Monday, June 16, 2025

Valuing kindness above cleverness: Emma's lesson

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  Facebook brought this New Yorker  cartoon into my feed. I immediately thought of Jane Austen's Emma. She thought the same way the fath...
Sunday, June 8, 2025

Jane Austen at 250

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Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, which means that her 250th  birthday is still a full half a year away. But why wait to celebrate?...
Monday, May 5, 2025

Subverting the Cinderella Story and Assumptions About the 1950s in "The Solid Gold Cadillac"

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  The Solid Gold Cadillac  is a 1956 comedy film starring Judy Holliday (pictured in the center of the photo above) as the irrepressible sma...
Monday, April 7, 2025

Generative AI in 2025 Vs. Computers on Television in 1978

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Computer vs. Kotter As the IMDB summary in the screenshot below says, this 17th episode in the third season of Welcome Back Kotter  featured...
Tuesday, February 4, 2025

"You'll get there" VS "You're not you..."

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When I  have a contrarian reaction to something, it inspires me to think of what I would like to see in its place. That happened today after...
Sunday, December 8, 2024

Charlotte Brontë's Juvenilia and Fanfiction

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What was the original fanfiction? If you look this up, as I did, you'd find that most date it to the 1960s when Star Trek  fans  penned ...
Monday, November 25, 2024

The Surprising Origin of TV Dinners: Too Many Thanksgiving Turkeys

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Necessity is the mother of invention.  It's been years since I've cooked a whole turkey. Back in the day when I felt obligated to be...