Month: August 2025

It’s official: I’m a fan. Not exactly a sports fan, of course. We dropped off a son/grandson at the University of Texas for his freshman year. He’s pleased and excited, as is his family who will miss him dearly and consider his admission a miracle. His grades are fine, his scores adequate, but competition is tough.

Legacy: 6^th Generation Longhorn (of limited interest to most)

Among the family stories is that he’s the sixth generation to attend. Here’s the lineup. My great-grandfather, Dr. Joe Edward Dildy, was lecturing at UT in 1918 when they closed the school for the flu epidemic. He was president of the Texas Medical Association in 1929, and a medical researcher working in central Texas told me he gave the eulogy for Dr. White. And my grandmother graduated from Hardin-Simmons University in 1918, so I suppose it’s possible. Regardless, my grandfather, Russell Trimble, did earn a law degree at UT in 1919, his children, my mother Jeanne and her brother Bernard, had business degrees in 1943 and 1947. My husband, Jerry, in 1966; me, a good bit later; my sister and my brother in 1976 and 1983, his parents in 2006. And Grayden was present at their graduation, in utero.

Full circle, all full fans except for me. The only time my grandfather watched television was when he came out for UT against A&M, traditionally played on Thanksgiving. My husband had his car tags renewed off cycle in 1969 so he could get the orange sticker in honor of their 1969 national championship. I sponsored a trip for his dad and uncle to the 2005 Rose Bowl where they beat Michigan in a memorable game. Highlights here. So, yes, I was a fan for that last few minutes. The next year, UT and USC played the Rose Bowl, but I refused sincere requests to send the children again, saying there was no way it could be as good a game as 2005. I was wrong. Highlights here. There was also the matter of his parents getting married two days later, but I’m not sure dad and uncle have forgiven me.

Advice given (general interest perhaps)

• Being there is a privilege, so study hard. Grades matter.
• Don’t sit in your room and act bored.
• Eat regular food.
• Be careful.
• Attend Institute and church activities, all of which are within walking distance. Lots of smart people. Keep the Sabbath.
• Hide valuables. Lock doors.
• Read the syllabus.
• Make sure your roommate knows your standards.
• Don’t talk about people when they might be standing behind the door or within hearing distance.
• Be careful.
• Call/FaceTime brothers and sister weekly. They miss you.
• If you are feeling low, find someone who needs help and do some service.
• Forgive so many sentences beginning with verbs. It’s because we love you. Be careful.

His dad told him goodbye and said, “I love you.” I gave him my favorite umbrella. When you open it, you see the universe printed on the underside. A metaphor, perhaps?

Predictions come, predictions go. Current estimates on the chances AI will destroy us go from 0% to 99.9%. Geoffrey Hinton, considered the “Godfather of AI,” was awarded the Turing Prize in 2018 and shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024 “for discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning within artificial neural networks. Our brains are neural networks, with neurons and synapses. Hinton gives a range of destruction from 10% to 50%.

Do machines, working like brains, have this capacity? The answer is simple: If we design them to. HAL 9000 goes crazy and cannot allow himself (it?) to be turned off. A result of an algorithm no doubt, dreamt of in 1968 and discussed all the time almost six decades later.

And the word for anything apocalyptic these days is P(doom). The “P” stands for “Probability” and began as an inside joke. Looking at the figures above, I see it’s either not going to happen or totally will.

Teachers will continue to struggle as students learn better how to have AI write for them. This effort begins as school starts this week. Will people allow this? Writing is thinking, and some people are lazy, so QED yes, it will happen to some. Great minds can’t be replicated, though, so I’m not too worried.

Currently, I’m working on a paper in which I will compare William Faulkner and William Gibson’s short fiction, as suggested by an article about Gibson and his influence on cyberpunk. In addition, I’ll integrate the use of AI for research. It is fascinating, but here is what AI considers its limitations:

Limitations of AI in Reading “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver

Incomplete Textual Grasp
AI misses the story’s slow, subtle emotional shift—relying on summaries, not full narrative texture.

Figurative Language Challenges
The cathedral’s metaphor for empathy and shared vision gets reduced to surface-level meaning.

