The original “Star Trek” often told morality tales about the Cold War, with the Klingons standing in for the USSR.
Tom Nichols, writing at The Atlantic:
I retired from a long teaching career a few years ago, but during my later years in the classroom, I offered a course on the Cold War and American pop culture, to try to help younger students understand the fears that dominated so much of American life in the 20th century. When my students saw how many times images of nuclear devastation (and references to Ronald Reagan) popped up on MTV back in the day, they started to get it. We also discussed The Twilight Zone, a series full of barely disguised allegories about the Cold War; the series’ head writer and creator, Rod Serling, a World War II veteran, explored traumas from his past and his worries about the future in many of the episodes he wrote.
But the students were surprised—as you might be—to find that Star Trek, one of my childhood favorites, was an ongoing and intentional commentary about the Cold War during its three original seasons from 1966 to 1969.
This was not subtle — it was obvious even to me and my fellow 13-year-old Trekkies in the early 1970s.
We also thought the Romulans were stand-ins for the Communist Chinese. I don’t know whether that holds up.
New research shows sleeping in an extra hour and a half on weekends is good for you. Previous research said you shouldn’t do that. Either way, it’s nothing to lose sleep over.
“A gallant knight”: The Renaissance charm of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser
Robert B. Parker tapped into his own academic literary background to write his brilliant Spenser detective novels.
Parker was a doctorate in English literature, wrote his dissertation in part on Raymond Chandler and taught for several years at Northeastern University. He tapped into that background when writing the classic Spenser private eye series, giving the gumshoe a deep autodidact knowledge of literature and the humanities, in addition to being quick with a gun or his fists.
Austin Tichenor writes at the Folger Shakespeare Library:
Spenser considers himself a modern “knight errant,” a medieval figure who helps those in need and embodies chivalric ideals…. Edmund Spenser, the detective’s namesake, wrote The Faerie Queene in 1590, which chronicles the adventures of several such knights….
A key aspect of the wandering knight is the freedom to be guided by his own moral compass. Fired from the police for insubordination (“one of my best things,” he says), Spenser explains, “I handle the problems I choose to; that’s why I’m freelance. It gives me the luxury to worry about justice. The cops can’t.” Spenser is tenacious, unstoppable, very good at what he does, and extremely loyal, reassuring one victim, “You are in trouble enough to pull up over your head and tie a knot in. But you’re not in it alone. I’ll help you. It’s my line of work.”
Parker tapped into his own academic background for the first Spenser novel, “The Godwulf Manuscript,” in which Spenser is is hired by a university to recover a stolen 14th Century manuscript:
Spenser’s very first sentence in The Godwulf Manuscript–“The office of the university president looked like the front parlor of a successful Victorian whorehouse”–tells you right away his attitude towards authority and institutional pretension, as well as his appreciation of an elegant turn of phrase.
I’ve reread many Spenser novels several times, but only read “The Godwulf Manuscript” once — Parker himself was unimpressed by it; he had yet to find Spenser’s true voice. I may have to give the book another try.
I’m remembering a time in the 2000s when Julie and I did the Universal Studios tour in Los Angeles and went to the Terminator attraction.
In many of these types of attractions, including the Terminator one, the plot is that the audience is a group of VIP visitors taking a tour or seeing a presentation, and Something Goes Terribly Wrong. In the case of the Terminator attraction, the plot was that the audience was attending a media presentation for the new line of Terminator robots, which of course run amok.
The emcee of the attraction was a character who introduced herself as Cyberdyne Corporation’s Director of Community Relations and Media Control, and she wore a red dress suitable for a major corporation’s communications director.
This was hilarious to me because I was, and am, a trade press editor and have attended about a million news conferences of just that very type, where a big tech company unveils major new product. However, on no occasion in my real professional life has the product run amok and started killing people from the audience.
I just spent an hour shredding cardboard boxes that I was saving because they could be useful for something. Perfectly good boxes, destroyed like garbage.
This is a very difficult moment for me and I ask for your emotional support.
I preordered a Clicks Power Keyboard at the beginning of the year and it arrived a few weeks ago. It’s a BlackBerry style thumb keyboard that attaches to your phone using the phone’s built-in MagSafe or Qi2 magnet.
So far, I’m not finding it to be practical — it’s uncomfortable to use with my Pro Max iPhone. Typing on the screen keyboard is faster and more comfortable than using Clicks.
But it’s a fun little gadget and maybe I’ll get faster and more comfortable with practice.
After first trying it, I decided to send it back but i kept putting it off and now I’m glad I hung on to it.
On Reddit: What’s a small quality-of-life upgrade at home that you now refuse to live without?
My response: This cushioned lap desk. I bring my laptop into our sunroom, sit on the daybed cross-legged and read and type in comfort. I’m using it with my MacBook right now!
The original post has been removed by the subreddit’s overzealous moderators (an example of why I rarely post to Reddit anymore)), but you can still read the comments.
On Reddit: When did iced coffee take off in America?
I remember my Mom drinking iced coffee in the 1970s, but it’s only in the past couple of years I’ve noticed that iced coffee seems to have become the default in hot weather, even when you’re ordering at an airport or some other large, enclosed air conditioned space. I think iced coffee is as popular as hot coffee now.
I’ve always personally preferred hot coffee, even in hot weather.
Craig Mod walks the length of Manhattan:
I arrived at Marble Hill–225th St. Station in not shorts. You’re not wearing shorts?! Michael screamed at me from across the street. I am a self-respecting adult male, so no – I wasn’t wearing shorts. He couldn’t believe it. He was convinced I’d die fifteen steps into the walk. I was less interested in my pants and more interested in the world’s worst-rated Starbucks (https://maps.app.goo.gl/5CPxpMu7nsSJDamq7) around the corner.
Tim Curry was a heck of a storyteller. Among other tales, he describes in this 2005 Fresh Air interview how he was mistaken for in imposter during a 1970s midnight showing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and ejected from the theater.
There’s a new Twitter, launched by a startup that says Musk gave up the name.
How Canada can save Americans and defeat America. Canadians and Americans have a common enemy: Trump. By Cory Doctorow,
What is a talent or skill you have that is completely useless 99% of the time, but made you look like a god the one time you needed it? : r/AskReddit. From the comments: Balloon animals makes a woman a hero at a corporate retreat.
The Ig Nobel Prize, a whimsical science award that honors “achievements that make people LAUGH, and then THINK,” is moving out of the US after 35 years, because the US is now unsafe for international visitors.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, scheduled to launch Sunday, uses a mirror from a canceled spy satellite to study dark energy and other astronomical phenomenon. My brother worked on this project — we’re bursting with pride!
Florida Catholic schools require students and staff to get vaccines, but the Florida State Attorney general wants to require the church to permit religious exemptions in the name of “religious freedom.”
The Florida Attorney General says the bishops are reading the Bible wrong.
In MAGAstan, “freedom” means your freedom to do as you are told.