December 2007 Archives

I don't usually blog about movies, but "There will be blood" is an unusual case. I saw the movie at the Hollywood Arclight yesterday and really didn't know what to expect. I've been in a scaled-down news mode through the holidays and hadn't read any reviews or heard any of the buzz. I just knew Daniel Day-Lewis was in it and that's all the incentive I need. I would watch that guy watching paint dry. It was easily one of the oddest movie I've ever seen, but also possibly one of the best.

There are so many remarkable things about the movie that I've seen read in all the reviews. So I'm just going to mention one: the scenery. This is a wholly Southern California movie. Not just because it was filmed here and is about the turn-of-the-20th-century huckersterism (both oil and religion) that California was founded upon, but because of its achingly beautiful locations in the dry desert hills in and around Los Angeles County. That is reason enough to watch the movie. But happily there are many more.

On Thursday, I found myself discussing my Wall St. Journal op-ed on the Fox Business Channel's "Cavuto" program. Guest host Stuart Varney introduced the segment by saying something in his elegant British accent about how "There's lots of finger-pointing going on with the subprime mortgage crisis, but one man is pointing the finger at 'the little guy' -- you and me!" What ensued was an amusing four or five minutes in which I attempted to remind viewers that, in a democracy, the little guy is the boss -- and as such, he shouldn't be expecting the government to bail him out for biting off more than he can chew. When Stuart told me such a view is anathema in this election season, I acknowledged that as a key factor in my deciding not to run for the presidency.

Maybe it would more honest if we just kept all pedophiles in jail. Because clearly few people still believe in the rehabilitative qualities of our justice system.

New Jersey, for example, isn't going to suffer any Jack McClellans. If you recall, he's the self-professed pedophile who caused a big fuss last summer with his Web site that noted the best place for kid-watching. He was living in SoCal at the time after moving here from Portland, Ore.

EWING, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey enacted legislation on Thursday banning some convicted sex offenders from using the Internet.

In signing the restrictions into law, Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey, who is filling in while Gov. Jon S. Corzine is vacationing, noted that sexual predators were as likely to lurk at a computer keyboard as in a park or playground.

No federal law restricts sex offenders’ use of the Internet, and Florida and Nevada are the only other states to impose such restrictions.

The bill applies to anyone who used a computer to help commit the original sex crime. It also may be applied to paroled sex offenders under lifetime supervision, but it exempts work done as part of a job or search for employment.

In this day and age, not only would it be extremely hard to enforce, it's almost like cutting people off from society. Besides, it seems inherently unconstitutional to restrict Internet access and something that only a repressive government in say, Burma or China would do.

Those backward Pakistanis! Here they are, turning over control of a major political party to someone with no experience just because he's related to a former prime minister! Why, that's almost as pathetic as ... turning control of a major political party to someone with little experience just because she's related to a former president!

Or, one could add, electing someone as president just because his dad held the job before him ...

As America enters its 19th year of uninterrupted Bush-Clinton presidencies -- with no end in sight any time soon -- it's worth questioning the soundness of our own democratic sensibilities. The monarchic impulse runs deep ...

This from today's stormy election in Kenya:

"Elections chief Samuel Kivuitu, who read the results on live television after other media were expelled from the main vote headquarters Sunday, said (incumbent Mwai) Kibaki beat Odinga by 231,728 votes in the closest race in Kenya's history.

...But even Kivuitu had acknowledged problems with the count, including a constituency where voter turnout added up to 115 percent and another where a candidate ran away with ballot papers."

At first, I was wary of Mike Huckabee's foreign policy prowess (or lack of it). Now, I just want to cry. First he didn't know what the NIE on Iran's nuclear program was about. Then he thought Pakistan was still under martial law. I mean, turning the assassination of Benazir Bhutto into an illegal-immigration stump was just disastrous:

"'In light of what happened in Pakistan yesterday, it's interesting that there are more Pakistanis who have illegally crossed the border than of any other nationality except for those immediately south of our border,' Huckabee said Friday.

...Huckabee said 660 Pakistanis entered the country illegally last year. When asked by a reporter the source for that statistic, Huckabee appeared unsure, saying, 'Those are numbers that I got today from a briefing, and I believe they are CIA and immigration numbers.' The Huckabee campaign later said the figure came from a March 2006 report by The Denver Post.

But the Border Patrol told CNN on Friday that it apprehended only 'a handful' of illegal immigrants from Pakistan in 2007.

The number of illegal immigrants from Pakistan deported or apprehended is not mentioned in the latest report from the Department of Homeland Security/Office of Immigration Statistics. In 2005, the nation did not make the list of the top 10 sources of illegal immigrants. The previous year, Pakistan was the last country listed, but no specific numbers were given."

And now this:

"On Friday morning, Huckabee listed former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as someone with whom he either has 'spoken or will continue to speak.'

At a Thursday evening news conference, Huckabee said, 'I've corresponded with John Bolton, who's agreed to work with us on developing foreign policy.'

