Popular Culture

17 November 2003


"The Simpsons" at 15
It started as a brief vignette on the "Tracy Ullman Show" drawn by Matt Groenig. It became the anchor of a fledging TV network called Fox. It grew into an international icon of culture. "The Simpsons" is now fifteen years old, and the initial fears that this program was too smart, irreverent and entertaining to survive have been unfounded. For more, click here.

Art Carney Passes On
It falls to few actors to be forever identified with a character they have played, and often, that blessing becomes a curse that kills a career. In the case of Art Carney, a man who shall forever be Ed Norton of TV's "The Honeymooners," the secret to such sweet success was over-whelming talent coupled with hard work. The world became a slightly sadder place when he died at the age of 85 last week, but it is a far happier place because of his work. Click here to read on.

GM Foods Are Millennia Old
Turns out that that organically grown corn in the supermarket is actually genetically modified, every last kernal. Last week's Science magazine reported on a study of corn cobs recovered from various sites in Mexico and the southwestern US that proves three key variants were deliberately bred by farmers over thousands of years. While they weren't engaged in gene splicing, ancient Americans were deliberately modifying their crops for certain desirable traits. Click here to read more.