No...not "Jon Stewart." I'm talking about John Stewart, Provost of John Muir College at the University of California, San Diego. I found out this morning that John Stewart, a man who had a profound affect on my life in college, died last year.

Here are some events going on in Brooklyn:

Brooklyn Children's Museum

Grab your mittens and your magnifying glass, it's time to become a snow scientist at Brooklyn Children's Museum! The Science of Snow, Saturday, January 27 from 1-3pm, gives you an up-close look at this icy winter wonder. Learn how animals survive in the winter, and explore snowy weather strategies used by different cultures. Conduct experiments to see how salt effects ice, and investigate snowflake crystals. Make a snowy decoration to take home. Ages 6+

Please note: Due to the Museum's ongoing expansion, the Totally Tots gallery will be closed January 16, 2007. A special early learner gallery will open February 10, 2007. Please contact (718) 735-4400 x321 for additional information and questions.

145 Brooklyn Avenue

Brooklyn Museum

Come to the Brooklyn Museum to see the newly opened Ancient Egyptian Magic: Manipulating Image, Word, and Reality, a special exhibition in the galleries containing Brooklyn MuseumÂ’s world-famous collection of ancient Egyptian art. Magic presents twenty-one objects that explore how the early Egyptians addressed the unknown forces in the universe. It is also the opening weekend of The Eye of the Artist: The Work of Devorah Sperber. Sperber, a New York artist presents seven works including her eye-catching thread-spool installations recreating Da VinciÂ’s The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa that can only be fully seen by looking through an optical device. This weekend will also be your last chance to see Ron MueckÂ’s amazingly life-like figure sculptures that have been leaving thousands of visitors in awe!

Torrington, Connecticut

For normal people, Christmas is a one or maybe two-day holiday. For me, by virtue of having married into a vast Italian-Irish family, it is a weeklong, inescapable frenzy, and I am beginning to buckle under the strain.

Again, normalcy, the way things should be. You have dinner on Christmas Eve, unwrap presents that night or the next day, get drunk on eggnog, done. Finished. Move on.

We, that is hubby and myself, don't do that. We set out, this year, on Friday. We are still here, midway in our peregrinations to visit, it seems, every single individual in North America with whom hubby shares even the tiniest sliver of DNA. And at every stop along the route, the ritual continues: god-awful music - I am ready to exhume Bing Crosby and burn the remains - too much food, too much drink, too much too much too much. We do this death march by rental car; at last checking, the damned thing had recorded over five hundred miles of travel. This is not, emphatically, the way things should be.

And we're not done yet. The agony continues.

Torrington, Connecticut

Hallelujah. I have WiFi, coffee, cigarettes, and a hangover - in short, life on the road is beginning to take on the familiar trappings of home.

So how is the War on Christmas developing?

Interestingly, flags in Connecticut today are at half mast; this because, presumably, the state has again had casualties in the real war, the one that republicans started in Iraq. Local television coverage this morning announced another such death; a young Marine was killed in Afghanistan, where we're losing as well, it seems.

Also on television, and elsewhere: there's a new war going on in Africa, and since it involves Islamic extremists, needless to say, we'll be involved in some way.

There's another war going on here: the Wal-Mart war on American prosperity. Torrington used to be a thriving, prosperous mill town. You can see just how rich this town used to be when you see their magnificent municipal library, an elegant sandstone jewelbox from the nineteenth century. Now, of course, the industry that nourished this prosperity has withered away, and hasn't been replaced.

'Tis been the season of home-made, gluten-free and cow-dairy-free goodies like kashkaval and manouri cheese pizza, vegetarian lasagna with chevre, virgin mojitos, soy nog, pumpkin cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and chocolate sprinkle butter cookies.

'Tis been the season of 10 hours straight of Halo, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2, Happy Gilmore followed by Monster House, a round of Life game a-la Pirates of the Caribbean, new digital cameras, a scooter, Bionicles, felt reindeers and my son learning how to knit with needles.