Lack of Critical Lens
AI overlooks social critiques (masculinity, emotional repression), missing deeper interpretive angles.

No Emotional or Aesthetic Response
AI cannot experience or convey the narrator’s vulnerability and transformative moment.

Overuse of Cliché Themes
The story risks being simplified to “overcoming prejudice,” ignoring its complex portrayal of connection.

Takeaway:
“Cathedral” exemplifies why AI can assist with themes and summaries but cannot replicate the nuanced, embodied understanding of human literary reading.

Interesting, but not that much fun. But there are apps for that. A new one we played with recently is called RadioOptimism. It will take some parameters and write a song for you, dedicated to someone and sharing a message.

Here is one I asked for called “Kindness Lights the Way.”  My brother asked for one about me: “Finding Love Along the Way.” Mine is EDM, and his is country. Apparently, you can’t choose classical. It doesn’t share the lyrics, and they sound pretty derivative, but for 1.5 minutes of prep, not too bad.

But the site discloses its own limitation: “Positive Vibes Only.” That, of course, limits much of country music storytelling. In the 10 tropes ChatGPT shared with me in a millisecond were the obvious: faith, heartbreak, pickups, and titles that are plays on words. (The one it offered is potentially offensive, sorry.) And, of course, honky-tonks and drinking. My brother asked RO to write something on my lyric “I’m Going to Drink Her Pretty,” but it refused—not a positive vibe. (The words are missing, which may be a sign that I’m supposed to stick to positive vibes and not make a fortune on a drinking song.)

Doom is in fashion, but on we’ll go.

My approach here isn’t so much a review as the old daisy petal “He loves me…He loves me not” game which has a far more interesting history than I knew.

This Superman (2025) is worth watching. The star, David Corenswet, is really worth watching, or looking at anyway. Trivia: His maternal grandfather wrote the Choose Your Own Adventure series. I left it feeling uplifted though some of the dialogue is overdone and/or underbaked and clunky. Yes, Superman, we know you want to believe the best of people.

Superman is not woke. A friend’s son called her and said don’t go because it’s too woke. James Gunn said it isn’t woke; kindness is the core. This wonderful tongue-in-cheek review manages to bash fearmongers and highlight the film’s strengths.

Superman is human, or so he defines himself: “I’m as human as anyone. I love, I get scared. I wake up every morning and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other and I try to make the best choices I can. I screw up all the time, but that’s being human. And that’s my greatest strength. And someday, I hope, for the sake of the world, you understand that it’s yours too.”  His parents don’t speak English, which matters to the plot, but it’s a nice change.

Superman is not Jesus. In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Superman does die. Is he resurrected in Justice League (2017)? He comes back to life in an amniotic bath, but that’s not the same thing. His belief in the ability to repent and his emphasis on moral agency, however, are stronger indicators of a higher power. Another possibility: His creators were Jewish. The origin story? Moses. The -El is his name and his father’s means “God.” In this clip from Superman II (1980), we hear a woman at 1:35 exclaim, “What a nice man! Of course, he’s Jewish.” Including these10 reasons. Plus, the Nazis banned the Man of Steel, so be careful, modern detractors.

Superman is not an immigrant, or a migrant. Leaving out the word “illegal” does matter, though other terms are more acceptable. This Pew Research Study notes the foreign-born but unauthorized population is just under 25%. That’s still a lot of people—11 million. When Superman crashes into the sidewalk, a man of Middle Eastern heritage tries to help him. They’d bonded once over falafel. That he isn’t white may be the point, but he is a sympathetic character. Are there people who would oppose his presence? Probably. But nowhere near a majority.

Superman is a refugee. He (and his cousin Supergirl, apparently) had to come here. Earth was the chosen planet. He was sent to help and not harm. The terrible lie (opinion) that he was sent to kill everyone but a select harem is disgusting, but the populace believes it based on the “findings” of 26 linguists. A little too quickly at that. And the revelation troubles Superman. His father says that it’s his choices that make him who he is, not what anyone said.

When teaching, I forbade students to say, “It was good and I liked it.” I laughed, I cried…so yes, let’s repent and be kind. That’s good enough. Oh and he says, “I love you.” At last!