critics who loved Ulysses.

That’s still a tough assignment for an undergrad. When I studied Ulysses it was part of a double course in Irish literature and history. I needed to know Irish history to understand Joyce, and I also needed my background in the Western classics like Homer and Shakespeare. And even so, I’m sure I missed a lot.

A college assignment? And not an elective? That’s odd.

My Irish Literature professor, whom I respected a lot and who taught me to appreciate Joyce’s Ulysses, assured us that Finnegan’s Wake is a work of genius, but he didn’t try to assign it to undergraduates. It seems to be designed for Ph.D. dissertations, but that means it’s quite hard for ordinary readers to understand. Wikipedia has a detailed chapter-by-chapter summary as well as a collection of scholarly opinions about what it all means, if you are interested. But when reading the article you can see that the Wikipedia authors struggled to create a typical synopsis.

Wikipedia quotes Joyce himself comparing the book to a dream, but that doesn’t really clarify much. Yet Joyce insisted that every word had a purpose, if not several purposes, and that there’s a reason it took him so long to write the book. Having studied Ulysses, I believe him, the man was a genius. But I’m this case he was so devious that very few people can fully appreciate his genius.

That said, I feel sure there are now many resources for decoding every line of Finnegan’s Wake on the internet. I’ve always wanted to tackle it by reading and listening to an audio version at the same time, then turning to the internet for enlightenment. But it does seem like a big commitment, and there are always easier books to read.

Asteroids in the Solar System are in orbit around the Sun. The orbit may be wildly different from planets, and much more erratic, but it's still an orbit.

A better question is whether we could use asteroids for interplanetary travel. That's actually a possibility in the future, but it's beyond our present capabilities.

From the end of the Civil War through World War 2, poor white Southerners suffered almost as badly as black Southerners. Most suffered silently, but some became violent, and blacks were convenient and vulnerable targets.

Because blacks were not allowed to vote, and juries were selected from registered voters, all jurors were white. And no white jury would convict a white man of violent crimes against blacks.

So if you wanted to commit violence, you could do so against blacks without consequences. Maybe violent poor whites were really mad — or just as mad — at rich whites. But rich whites were protected by the law.

This violence served the rich whites, because it gave the anger of poor whites a different target while terrorizing poor blacks. So they did little to discourage it, and often encouraged it.

Jeff and Susan Bridges, right? They married in 1977 — at least 45 years ago.

In part by chance, of course. For some reason other European countries took to soccer more than to cricket or rugby, for example, even though they are all British sports. So while rugby and cricket are popular in Commonwealth nations, soccer spread throughout Europe and then to present or former European colonies.

Perhaps it’s because all you really need to play soccer is a ball. Perhaps it’s because you can play soccer with relativity few people. Perhaps it’s because it was considered a working class sport. But for whatever reason, it was embraced both inside and outside the British Empire, giving soccer broader appeal than cricket or rugby.

It’s not a homework assignment. Do whatever you like and don’t let anyone shame you for it.

No. I like both. And I'm in my 60s. But yes, there's a whole world of fiction that isn't for young adults.

Try Tolstoy's War and Peace, for example. Or Steven Erikson's fantasy series The Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Maybe that's diving into the deep end too soon. But you could work up to it.

Sometimes a literary analysis introducing a classic is full of spoilers, though.

If it’s intended to be part of the novel, yes. If it’s a dedication or a literary analysis, probably not.

Rolling Stones “Miss You.”

Both are systems of measurement. In the metric system, to convert a bigger unit to the next smallest unit, you divide by 10. To covert a smaller unit to the next bigger unit, you multiply by ten. This makes it very easy to use and accounts for its popularity.

The metric system originated in France after the French Revolution, and today has been adopted worldwide as an international standard. Even the few countries that still use the imperial system have adopted the metric system for most industrial and scientific purposes.

The imperial system originated in England, and spread throughout the countries in the British Empire, many of which now belong to the British Commonwealth. It's not the same system used in the United States, although it's similar. That's because the imperial system was not standardized until an Act of Parliament in 1824. So there are some differences between the American system and the imperial system.

The imperial system contains a lot of historical quirks that make it harder to use than the metric system. But it has been used for so long that it survives in many places.