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Lincoln

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Five Movies with Oscar Buzz

The holidays are a great time to get a head start on Oscar viewing!

December is Oscar time. Filmmakers need to get their movies under the wire so they'll be in contention for this year's awards. Consequently this month is a weird mix of crowd-pleasing mediocrity and painfully long masterpieces that mix horribly with a need for fluff. But what is a movie lover to do? Gotta see them! Having only viewed two of these films (Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook), I'm as in the dark (as it were) as you all are about how truly great these movies are, and how they measure up to each other as far as acting and scripting are concerned. All I know is what I hear, and I'm hearing a lot. All the critics associations are putting together their lists of bests, and they all influence how the Oscars go.   So far, these are …

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Sarah Hale's Letter to Lincoln Saved Thanksgiving

Sarah Hale's 38-year letter writing campaign assured Thanksgiving Day for our nation.

America's Thanksgiving Day holiday is credited to the Pilgrims. The truth is, we have a national celebration thanks to Sarah Hale's 38-year letter writing campaign. Hale wanted Thanksgiving to be a national holiday, and she started a campaign in 1825 to bring it to pass. In Hale's day—two hundred years after the pilgrim's arrival—Thanksgiving had been mostly forgotten. Sarah Josepha Hale was born in Newport, N.H., in 1788.  Her father, disabled Revolutionary War Captain Gordon Buell, and her mother, Martha Whittlesay Buell, believed in equal education for both sexes. According to Laurie Halse Anderson's book "Thank You Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving," Hale grew up listening to her father's Revolutionary War stories.  They made a …

Bob Ashdown

7:40 am on Thursday, November 22, 2012

Terrific story! Thank you for publishing it!   more ›

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