Occasion

Remember when people used to save for future expenses like vacations and Christmas? Sears is bringing the Depression-era concept back with its own version of a Christmas club. "While it's still sunny out, it's time to start thinking about a way to make sure Christmas is merry this year," said Susan Ehrlich, president of financial services at Sears. You can set up a Christmas club online or at most Sears stores. "We see people trying to spend more responsibly, and we wanted to help."

The most important lesson from the release of tens of thousands of pages of classified information about the war in Afghanistan seems to be getting lost: Far too much information is classified, often simply because it is embarrassing to the government. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that there "weren't any new revelations in the material,"and nothing has been identified that is likely to be damaging to national security. The question, then, must be why so much of this material was classified and kept from the public?

After Merce Cunningham died at his home in New York last summer, his company held an open-mike evening at the choreographer's studio in Greenwich Village. Members of the company, past and present, spoke sadly of the loss of a father figure whom they barely knew personally but around whom not only their art and careers revolved, but their lives as well. As one dancer put it, Merce strove to create dance that, like the space that Einstein described, had no center. Yet every time he came on stage, Merce was the center.

Reporting from Kansas City, Mo. -- One game, it appears Scot Shields is close to regaining the form that made him one of baseball's best relievers from 2004-2008, the next he looks so shaky he seems on the verge of being released. That's how erratic Shields has been in his return from left-knee surgery that sidelined him for most of 2009. The right-hander allowed one hit and struck out two in a scoreless inning Monday; he was tagged for two runs and three hits in an inning Friday against Seattle.

Ah, to be a single-name star, those anointed ones for whom no further identification is necessary. There's Elvis, there's Marilyn, there's Kobe — and then there's Lemmy. Motörhead's indefatigable frontman, Lemmy Kilmister, is being honored for his long and illustrious music career on VH1 Classic's "Revolver Magazine's Golden Gods Award," airing this week, where he'll also perform a killer version of "Ace of Spades" with Lemmy fans Slash and Dave Grohl. He's also working on a new album and beginning a world tour.

The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in New York on Nov. 9, 1953, at age 39. Already a celebrity, Thomas was turned into a legend. Did he die as a result of 18 double whiskies drunk neat in the White Horse Tavern? Or was the cause half a grain of morphine (enough to lay out a horse) administered by an incompetent physician? Did another doctor really say that the poet was dying of "a serious insult to the brain"? Reports conflict, myth balloons. Thomas' put-upon physique took several days to finally give up its ghost, time enough for hundreds to flock to the doors of his hospital ward, to pay their respects, perhaps, or to glimpse the roaring boy in his ruin, and for his glamorous and equally tempestuous wife, Caitlin ( Uma Thurman and Lindsay Lohan are among the actress who have down the years been slated to play her, in bio-pics that — this being the story of a great love, and Dylan Thomas — always seem to fall apart at the last minute)

Second of two parts In San Antonio, the Catholic Church has long been a political force, often providing a voice to poor neighborhoods that can feel like an entirely different metropolis from the upscale communities in the north end of town. "It's like you need a passport to go from one side to the other," said Father Virgil Elizondo, a San Antonio vicar. For a quarter-century, the archbishop was Patrick Fernandez Flores, whose remarkable journey -- he was the seventh child of migrant farmworkers and a high school dropout -- resonated deeply.

It looked a ski race but unfolded almost like literature, with a grab-you beginning tethered to the page-turner end. There were as many twists as the "Franz's Run" course had turns. It would be hard to imagine anything better than what actually happened Wednesday, at the Olympics, in Whistler, above white snow and below blue sky. Lindsey Vonn didn't just become the first American woman to win the Olympic downhill, with a time of 1 minute 44.19 seconds. Vonn did it with a throbbing shin under backbreaking pressure, which is why, when she won, she cried nonstop for almost two hours.

Wins over Boston and Denver, and close calls against Cleveland at Staples Center the last two seasons, plus one big breakthrough victory against the Lakers on Jan. 6. Good teams? The Clippers don't seem to have much trouble rising to the occasion when the lights on the marquee are a bit brighter and the very best arrive in town. (Well, there was that 40-point loss to the Lakers on Friday.) Still, often rising to the occasion against the better teams has its flip side.