The year is 1914. Three sisters are driving a carriage down the street in Paterson, N.J., when an automobile appears and barrels straight into them, overturning their carriage, breaking it apart, and pinning them beneath it. When passersby scramble to right the vehicle and help free the sisters, oen of the sisters confronts the automobile driver and demands reimbursement for the damage done to the carriage.
Do you have a love-hate relationship with Valentine’s Day? I’ve always been at least a bit conflicted about it. I’m all for love, and showing people that you love them, but celebrating a single day when that’s expected is problematic for me in a couple of ways:
Rather than celebrate Valentine’s Day, I’d prefer to fill the world with random acts of kindness every day of the year—kindness both toward the people we love and toward total strangers. Here are some ideas: Continue reading
A portion of the book stack that awaits me next to my bed.
I just finished reading a marvelous book of essays about Chicago and Chicagoans, Neil Steinberg’s You Were Never in Chicago, recommended by a friend. It was educational, engaging, and made me think a lot about what makes Chicago unique and what makes someone a Chicagoan. It also left me further behind in my planned/desired reading than I was when I started it. Continue reading
Machines that think are already among us. They’re also so far out in the future that they might never arrive.
Machines that think give us reason for great hope. They also should cause us great concern.
We might be thinking in entirely the wrong way about machines that think. Continue reading
I made about 300 Christmas cookies this weekend (literally), saw my first opera, painted toys to give to underprivileged children, finally bought those Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies we watch every New Year’s Eve, and did some good Christmas shopping–meaning, at the bookstore, where I always feel I’m getting gifts people will enjoy and also supporting writers. Oh, and I read some poetry, too.
Welcome to the holidays; it’s all good! Continue reading
I’m having a Thankful Thursday.
There was no guarantee of this when the day started with me oversleeping my alarm by nearly an hour. And by the end of my workday things weren’t looking promising. That’s when I realized that I had lost an earring–one I really like. That made me late leaving work. And that put me in rush-hour traffic.
No picnic that.
But when traffic on my expressway backed up and came to a grinding halt ahead of me, I bailed out and escaped onto side streets. Still no picnic, I assure you; but it turned out to be just what I needed. Because not half a mile from the expressway, I drove past a restaurant sign that changed my attitude and saved my day. Continue reading