[sdiy] Real cause of DIY death

[jbv]

> Yes, but if one can't understand what they're saying, like if they're
> speaking in Spanish when the language here in the US is
> English...

what stops you from learning at least 1 foreign language
(just asking) ? I was born french, but I can understand english
and german, as well as some spanish and italian (agreed, those
languages are very closed to french)...

> well, it makes no sense to have to pay for that.  We still
> don't get the BBC, and there are no French, German or other European
> channels, etc.,

actually there's a channel named TV5 that plays a selection of
programs (not always the best ones, I agree) of the main french
TV channels. It's available via satellite, and I watched it in Asia,
Australia and North America. In Asia, every evening, I could even
watch the 1PM news broadcasted in realtime...
I agree that this program targets mostly french expatriates, but
what hinders anyone else from watching ?

> for example, which probably have far more outstanding
> cultural content than what we get, even if English isn't spoken on
> them (many German operas are fantastic!).  Instead, we get one Mexican
> channel along with two black channels.  Also, I forgot to mention the
> worst rubbish: those idiotic sports channels where overpaid men in
> odd-looking multi-colored tights walk around scratching their private
> parts and spitting in front of the camera... how revolting and
> uncivilized!

Here in Europe we can get plenty of satellite programs from the
Arabic world, black Africa, Turkey, etc. because of the immigrants
from those parts of the world...
In Vancouver, where there are huge asian communities, I remember
several korean / japanese / chinese channels...
In Australia, there are huge greek, Italian, Polish, Asian communities;
I'm sure they have their own TV / radio channels...
In 1990, as I was driving through the bush, I used to listen to
a daily program on the radio, run by a guy whose name I don't
remember, but who seemed to have very strong "nationalistic" opinions
& feelings, and I remember once he was commenting the possibility
for immigrants to have their own radio channels, and he was saying
that he had no objection, as long as they would "speak australian and
only australian"... no comment...

Anyway, 20 or 25 years ago it was quite hard
(and expensive) to keep in touch with what was
happening in other parts of the world... it was almost
a full time job...
Today, everything is available, and for quite cheap...
even if you can't get any foreign TV program in your
area (which is almost impossible, coz there are plenty
of web radios), you still can get foreign movies on
DVD... on ebay for instance, all new korean / chinese
novelties are available, and for a few bucks only...
For instance, I'm a big fan of south-korean actress
Lee Mi-Sook, and I managed to get all the DVDs in
which she plays from sellers in Seoul, HK or Malaysia.
Each DVD was less than $3 or $4, and even with
shipping cost it was still cheaper than a theater ticket
here in France, in which those movies would play very
seldom anyway (actually asian movies are becoming more
& more popular around here, and theaters are playing
them more & more often)...
on ebay I could also get copies of US movies from the 40's
featuring such wonderful actresses as Gene Tierney or
Jeanne Crain...
The only thing you need is a DVD player compatible with
all zones; I got a chinese one for less than $30...

The conlusion to this lengthy OT thread is that there's
no excuse for not opening your mind to the rest of the
world...

Cheers,
JB