'Tis been the season for the guys first shopping experience for me wherein they wisely chose a "Hello Kitty" bathrobe because I'd look cute in it (and they know I like all things Hello Kitty).

'Tis been also the season of explaning to the kids why we enjoy so much the mythology of Jesus even though we don't believe in the christian concept of god.

All in all, 'tis been a good, calm, quiet season (but for Tara's story, crickey).

I guess it helps that I've given my kids the biggest gift of all ...

North Easton, Massachusetts

The War on Christmas, in my little non-traditional family, annually takes on the characteristics of a drawn-out, give-no-quarter guerilla campaign. Sadly, I feel compelled to report that us grinches - OK, the grinch that is me - seem to be losing this internecine conflict.

Certain elements of the body politic claim that other elements, of a Bolshevik persuasion, are trying to exterminate, or more accurately denature, the year-end, seven-week holiday that is Christmas. We seem not to be making much headway in that effort. This perhaps because our opponents use tactics that are both demoralizing and wantonly cruel. We are carpet-bombed with canned cheer, some of it dating from the middle of the last century, and none the less distracting from age; I'm referring, since it's blasting about me at the moment like so much napalm, to Connie Francis and her spirit-crushing rendition of 'Baby's First Christmas'.

In theory, there should be no more favorable battleground in Bill O'Reilly's war. I'm halfway between Martha's Vineyard and Beacon Hill, in a district represented in Congress by Barney Frank. If there's a culture war going on, the front lines should be running rather close to right here.

I see that Andrew Rice at The Politicker has beaten me to the punch on this one, but it's worth rehashing. The good folks at People for the American Way, intrigued by the Federal government's revamped test for new citizens, decided to administer it to randomly selected people hurrying around downtown Manhattan, and the results are much what one would expect: slightly more than half failed.

So are we just ill-educated, vapid, reality-TV-obsessed shopaholic zombies, or is the test too high of a hurdle? Now, before you answer that – we Americans do have this tendency to describe ourselves in our great masses as, well, charming, but not always too bright – consider these questions:

How many amendments does the Constitution have? (My guess would have been twenty-nine, but the correct answer is two fewer than that. In consolation, nobody – nobody! – got that one right.)

What is the rule of law? (The correct answer is "Everyone must obey the law, leaders must obey the law and government must obey the law"; I would have likely started ranting about impeachment, but hey.)

We've gone to town with the news of Mary Cheney's pregnancy. We are so full of cheer we went ahead and created a whole cornucopia of baby shower gifts for the happy mom, her out-of-law wife and their baby to be.

Have the baby wear his or her mommies love and
their dissent with this most political of onesies.
It's never too early to learn how to slap one on
republicans and gay marriage haters.

There's more stuff at our Mary Cheney Baby store, but it's just a start. Would you like to add to the fun? Then go to town with your photoshop!

What are the rules for playing?

Scientists can now take bone cells from an extracted wisdom tooth, grow them on a scaffold in a lab and form new bone. Great breakthrough for medicine, right?

But...they are quick to use the idea in a rather odd way. Some couples are having their own bone cells grown in the shape of a wedding ring so they can exchange rings made of their own bone at their weddings. From BBC News:

Scientists obtain bone cells from wisdom teeth and then grow them on a "scaffold" material in the lab.

The efforts are part of a collaboration between scientists and artists aiming to learn how to craft complex shapes from bone tissue.

Examples are to go on display at an exhibition at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London.

Harriet Harriss and Matt Harrison, one of five couples involved in the project, have just been presented with their rings made from their bone cells.

Not sure what I think of that. Maybe I am just a traditionalist, but gold seems fine to me. (Mine happens to be three kinds of gold layered using a similar technique that samurai sword makers use to make swords, made by a Greek artisan).

This is still my state of mind.

Anybody want to give me an incentive to get back into the blogging grind?