I hope everybody had a good Super Bowl, and even if you didn’t Observe it, you mighta been able to have a less-annoying grocery experience, shopping outing, or possibly enjoy a less-crowded movie theater or exercise gym because of the whole XLVII thing, so it was Good Times for America, especially since that whole deal with the lights going out in the Mercedes-Benz stadium in New Orleans wasn’t Terrorism or whatever, you know? Just for a minute, I thought maybe it was.

For your too-much-information, I enjoyed Super Sunday, and I support legislation to make the day after Super Bowl, aka “Super Monday” the National Hangover Holiday of America, especially [...]

Winter 4. Winter 3. Fall 2. Summer 1. Spring

Ah, it's been a year since we looked at the evil monster people who throw their cats in the snow each winter. Well they're all still at it! Here are some sad videos—followed by soothing videos of cats enjoying snow. Those are very good! Wouldn't want to get too worked up on a Friday afternoon.

A couple of Christmases ago, I was in upstate New York with family and friends and it snowed like two feet. We took my kid outside to play and we built a snow man and a snow fort. My in-laws' best friends are a couple named Roberta and Viki. Roberta is an art historian. Viki is a museum director. They both have strong opinions and they joined us outside, where Viki found a patch of deep powder and let herself fall backwards into it to make a snow angel. She did the jumping-jacks move like you're supposed to do and got up to admire her work. "There!" she said. [...]

By all accounts, Scandinavia is one of the most prosperous, peaceful and income-equal places to live in the world. Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark hold four of the top five spots in the World Democracy Index (the U.S. ranks 15th). The Scandinavian countries are all the way at the top of OECD’s ranking of the happiest countries in the world (the U.S. is 19th), and they’re all the way at the bottom of the CIA’s ranking of countries by income inequality (the U.S. is 40th out of 140).

But when, on October 15, rallies inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement were held around the [...]

As the biggest storm since the early 1790s (estimated) arrives to destroy America (because of our freedom), amazing things are happening all over the country. Ice, for instance, is rising up to overthrow the totalitarian regime that is people. And so all over America, people are falling down. Lots of them. And there are cameras nearby—including creepy dads with security cameras all around their houses?

"Tumbling temperatures prompted emergency measures to help South Florida's homeless" this weekend, is the lead story in today's Miami Herald. Just how cold did it get? "The chilliest of the weekend's cold snap came Sunday, with temperatures hovering around the low 60s throughout the day. At night, the temperature dropped into the upper 40s in Miami-Dade." Oh noes? The terror! "A woman called 911 in Palm Beach County to let them know she was too cold."

The world may or may not end tomorrow (SPOILER: it definitely won't; we're not meant to be that fortunate) but autumn certainly will. That's right, here comes winter. As we make this transition, enjoy these two tracks I associate most with the respective seasons. And welcome in winter. Now at least your soul will be caught up with the calendar.

In honor of Amy Jean Porter's newest print, just now available at 20×200, here are some new shivery late mid-winter drawings!

In the decade-plus I've lived in Washington Heights, I had never been to Fort Tryon Park in February, but this year, motivated by a resolution to run more (a resolution that slipped by in January), I went twice. The first time was on the weekend of the snowstorm that walloped much of the East Coast but managed to miss New York City, stopping-or so I heard-at Staten Island. After heading north on Fort Washington Avenue, which ascends along the western ridge of upper Manhattan, I arrived at the park on 190th Street, where I was greeted by a crescent of elegant sycamore trees and a coterie of chirping sparrows. [...]

Why do children who are born in the winter earn less, leave school earlier, and die sooner than their counterparts who are born at other times of the year? A new study by two economists finds that the "percentage of children born to unwed mothers, teenage mothers and mothers who hadn't completed high school kept peaking in January every year. Over the 13-year period, for example, 13.2% of January births were to teen mothers, compared with 12% in May — a small but statistically significant difference, they say." Your editor, a December baby, would add that alcohol and apathy may also play a role, but what do I know, [...]