Ideologically, the Dickinsons and Pierces couldn't have been more different. Pierce's father was a Revolutionary War hero and a firm Jeffersonian Democrat, and Franklin followed faithfully in his steps even as many other Democrats abandoned party principle whenever it was profitable to do so. The Dickinsons were equally staunch in their Whig boosterism, Emily's father continuing to hold himself as a Whig long after the party ceased to exist. This seems a little sad, but then again Firefly went off the air nearly ten years ago and I'm still hopping on every moderately organized resurrection bandwagon, so I'm not precisely one to judge....

So WHAT they believed was entirely different, but how they believed it was entirely similar. Really, Franklin, in terms of behavior, was a little bit of everything that Emily respected in her father and her way awesome looking (but also condescendingly dickish and chronically undermotivated) brother Austin. If they had ever met, who is to say that they would not have become star crossed lovers of two warring houses?

In other news, if you have not read The Berenstain Bears and the Green Eyed Monster, you really have yet to live. I mean, it's one of the NINETIES Berenstain books, which is for the Berenstains what the eighties was to Doctor Who, but it's mid-act Guilt Nightmare Scene is worth the price of admission.

- Count Dolby von Luckner