Re “Mayor Todd Gloria’s massive warehouse shelter will again be debated, but behind closed doors” (Dec. 15): Rather than buy another albatross, the San Diego City Council should consider refurbishing the 101 Ash Street building for a homeless shelter. We already own it! Both the Middleton warehouse and the Ash Street building have issues with lead paint, but more importantly asbestos materials. Use the projected $1 billion in lease agreement funds to do so. There would be plenty of room for supportive services onsite as well as accommodations for the homeless. Mayor Gloria and the City Council shouldn’t even consider spending $1 billion on another property. Utilize the one we already own!

— Katey Hoehn, Escondido

Originally appeared on E! Online

“Home Alone” director Chris Columbus finally put an end to the incessant wondering as to where Kevin McCallister’s parents got the funds to afford their beautiful—and massive — Chicago mansion.

“Back then, John [Hughes] and I had a conversation about it,” Columbus explained to The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Dec. 24, “and we decided on what the jobs were.”

So what did Kevin McCallister’s parents do exactly? Well, the movie actually included a few hints. If you took note of the dancing mannequins Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) placed in the window to ward off the criminals Harry (played by Joe Pesci) and Marv (played by Daniel Stern), you may have guessed that Catherine O’Hara’s Kate McCallister “was a very successful fashion designer,” according to the director.

As for John Heard’s Peter McCallister, the details are a bit more fuzzy.  

“The father could have, based on John Hughes own experience, worked in advertising,” the 66-year-old noted, “but I don’t remember what the father did.”

He did, however, know one thing for sure: Peter did not have a talent for forensics.

“Not organized crime,” he added, “even though there was, at the time, a lot of organized crime in Chicago.”

And with the mystery solved, you can finally practice your “Kevin!” pose in peace. After all, Culkin and Brenda Song’s sons are already doing the same.

“He thinks he’s Kevin,” Culkin recently told E! News of his oldest Dakota, 3. “I’m like, ‘Do you remember going down that down the stairs on the sled?’ He’s like, ‘Mmhmm, yep. Sure do.’ I’m like, ‘Do you remember when he had yellow hair?’ And he’s like, ‘Uh-huh, yep.’”

“‘You’re a lying liar who lies,’” he recalled joking to his son. “That was me!’”

But Culkin’s brother Kieran Culkin — who shares daughter Kinsey, 5, and son Wilder, 3, with wife Jazz Charton—hasn’t quite had the same experience with his kids. In fact, he recently revealed that his children have yet to even see the movie.

“There’s still some scary parts,” the 42-year-old explained to E! News earlier this month. “For the 3-year-old, there’s the tarantula [and] there’s the guy at the end who said, ‘I’m gonna bite off all your fingers.’ That’s scary for a 3-year-old.”

However, the “Succession” star did tease that the first-ever family screening may be coming soon.

“We think they might be ready for “Home Alone” this year,” he revealed. “If not, next year.”

Everyone has medical questions at one time or another, and it’s tempting to search the internet for answers instead of making a doctor’s appointment.

But that doesn’t always lead to the best information, said Holland Kessinger, head librarian at the Health and Wellness Library in La Mesa.

“Anybody can put anything out on the internet,” she cautioned. “We want people to really develop their health literacy and discern what quality and authoritative, reliable health information looks like, and Google is not always it.”

Kessinger said good advice can be found online, and staff at the library can help lead people to reliable sources such as MedLine Plus. For people who want hands-on material, the library has a collection of almost 5,000 items, including books on specific diseases, cookbooks in a nutrition section and children’s material with a play area.

There’s also a DVD section of health-related movies and TV shows plus stations where people can check their blood pressure for free and small offices for patrons to research in private.

“We’re often stressed and emotional when we receive information about our health,” Kessinger said. “And so giving people quality information is really, really key to helping them stay healthy and get help.”

The library is at 9001 Wakarusa St., La Mesa, and was opened in 2002 by the Grossmont Healthcare District, which still runs it.

The district includes Alpine, El Cajon, Harbinson-Crest, Jamul, La Mesa, Laguna-Pine Valley, Lakeside, Lemon Grove, Mountain Empire, Santee, and Spring Valley. District residents can get a library card and check out material, while the library itself is open to anyone for on-site research.

Residents in the district also get priority to participate in programs such as fitness classes and Wellness Wednesday talks, and Kessinger said the library had just over 9,000 visitors in 2023 and about 3,100 in the last quarter.

For district residents who can’t make it to the brick and mortar building, a mobile version will be coming to them sometime in the spring.

Grossmont Healthcare District CEO Christian Wallis, who has referred to the library as the best-kept secret in the county, said a van is being retrofitted and will bring library material to different areas of the district when it is up and running.

“Our library is a unique community resource and one of only a few consumer health libraries in the country,” he said. “The number of users from the immediate surrounding area has grown over the years. The Board of Directors’ intention in developing the mobile outreach library is to ensure everyone in East County has access to high quality, reliable health information.”

Kessinger said the library is not unlike any public library, although this one has just one section.

“It’s consumer health written for the average person,” she said. “Not for a medical professional, not doctors, not nurses, but for the average consumer. So there are very, very few public libraries that focus just on consumer health.”

The library, the only one of its kind in the county, includes an art gallery that is changed quarterly and currently features work created by participants in Family Health Center’s PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) program. In January, the gallery will feature work created by the San Diego River Artists Alliance.

One section is for health careers and used by many students in Grossmont Union School District’s Health Pathways program. Students and other visitors can find books on dental schools, medical emergency dispatching and how to become a nurse or a certified nursing assistant, among other subjects.

The library also has sections on men’s and women’s health, a display a vintage medical equipment and plastic models of human organs.

Originally Published: December 25, 2024 at 5:00 AM PST