Bolton, however, has a different view. 'I’d be happy to speak with Huckabee, but I haven’t spoken with him yet,' said Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.

...Huckabee said he had also spoken with former State Department official Richard Haass (now president of the Council on Foreign Relations); military analyst Ken Allard; former national security adviser Richard Allen; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank; and a 'number of military personnel.'

Reached via e-mail, Allen said an intermediary asked him to speak with Huckabee, but he hadn't yet agreed. 'I'm gradually getting older, but am fully capable of recalling with whom I have spoken,' said the former Nixon and Reagan foreign policy campaign adviser."

I cannot support a candidate who's so out to lunch on foreign policy. And that's a beef I have with Mitt Romney as well, who delivered a similarly lame response to the Bhutto assassination:

"'If the answer for leading the country is someone that has a lot of foreign policy experience, we can just go down to the State Department and pick up any one of the tens of thousands of people who spent all their life in foreign policy,' he said Thursday in New Hampshire.

Instead, Mr. Romney said, what is needed is a chief executive with leadership and the ability to assemble 'a great team of people to be able to guide and direct them to understand what decision has to be made.'"

Who really wants a president who's leaning on a stable of "yes"-men, who needs aides whispering in his ear every time he meets with a foreign delegation? A leader knows the issues and knows how to make decisions, not someone who brushes off the importance of foreign policy expertise.

I'm so grateful to have been able to write a political column that disses the lame eHarmony commercials at the same time -- as I did last week for Pajamas Media. Read on:

"...A man and a woman are lackadaisically standing in front of a camera, arms around each other like limp noodles. The guy proclaims that, with eHarmony’s '29 dimensions of compatibility' matching system, he found a woman who has everything he was looking for: 'Pretty … a great smile…,' he trails off as the bouncy music tries to convince us that they’re desperately in love as they dance like fumbling eighth-graders.

It’s like the courtship of low expectations that’s become a hallmark of Campaign 2008.

What’s missing is the passion, the oomph, the can’t-live-without-you factor. The poll swings have shown that each romance with a fresh new face fizzles quickly at best, and can spell a fiery death for the GOP at worst. Candidates try to convince us they’re a perfect fit on their eHarmony-esqe dimensions of conservative street cred, true compatibility that apparently can best be determined by checking off boxes..."

And that, I theorize, brings us back to the tried-and-true when deciding who gets our electoral affection. Read the whole thing!

Benazir Bhutto took the mantle of democracy from her father, and now that mantle has been passed to her 19-year-old son. See a pattern?

The Bhutto family represents a commitment to its own royal prerogatives, not a commitment to the poor citizens of Pakistan. And its fanbase goes along, despite the many contradictions.

As the NY Times pointed out on the day of her death, she jealously micromanaged her party from afar during exile. She did not groom worthy successors, as the elevation of a teenage son exemplifies. That was never her intention.

Here's another example of the power of science. I used to mock forecasters for having no clue, and I used to quote often a friend who said that predicting that tomorrow's weather as being the same as today's would result in you being wrong only about 5% more often than professionals.

But I've been struck lately by how much I've come to rely on their increasingly reliable predictions. I looked into it, and it turns out that the increase is a fact, not just a hunch. In 1979, we saw no better than 70 percent accuracy for a 3-day forecast and less than 40 percent for a 7-day forecast. Today those figures have risen to 96 percent 70 percent, respectively.

That's impressive.

If there's comfort in numbers, I can take some solace in this AP-Yahoo poll, which shows that I'm not alone in my indecision about 2008 presidential candidates. The poll finds that in the last month alone, four in 10 GOP voters switched candidates -- and nearly two-thirds say they might change their minds again. Not only that, one-fifth of voters who said they wouldn't change their minds, did.

I can relate. I began this election cycle feeling sympathetic toward Brownback, but quickly moved on when it became obvious his campaign would go nowhere. I then briefly resigned myself to Romney as the only candidate who could beat Giuliani, then got enthused about Huckabee, who, much to my surprise, soon began to soar. But Huckabee's appeal wore off quickly for me, and now I find myself leaning toward McCain. Although, truth be told, if Rudy is still leading in the California polls by the time we have our primary, I might just pull the lever for whichever candidate -- McCain, Huckabee, or Romney -- has the best chance of upsetting him.

So count me among the flip-floppers, past and present.

But my favorite part of the AP story about the poll is this tidbit:

Anne Marie Pontarelli ... shifted from the GOP to Clinton because she liked her equivocal initial response to the controversy over states' granting drivers licenses to illegal aliens.

"There are many shades of gray" on issues, said Pontarelli, 30, a consultant from Downers Grove, Ill. "The way she responded took a lot of guts."

Funny, I would have thought double-talking and refusing to answer a question directly showed the exact opposite of "guts." Go figure.

And who knew that, for at least one voter, Hillary Clinton's duplicity is actually a plus? Democracy is ... strange.

Hint: It's from TMZ's totally entertaining photo gallery of the presidential candidates then and now...

