A few links to get your holiday weekend going.
What? Some element of our annual Christmas celebrations is completely made up? Unbelievable!
So, what does it mean? “Nothing,” says Holton. “It’s basically gibberish.”
FWIW we saw Mele Kalikimaka displayed quite often in storefronts, etc last year when we visited Hawaii. Of course, they were probably just catering to us White Folks.
Is ‘Mele Kalikimaka’ Really the Thing to Say on a Bright Hawaiian Christmas Day?
’Tis the season for articles about our favorite Christmas movies.[1] I read them all because of course I do.
I liked this one, except for the author’s conclusion. I think it applies to Jean Shepherd’s original essays that A Christmas Story was based on. But the movie very much softened those rough, cynical edges away. The final ten minutes of the movie are filled with joy and reinforce the myth of the perfect Christmas morning.
Most other Christmas movies reserve at least a little warmth for the holiday — some treacly message about the warm glow of family, the joy of community, and all that hokum. But not A Christmas Story, which barely masks its contempt for the season and all its compounding agonies with its warm Norman Rockwell glow.
Why We’re So Obsessed With A Christmas Story 39 Years Later
One of the very interesting consequences of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling is that is has brought a conversation about how the burden of using birth control almost always falls upon women into the mainstream. Along with that, vasectomies are becoming more common. Here’s a story about a midwest physician who is doing his part to help men get snipped.
“It makes more sense to take the bullets out of a gun, than try to put a bulletproof vest on somebody…”
How Dobbs Triggered a ‘Vasectomy Revolution’
Holiday season stress got you down? Spend a little time with this, eliminating your enemies, and you may feel better.
Long overdue.
Too $hort Gets His Own Street In Oakland
Crazy how there have been two big articles in recent months about the Zodiac Killer.
After the Zodiac Killer’s ‘340’ Cipher Stumped the FBI, Three Amateurs Made a Breakthrough
Has The Zodiac Killer Mystery Been Solved (Again)?
With the death of Grant Wahl, we lost a voice who would have carefully balanced the majesty of the World Cup Final with all the disappointing business, political, and human rights aspects that surrounded this tournament. Brian Phillips did a pretty good job finding that middle point in his match summary.
It’s a story that feels lifted from a children’s book, a story unblemished by the disappointments and compromises and hypocrisies inescapable in adult life. This is, in a way, the essence of sport’s appeal to us. It lets us escape, for a few hours at a time, into a better world.
- Strap yourself in for next year, which will be the 40th anniversary of A Christmas Story and the 20th for Elf ↩