White Christmas is popular in many languages, particularly Spanish. To wit: My favorite version: students at a public school in Madrid. I find this somehow very touching when they sing both in Spanish — and in English: A version for younger people: And one a bit more keeping with Bing Crosby’s original concept of the song: And here is Bing Crosby doing the song for the last time on ABC television...

With Christmas Eve upon us I thought I’d offer my annual post on the origins of the Christmas Star (per astronomy) and thus offering thoughts on when he was really born. Most of us know that Christ was not really born in December or the year zero. A number of people have tried to look first to the Bible for clues about what the star did and when, then they went outside the Bible to find events fitting...

Tomorrow’s the big day. If you’re not totally psyched up, this music may help: 96 If that doesn’t quite work, how about this number from a mid-1960s original TV musical from a 1960s TV musical about Red Riding Hood: Or how about this?

Welcome to his vorpal sword‘s  Seventh Annual presentation of “The Saint Nick Case,” a Christmas radio play of approximately one-half hour. Click for the radio play For a special treat,  The KOPT Radio Theater Players in the 2005 production of “The St. Nick Case,” in wide-spectrum, full color stereo. The radio play was broadcast live on Eugene’s Air America affiliate KOPT-AM 1600...

As I wrote here: One of the most interesting and exciting assignments during my U.S. Air Force career was my tour of duty at the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) complex some 1,400 feet beneath granite Cheyenne Mountain, south of Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the height of the Cold War. The assignment was interesting and exciting not only because we were working to “protect North America from a space,...

(The Following is a re-post of The Fruitcake Chronicles. I first published this six installment short story in the Auburn Reporter Newspaper. Like a good fruitcake, I regift it every year. Merry Christmas!) The Fruitcake Chronicles: An Old Fashioned Christmas (Part 1 of 6) “Sir, I’m not going to ask you again.  Put the fruitcake down and step away from the Santa.”  The officer’s voice was measured...

We Bought a Zoo is a film that has little to do with its title. It’s not about the zany misadventures of a family trying to run their own zoo. Instead, it’s about a father dealing with the recent tragic death of his dearly loved spouse. It’s about heart broken kids trying to exist in a world where their mother is no longer able to comfort them. We Bought a Zoo is about cancer, about love,...

Here’s a video animation take from Taiwan’s Next Media Animation on the House GOP refusing to pass the payroll tax extension:

Another great animation from Taiwan’s Next Media Animation — this time on the death of North Korea’s Kim Jong-il:

I enjoy Disneyland. Disneyland is square footage within a well fortified boundary. Within the boundary is magic; outside the boundary is Southern California. Southern California is less magical. My family and I regularly travel to Southern California for the purpose of abiding within the fortified boundaries, within the magic. There are six in our family so the journey is costly. Multiples of six define...

When scoring athletes look upward and thank God for His help, why don’t opponents ever shake their fists at the sky for being disfavored? Debate over piety displays by Denver’s Tim Tebow and a Barry Bonds conviction for using testosterone enhancers prompt broader questions about the definition of manhood today and its manifestations. We are a long way from the culture’s strong, silent heroes (Joe DiMaggio,...

What’s the ultimate torture? Some teens figured it out: it’s this.

Ah, the Christmas spirit is all over the place now — in the music, people rushing to stores, and drivers on the highway who now smile pleasantly when they give you the finger. So here…for a special holiday treat…is a RARE find: a “lost” Christmas song showstopper, from a 1965 ABC TV one-shot network airing of an original musical about Red Riding Hood. In this zippy holiday song,...

Boardwalk Empire season II finale has to rank as one of if not THE rpt THE best end-of-the-season episode I have ever seen. Since it’ll be out in DVD soon (season one is yet to emerge) I won’t spoil it. But if you have seen it or really want to know GO HERE. This show started off slow and started to build but has now begun to look like “another Soporanos” in terms of its quality of scripting...

Here’s a bit of Christmas music to get you on your way. In 1958 a young country-western singer named Brenda Lee did a song called “Rocking Around The Christmas Tree.” Two years later it became a huge hit — and a Christmas standard. Here are two wonderful You Tube renditions of the song. First, watch this young You Tuber deliver a superb performance of the Christmas standard — and...

Photography has certainly changed.  Just a few short years ago much of the silver mined went into photographic film and paper.  Today most of the world camera makers don’t even make film cameras.  Point and shoot cameras have resolution that you could only get with large format cameras like the Hasselblad.  I have been a photographer for over 40 of my 65 years but I retired my darkroom about 10 years...

With debate leaders underplaying conflict, Michele Bachmann takes center stage to give an over-the-top performance worthy of Gloria Swanson in “Sunset Boulevard.” After Newt Gingrich twice accuses her of getting facts wrong, Bachmann harrumphs that “it’s outrageous to continue to say over and over through the debates that I don’t have my facts right when, as a matter of fact, I do. I am a serious...

I dozed off last night watching one of those Liam Neeson action movies in which he wrecks cities for reasons too complicated to explain and switched channels to find more of the same in the Republican demolition derby. Ron Paul is surging in Iowa to bump the tailpipes of Gingrich and Romney while the first frontrunner Donald Trump has been waved off the track, canceling his debate and promising to “leave all...

Well not really… But they did get 61 Senators from both parties to participate in a secret santa gift exchange. Given the season I think we should all be able to just enjoy this story without bringing politics into the mix…

As a blogger — not a journalist — a “debate” in the New York Times caught my interest. The lead article asks the question, “Are All Bloggers Journalists?” The question and the ensuing debate are prompted by an Oregon federal judge’s ruling that “Crystal Cox, a blogger who was sued for defamation after she accused the founder of an investment group of acting illegally and unethically,...

SNL had a satire of MSNBC’s Al Sharpton and his show. The video:

When I lived in Spain from May 1975 through December 1978 and was Special Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor one of my favorite records (the days before CDs) was a collection of old songs from the 30s and 40s on an album called “Canciones Para Despues de una Guerra.” One was Que Se Mueran Los Feos (the literal translation is “to die the ugly” or thereabouts but a friend of...

The Top-10 Comedic News Stories of 2011 Raging Moderate, by Will Durst Okay. You can stop vibrating like a shaved poodle duct-taped to the foul pole at Wrigley during a night game in April. It’s finally here. The eighth annual Top-10 Comedic News Stories of the Year. Veterans, please advise the newbies this list is NOT to be confused with the Top-10 Legitimate News Stories of the Year. They are as different...

A long time actor best known for his roles on Dragnet and M*A*S*H, Harry Morgan has died at the age of 96.

Part ii. [part i. is here: 'Selling the New Nixon, part i.'] According to one account, Stanley Kubrick had to fly somewhere and bought a copy of B.F. Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity at an airport for something to read. When he finished, he was apoplectic. Skinner believed that we could obtain “proper” social behavior by conditioning, as they’d proven in rats, and not have to mess...