Good week, Bad week

Good week for:

Christmas miracles, after a postcard featuring a color drawing of Santa Claus mailed in Alma, Neb., in 1914 was delivered to Oberlin, Kan., last week. “It is kind of curious,’’ said Bernice Martin, who took the card on behalf of her sister-in-law, who is now deceased.

The foulmouthed, after a Pennsylvania judge acquitted a woman of disorderly conduct for swearing at her malfunctioning toilet. Her neighbor, a policeman, charged Dawn Herb, 33, with a crime after he heard her repeatedly using the F-word through her bathroom window. The language Herb used “may be considered by some to be offensive, vulgar, and imprudent,” the judge ruled, but she was entitled to use it under the First Amendment.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Santa Claus, after the jolly old elf working a mall in Danbury, Conn., told police that a grown woman had climbed onto his lap and groped him.

Bad week for:

Santa Claus, after the Canadian post office revealed that one of the 11,000 volunteers who respond to letters addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole had written obscene replies to at least 10 children. “We firmly believe there is just one rogue elf out there,” said a spokeswoman.

Michael Jackson, whom Fox News reported to be considering going on tour to pay off more than $325 million in debts. Jackson was photographed at a bookstore in Las Vegas this week with a scarf around his face, which was covered in bandages.

Pedro Carreño, the interior minister of Venezuela’s socialist government, after a journalist interrupted his speech to ask if it wasn’t hypocritical of him to denounce capitalism while wearing Gucci shoes and a Louis Vuitton tie. “I don’t, uh … I … of course,” stammered Carreño.