Holiday films
What Christmas films will you be watching, and which one, according to a story on SciFi Pulse, is the most popular in each state?
The research team at US Credit Unions, said the story, analyzed more than 200 top-rated movies from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes before conducting specific searches for each movie using December Google Trends data.
The study found that classic Christmas movies continue to captivate audiences nationwide. “Despite not boasting the same visual quality as modern films, the nostalgic charm, festive music, and heartwarming plots make these timeless movies a holiday delight for many Americans,” the story said.
Researchers divided movies into two groups (before year 2000 and afterwards); the data revealed classic movies are searched most often.
Here in the Natural State, is it “Miracle on 34th Street” or “The Grinch”? Actually, I was surprised by the answer.
In Arkansas, as in Arizona, the most searched and watched was “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” That could mean we are understandably looking for a humorous escape.
As an aside, I hope all so inclined will offer thanks and a prayer for our troubled nation and ask the creator of everything for mercy on what we are willingly allowing ourselves to become.
I also awoke a recent morning with deeply saddened remembrances of all the young Americans over the decades who freely sacrificed their lives in killing fields such Normandy, Iwo Jima and Fallujah to preserve the freedom to choose what we’ve voted to accept as today’s “Shining City on the Hill.”
FOR THE DURATION
Hear ye, hear ye all caught preying on others! As of New Year’s Day, things are going to get much tougher for those arrested and convicted in Arkansas of any of 18 felony offenses ranging from first-degree murder to treason.
Call it a Christmas gift to those across our state who value law, order and a just society.
Under the new law, criminals in those 18 categories will have to spend their entire sentences in prison. The formerly somewhat cushy deal of becoming eligible for early release will be a thing of the past at the strike of 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2024.
Afterwards, those sentenced to languishing the next, say, 10 or 20 years behind bars will be wise to find a bottom bunk, a decent pillow and resign themselves to settling in for the duration.
Crimes affected include first-degree murder, rape, class Y kidnapping, aggravated robbery, causing a catastrophe, human trafficking and various sex crimes involving children.
In some ways I suspect this law is likely to make prisons even more overcrowded and consequently dangerous than they already are. So be it. It’s a long overdue good-riddance effort to make some hopefully think twice before acting to harm others for their personal gratification.
By the way, I’ve been noticing more and more of those types across society lately. How about you?
HAMAS OR ISRAEL?
A poll by Harris Poll and the Harvard Center for American Political Studies reveals America’s Generation Z voters (apparently brainwashed in our institutions of higher education) are evenly split, with half apparently siding with the subhuman serial-killing Hamas and its efforts to destroy Israel.
Hamas violated a ceasefire with Israel Oct. 7, killing some 1,400 innocent Israelis and taking hundreds of civilian hostages, which triggered the ongoing war to eradicate their brutal ilk from the planet.
Supporting butchery and cold murder among many whom comprise our country’s future is a comforting thought, eh?
Other age groups who’ve retained sanity want Israeli military forces to continue fighting until Hamas is erased from this world and the scores of innocent hostages they continue to hold are freed.
Newsweek reported, “More than 70 percent of young people said that Oct. 7 was a terrorist attack, with 66 percent believing it was genocidal in nature. But 60 percent also thought the attack could be justified by the grievances of Palestinians, and the same percentage believed Israel is the one committing genocide against those in Gaza.”
The Network Contagion Research Institute in November issued a report titled “The Corruption of the American Mind: How Foreign Funding in U.S. Higher Education by Authoritarian Regimes, Widely Undisclosed, Predicts Erosion of Democratic Norms and Antisemitic Incidents on Campus.”
I read that to say that universities, as with major-city prosecutors, some high-level national politicians, bureaucrats and corporate media influencers, have sold out any integrity and devotion they may once have had to this nation for the love of money and power.
How about you, valued readers? Merry Christmas, everyone. Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.