Why is the number 58 important this year?  This happens to be Super Bowl LVIII, roman numeral for 58.  Try to find Super Bowl 58 on any logo.  Maybe on a jersey. Alex Barrett of the 49ers will be the only #58 on the field.  Why does the NFL want to confuse people with a numbering system no one really knows? “The Roman numerals were adopted to clarify any confusion that may occur because the NFL Championship Game — the Super Bowl — is played in the year following a chronologically recorded season,” the NFL once wrote in a   postseason media handout . The thing about the Super Bowl is that it is not just a football game.  I went to a theater for the very first after the pandemic when I saw a double-bill of  Barbie  and  Oppenheimer .  I would never go to see  Barbie , which for me was colorful, and that was about it.  Loved  Oppenheimer  because that's the kind of film I like.  I predicted it would someday win a bunch of Oscars, which will no doubt occur on March 10.  Why I took a ri

 How much do you really know about Santa Claus?   To begin , historians identify Bishop Nicholas of Myra, who was born around the year 260 in what is today southwestern Turkey, as the first Santa Claus.  He was known to be a miracle maker, and was known as the patron saint of schoolchildren. But it took until the end of the 11th century for his relics to be transferred to Italy for the cult to begin. The Feast of Saint Nicholas (this painting by Jan Steen in the 17th century) was welcomed in the Netherlands, which spread the tradition. Around this time, Dutch Calvinists fleeing religious persecution set sail for what became Nieuw Amsterdam, later named New York.  But Sinterklaas was introduced to the New World.  He was also called De Goedheiligman (The Good Holy Man), so who knows where this would have gone if it had prevailed. His Dutch name was Americanized to Santa Claus, as a symbol of resistance against the British around the time of the 1776 Revolution. In 1809 Washington Irving

President Joe Biden started the week in disastrous fashion, losing some face with the Virginia governor's election results, inability of Democrats to pass the two budget bills and lackluster appearance at COP26 in Glasgow.  More than  100,000 marched  in the host city.  Angry at mostly old and white males who have been unable for decades to fashion any kind of meaningful climate agreement, this more youthful and female crowd was there to make that point, led by Greta Thunberg.  Terrific and necessary, but I don't think it will do much to spur real action. Returning to Biden, all of a sudden at the end of a long Friday night for the U.S. House of Representatives, the  $1 trillion bi-partisan infrastructure bill passed .  The Senate had long ago also okayed the measure, so now he is organizing a signing session this week involving important Republicans. Meanwhile, the $1.85 trillion social welfare and environmental package, now up to 2135 pages long, is still being massaged, most