Finally, A Reason to Read the New York Times

Brenda Lee today, at home in Nashville.

Every Sunday morning my husband goes out to buy the New York Times, a newspaper so biased and smug it almost makes me throw up my breakfast, in order to do the crossword puzzle in the Magazine. I try to cover my eyes to avoid seeing the poison dripping from its opinion pages, like the start of this opening sentence from that bilious Michelle Goldberg (see photo below), one of their writers: "Should the blessed day arrive when Donald Trump is sent to prison....."

Michelle Goldberg

How nice. That's what you want from your newspaper. Anyway, in today's edition of lies and claptrap there is finally an article worth reading. It's about Brenda Lee, the wondrous force of nature who brought us that song you'll be hearing all month long, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree."

Elvis Presley loved her! John Lennon said in a Rolling Stone interview that she has "the greatest rock 'n' roll voice of them all." It was true when she ruled the airwaves back in 1958, and it's still true today.

Brenda started singing when she was three, and by the age of ten she was the sole support of the family, her father having died when she was eight. Today, retired at 78, she's still got that magic voice. Recently she went viral after surprising passengers on a flight by belting out a song over the plane's intercom.