Seasonal Words of Wisdom
Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. — Mark Twain (Entirely cromulent Christmas present: Autobiography of Mark Twain,...
Monthly Archive: December 2010
Santa Claus’s Nested Traveling Salesman Problem
My children are eagerly watching Santa on the Norad Santa Tracker, which makes me feel good about the use of my tax dollars and Strategic Command’s ability to focus on the real threats to...
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
I’m hard pressed to pick a favorite Christmas song, but O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is way up there. A close second is Silent Night, which my three-year-old calls Silent Goodnight and sings along...
Have Yourself a Merry Unitarian Christmas
Numerous articles and blogs have noted the strong case to doubt Christmas’ authentically “Christian” origins. Christ probably wasn’t born on Dec. 25. The Puritans banned the holiday because it wasn’t authentically Christian. And many...
…and to all a good night
First of all, thanks so much to everyone who has made another year at The League possible. I have a tremendous amount of fun blogging here with all the fantastic writers and commenters who...
Merry Christmas to All
With all due respect to Rufus’ list, when I think of Christmas at its most heartfelt and warm, there is only one version of one song that has popped into my head for the...
For Your Christmas Listening Pleasure…
This is extremely indulgent posting- be warned. Every year, I make my friends a mix CD of Christmas rock and novelty songs. I’d like to offer up 20 of my favorites, via Youtube, for y’all....
Occasional Notes: The Most Genderful Time of the Year
Among Christmas’s many other attributes, I think you could probably make the case that it is the most intense in its gender divisions. Only Valentine’s Day suggests itself more strongly, but Christmas is when...
A thought, a farewell, and a song.
“Christmas is hard for everyone. But it’s particularly hard for people who actually believe in it. . . . In a sense, of course, there’s no better time to be a Christian than the...
Captain Robert Smalls, Bona Fide Hero
It’s largely becoming cliche to say this, but Ta-Nahesi Coates’ continued blogging on the Civil War justifies the existence of the blogosphere. Today, seeking to reinforce his long-held argument that the aspects and persons...
The Political Football: Cynical Collapses and Redemptive Comebacks
Joe Lieberman endorsed John McCain for President almost exactly three years ago, at a time when McCain’s shots at the GOP nomination were widely dismissed as DOA because of his reputation as a “moderate,”...
DOJ Saves Film Animation from Monopoly, Ghost of Walt Disney Laughs
The Department of Justice is reported to have arrived at a settlement in lieu of antitrust litigation with LucasFilms and Pixar similar to settlements recently reached with Adobe, Apple., Google, Intel, and Intuit. These...
Science On The March!
This just in: Lee Harvey Oswald’s Grassy Knoll accomplice in JFK assassination was probably an Amazonian native.
Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom
“When we come to Machiavelli we reach the spirit of the Renaissance, and begin to find law itself questioned…And true enough there soon came the State, as a sort of anti-Christ, to wage war...
We Need a Better News Media, Part 1,987,364
[UPDATE: Two commenters take issue with my characterization and interpretation of this quote, suggesting that it should be interpreted as “freed from the speaker’s ceremonial duties and from the speaker’s duties in crafting a...
Marriage as Another Country
[ Note: These thoughts were inspired by Lisa Kramer’s very good post on her engagement and marriage more generally.] Since marrying five years ago, I’ve occasionally found myself in the following situation: milling about...
3/4ths Under 24 Inellgible for Armed Service; 23% Can’t Pass Entrance Exam
Or so reports the Associated Press.
The death of custom ctd.
Much of the pushback to my earlier post comes down to essentially this comment from Chris: Nationalism is less a product of the loss of custom, I think, than it is the product of...
