A few random notes from here and there:

---

Thanks to all of you for your kind words about my Kenya series last week. Every year, I worry that I'm being self-indulgent by blathering on about my trip in the newspaper, but every year I get a wonderful response.

Several people have asked about how the crackdown on airport security affected us. The original terrorism scare happened just as we were arriving in Kenya on Aug. 10; we heard just enough about it before leaving Nairobi to make us worry about how we'd be affected on our return trip.

The return flight was long but uneventful. The closest thing we had to a problem was that while we were connecting through Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, security was very tight. Each and every departing passenger was interviewed. When did you arrive in Amsterdam? Have you left the airport? Has anyone else had access to your luggage? It made for a long wait in line.

---

Although the purpose of our trip was work, not play, LEAMIS International Ministries always builds in a day or two at the end of the trip for us to debrief -- to talk about our experience and how it has affected us. That debrief is usually done at some sort of pleasant location, and for the Kenya trips this means a wildlife park. This year, we were at the Masai Mara Wildlife Refuge in southern Kenya. My little digital camera did not have much in the way of zoom, but I still got some good photos and I hope to share them with you some time soon.

A wildlife safari is a remarkable experience. I would never have believed how close you can get to some of the animals.

---

Turner Classic Movies ran one of my all-time favorites Monday night: "Sullivan's Travels," from 1941. Directed by the great Preston Sturges, it stars Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. McCrea plays John L. Sullivan, a director of lightweight musical comedies who wants to make a Serious Movie, an adaptation of a "Grapes of Wrath"-style novel. When the horrified studio bosses try to talk him out of this, they tell him he doesn't know anything about poverty, and he takes the criticism to heart. But instead of dropping the project, he decides to do some research, by traveling the countryside dressed as a tramp.

If you're a fan of modern-day directors Joel and Ethan Coen, you'll be amused to know that the Serious Movie which Sullivan wants to make is entitled "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" The Coen Brothers stole the title for their movie.

I don't think I'm giving too much away to say that in the end, Sullivan learns that maybe his silly comedies are more valuable than some heavy-handed message film, and that it's arrogant to think you know what someone else's struggles feel like.

---

Many years ago, when A.D. Caldwell was city manager, I wrote a story about his son, Shane, who at the time was producing and starring in a local sketch comedy show, "Cuts," for WSMV-TV. Shane never lived in Shelbyville himself; he had already moved out by the time his father accepted a job here.

Anyway, I thought Shane was very funny and talented and wondered whatever happened to him. I noticed last week that he's a cast member on "Foxworthy's Big Night Out," the new Jeff Foxworthy show on CMT. The show is sort of a down-sized, more relaxed version of "Blue Collar TV," only without Bill Engvall or Larry The Cable Guy. I actually think it works better, and I was happy to see Shane in the cast.

"Big Night Out," as best I can tell, is produced entirely in Atlanta, unlike "Blue Collar TV," which taped its opening and closing segments in Atlanta but most of its sketches in Los Angeles.

John I. Carney is city editor of the Times-Gazette and covers county government and other topics. His home page is lakeneuron.com.