The Secret McDonald’s Burger

For months I have been reading about an item on the secret McDonald’s secret menu called the Land, Air, and Sea Burger. According to internet lore this sandwich contains a hamburger patty, a chicken patty, a Filet-O-Fish patty on one bun and can be requested but is not on the regular menu. An Esquire article about mysterious burger can be found here. Today, after talking about it for months, two of my friends and I went to a local McDonald’s and attempted to order this culinary monstrosity. We requested the Land, Air, and Sea Burger by name and the McDonald’s employee taking our order claimed to have never heard of it.

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My Twelve-Year-Old Self Reviews Y: The Last Man

This is the second in a series of columns that is meant to highlight how much we change as we age. The contrivance is that my tweleve-year-old self, living in 1984, is reviewing comic books and coming to vastly different conclusions than I do. The first column can be found here. In today’s posting my twelve-year-old-self reviews all ten volumes of Brian K. Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man, a wonderful series that I encourage everyone to read. My twelve-year-old self appears to feel differently though in his writings below. Continue reading →

Superheroes Fighter Breast Cancer and Poverty

Lately DC Comics and Marvel Comics superheroes have been fighting real world problems and not only battling comic book villains. In December, Wonder Woman, Storm, Catwoman, and She-Hulk were the focus of a Mozambique breast cancer screening advertising campaign. Continue reading →

Horatio Alger Sexual Book Titles

Many people write about Lewis Carroll’s odd and possibly pedophilic background.  Few people mention Horatio Alger’s history with sexual scandal and his lifelong interest in stories about young boys though. In the last few days I’ve head a number of people reference Alger’s “rags to riches” tales as wholesome and “All American but comment on Alger’s disturbing history.” My colleague Dr. Greg Kupsky and myself were speaking about Alger the other day and I was surprised to learn that Alger was a former Unitarian pastor who was forced to leave the ministry because he was convicted of having an ”unnatural familiarity with boys” in 1866. As one can most likely gather this is a round about way of declaring Alger a pedophile. Alger did not contest the charges, rather he sent a letter of remorse in which he declared the charges to be true. Because of the time period’s standards Alger was not charged with a crime but was only defrocked. After being forced to leave the church and his profession, Alger began to write children’s books, which almost always featured stories about young boys. Oddly, many of the titles are sexually suggestive to modern ears. Such as:

Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York with the Bootblacks                          Rough and Ready; or, Life Among the New York Newsboys                          Tattered Tom; or, The Story of a Street Arab

I understand that the book titles were not as suggestive in the 19th century as today, but many of Alger’s stories feature an odd familiarity between adult males and young boys that becomes quite unsettling when read with a  knowledge of the author’s background. I am not suggesting that one not read Alger’s books or that the author’s works be censored, rather I am trying to add context to a collective understand of the author. Many people laud Alger for creating inspiring “rags to riches” tales, but few comment on the author’s background. This is an oversite that should be remedied. We are often quick to embrace a modern scandal as it develops but are often ignorant of the historical figures on which we heap praise.