Saturday December 5, 2009
(UPDATED) The "eyewitness" who wrote a viral email describing a minor passenger disturbance aboard AirTran Airways Flight 297 in the Atlanta airport November 17 as a "terrorist dry run" wasn't even on the plane, airline officials said in a statement quoted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday.
Tedd Petruna was booked on Flight 297, the statement confirmed, but his connecting flight from Akron arrived too late for him to board the Houston-bound plane. (NOTE: Petruna has responded that he was, in fact, on the plane and has a boarding pass to prove it. See update below.)
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Tuesday December 1, 2009
If there is a more parodied poem in the English language than Clement Clarke Moore's "
A Visit from St. Nicholas" (more popularly known as "The Night Before Christmas"), I don't know what it could possibly be. The meter of "St. Nick" is infectious, its rhyme scheme cheery and simple, its homespun, nostalgic imagery ripe for spoofing. In celebration of the holiday season, I give you a collection of links to some of the wittier (and, in some cases, just plain strange) homages I've stumbled upon online.
Read on...Further reading:•
Clement C. Moore: The Reluctant Mythmaker•
Are All of Santa's Reindeer Female?•
Christmas History, Traditions and Folklore•
Test Your Christmas Folklore IQSaturday November 28, 2009
A gallery of odd and arresting viral images -- some real, some fake, some persistently enigmatic -- as circulated on the Internets! Start here...
Tuesday November 24, 2009
They dressed in earth-tones, not black and white. They didn't wear buckles on their shoes. The "first Thanksgiving" in 1621 — actually a three-day harvest festival held sometime between September 21 and November 11 — was the only one they ever celebrated. Wild turkey, venison, and stewed pumpkin were probably on the menu, but there was no ham, no mashed potatoes, no corn on the cob, or cranberry sauce to be had. And they never, ever called themselves "Pilgrims."
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