Light Up Your L Spark Some Creativity With the Whole Family Every holiday tradition helps us create memories we can cherish for a lifetime. During December, plazas, churches, homes, and businesses across New Mexico are lit with luminarias! A luminaria or farolito is a small paper lantern typically weighed down with sand and has a candle placed inside it to light up the rooftops, driveways, and sidewalks. Luminarias first appeared in history around the 16th century. People used these festive lights to guide people to midnight mass on the last night of Las Posadas (the Spanish word meaning lodging or inn). Las Posadas is a nine-day celebration that began in Spain. However, it is now a holiday tradition celebrated primarily in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. The nine days represent the nine months of pregnancy and the last night represents Mary and Joseph’s search for lodging in Bethlehem. The original lights were bonfires, but today’s family traditions continue as holiday lights to guide travelers (or guests) to their destination. As luminarias have gained popularity as a holiday tradition through the years, more products have made it to market and expanded beyond Christmas. You can also get bags for Halloween, Independence Day, and almost any outdoor event!
Too Hot to Handle The Celebrity-Ridden History of Parental Advisory Labels
put pressure on the RIAA to change its tune. But the event became a televised spectacle when musicians appeared on Capitol Hill to defend free speech. Avant-garde rocker Frank Zappa declared the hearings a waste of time and that politicians’ wives abused their power. Meanwhile, Daniel “Dee” Snider, lead singer of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister, arrived sans lipstick to speak eloquently about how lyrics are open to interpretation and often impossible to classify. But the star witness of the hearings turned out to be the mellow singer-
Besides ’80s hair, it’s hard to imagine what Prince, Dee Snider, and Tipper Gore have in common. But they all played a pivotal role in the parental advisory stickers that eventually dotted CDs for decades. Parents once had to listen to their children’s preferred music to determine whether or not it was objectionable — but that all began to change in 1985. The star-studded saga started when then-Sen. Al Gore’s wife gave her daughter a copy of Prince’s smash- hit album “Purple Rain.” But she was shocked by the lyrics of one song, “Darling Nikki.” Unlike most parents, Tipper Gore had the political connections to take action. She co-founded Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) with other so- called Washington wives. They promptly began a crusade to put warning labels on explicit record albums. The PMRC contacted individual record labels and requested a classification system with different markers for violence, profane language, and sexually explicit content. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) extended an olive branch by suggesting a generic one-size-fits-all advisory label. But PMRC refused and used their connections to secure a hearing in Congress instead.
songwriter John Denver. With his clean-cut image, Congress had
assumed he would support the PMRC’s demands. Instead, he presented an impassioned monologue about differing opinions on what can be considered offensive and warned Congress of the dangers of censorship. Ultimately, neither side got what they wanted. The RIAA moved forward with an industry system of generic warning labels that read “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content.” Ironically, the prominent sticker became a badge of honor among many music fans and an effective marketing tool for record labels. These days, warnings still appear on streaming services, but with CD sales at rock bottom, those infamous parental advisory labels are essentially a relic.
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The goal of the hearing was not to pass any law; it was to
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