December 22, 2010
Before Christmas emerged as a commercial success it led a checkered social life. In the 13 colonies it was known not as a Silent Night, Holy Night but as a heavy drinking, brawling festival, a raucous blend of July 4th and New Years Eve. But as the struggle over slavery in the United States heated […]
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January 7, 2008
This Christmas Eve, the freedom-loving Bush administration has a chance to mark the anniversary of a great victory for formerly oppressed people on U.S. soil. The President is unlikely, however, to notice or heed the meaning of this particular milestone, whose cast of characters and historical lessons he would undoubtedly regard as all wrong. December […]
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