As usual, this collection of links has been sitting in my queue for far too long. The two holiday-related pieces, though, were both published in the New Year, so they aren’t as old as they seem.
Every Winter Olympic Event, Ranked by How Terrified I’d Be to Participate in It
Has fighting the massive time difference for the third-straight Olympiad got you down? This might spice up your Winter Olympics viewing a little bit.
HBO Max Announces A Christmas Story Sequel with Original Ralphie Actor
This is kind of interesting. Peter Billingsley will play an adult Ralphie Parker who returns to his childhood home in the 1970s to, in a very Clark Griswold manner, give his kids the kind of Christmas he had growing up.
Two problems. 1) A Christmas Story was so great because it was based on Jean Shepherd’s writings. Will they be able to capture the spirit that was unique to Shepherd’s work? 2) They are filming it in Hungary, which is concerning. I’m sure the Hungarian people are nice, but their government, specifically their leader, is pretty whack.
The Case for Keeping Up Your Christmas Tree Until March
You all know how I am about keeping anything related to Christmas contained in a very specific window. So I would never go this route. But maybe some day, if I am lucky enough to get very old and very eccentric, I might become one of these people.
Coincidentally I got my hair cut the day before I read this article, and my stylist told me she takes her lights and decorations down, but leaves her tree up for months. I never knew that was a thing.
Listen, I’m not some sort of holiday weirdo…It’s about finding ways to make it through the winter doldrums.
How the Movie ‘WarGames’ Inspired Reagan’s Cybersecurity Policies
This begins with a story about how clueless Ronald Reagan was about technology. It turns into a fascinating connection between Hollywood and our defense policy.
The funny thing is, back when the screenwriters ofWarGames were writing the movie, they consulted a computer scientist named Willis Ware who had designed some of the systems at NORAD, and for years, Willis Ware had been warning the Department of Defense that computer intrusion was an issue, but they ignored him. Then, it gets back to the DoD indirectly through Reagan, because he watched WarGames. They then made a new policy to address what this guy had been talking about for years. So it turned out that making a Hollywood movie was a more potent way of escalating the issue.
A college football legend tells his side of one of the most hilarious/infamous recruiting stories ever.
So that’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but, straight from the horse’s mouth. Is that such a scandal? That the best player for one of the best teams in the country got a nice car? I don’t think so. I think I deserved that car—and a lot more than that.
Eric Dickerson Finally Tells the Truth About That Gold Trans Am
The need for police reform is real, for many reasons. That doesn’t mean totally defunding the police and turning our cities into a modern version of the Wild West, where people seek justice on their own. No, it means we need to have an honest, open discussion about what the role of the police should be in our society, how police forces should be funded and equipped, and how we can repair the relationship between police and the people they are supposed to serve and protect. In all neighborhoods, not just minority areas.
This amazing piece of journalism is a perfect example of a local police department run amok.
Police in this tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘black hole’
Two explorers skied across the Arctic ice cap. They ran into some issues. This story is bananas. It is cool that there are still people out doing stuff like this.
The untold story of the boldest polar expedition of modern times
Gerrymandering and redistricting has been in the news a lot lately. The Washington Post had fun with some rather oddly designed congressional districts. I live just a mile or two away from one of these.
Play mini golf on a course made of unusual congressional districts