Following up on Chris' excellent observation -- this from the San Francisco Chronicle a bit ago:

"And sources close to the investigation tell The Chronicle that the surviving brothers have not been entirely forthcoming during interviews with police."

I was also looking at the MySpace profile of the guy who died, Carlos Sousa, who wanted to "partyharder then [sic] a rock star." His last login was Christmas Day, and his mood was "high." Now could he have been just high on life? Toxicological tests in the autopsy can determine that. If indeed it's true that he taunted the tiger, a person's gotta be high to climb into a big cat's cage.

Suggestion for the San Francisco cops, in case they haven't already thought of it: Check the tiger-attack victims' cell phones.

If the current speculation proves true, and Tatiana was egged on and enabled by the teens she would ultimately maul, I'm guessing that at least one of them has video. This sort of stupid stunt -- dangling one's body parts before a fierce, carnivorous beast -- is exactly the sort of behavior increasingly demonstrated among teenage boys eager to make it on "Jackass," or at least YouTube. Kids these days tend not to do anything this recklessly dangerous without documenting it -- after all, extreme stupidity is a one-way ticket to Internet fame.

Time could prove me wrong, of course, but my gut tells me this stunt was made for the small screen. And if so, that raises a key question: Does anyone doubt that the video will somehow end up on the Net eventually?

Tragedy in Pakistan today as, sadly, the inevitable happened: Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by a cowardly little extremist who then blew himself up. Already, Ron Paul is on Fox, whining that this means we should keep our noses out of Pakistan as well as every other country -- that nuclear arsenal that could fall into the hands of Islamists, Ron, would definitely not stop at Pakistan's borders, nor does the tug-of-war between moderates and extremists. And on the campaign trail, comments generally looked like a competitive joust of who knew Bhutto best, who knew her longer (Clinton said she did), yadda yadda. The AP story on candidates' reactions is a bit gentler than the TV coverage, but still the campaigns are spinning the assassination into an opportunity to state that they're the best at foreign policy, dealing with the Islamic threat, and just best to be president in general:

"At a high school in Lawton, Iowa, on Thursday, Clinton said she had come to know Bhutto during the former prime minister's years in office and her time in exile and was "profoundly saddened and outraged" by the assassination.

In a world of such violence and threats, Clinton said, 'it certainly raises the stakes high for what we expect from our next president. I know from a lifetime of working to make change.'

Giuliani said the assassination underscored a need for the U.S. to increase its efforts to combat terrorism.

'Her murderers must be brought to justice, and Pakistan must continue the path back to democracy and the rule of law,' Giuliani said in a statement. 'Her death is a reminder that terrorism anywhere — whether in New York, London, Tel-Aviv or Rawalpindi — is an enemy of freedom. We must redouble our efforts to win the terrorists' war on us.'"

Can't, for the moment, anyone just express their sympathies and leave the footballing for another day? I guess this is what Bhutto gets for dying so close to the Iowa caucuses.

This from a reliable source, Modern Conservative:

"According to our source, an activist here in Arizona has been approached by the Ron Paul campaign; the campaign has requested that he run the Arizona effort to get Ron Paul on the general election ballot as a candidate of the Constitution Party.

Our source has requested anonymity, and we have agreed. We can, however, vouch for his/her reliability. Our source also provided us with details that added credibility to the account. (Unfortunately, disclosure of those details would put at risk our promise of anonymity. We apologize for the unnamed sourcing and lack of further details, but those were the requirements that accompanied this revelation.)We will keep you apprised of any new developments."

They raise the concern about what kind of adverse impact this train wreck known as Rep. Paul could have on the GOP come November. The Cult of Paul is already throwing a fit about MC's Chris Cook's call to expose what Ron Paul is really about -- you know, the taking campaign cash from a white supremacist and now saying Lincoln (a REAL American hero) shouldn't have fought the civil war. "This man, in our view, does not inject much needed debate into American politics, he injects poison," Chris writes at ModCon.

I know the rabid followers of RP delight in calling anyone in the opposition "a tool of the establishment," but if the establishment accepts the fact that a) white supremacists should be shunned and b) slavery was wrong and Lincoln fought the good fight to do what was right after political persuasion failed, is that actually a put-down?

And regarding adverse effects on the GOP ... remember that if Michael Bloomberg and his billions jump in the race as an independent, he's going to sap votes from the Democratic Party and left-leaning independents. So it could be a four-way.

Now it's looking like the teenage boy killed by a Siberian tiger on Christmas Day, Carlos Sousa, Jr., and his two friends were taunting the 350-pound tiger and even climbed into her enclosure, the SF Chron is reporting. Apparently there were just a handful of people there.

San Francisco police are investigating the possibility that one of the victims in the fatal tiger mauling on Christmas Day climbed over a waist-high fence and then dangled a leg or other body part over the edge of a moat that kept the big cat away from the public, sources close to the investigation said Wednesday.

The minimal evidence found at the scene included a shoe and blood in an area between the gate and the edge of the 25- to 30-foot-wide moat, raising questions about what role, if any, the victims might have had in accidentally helping the animal escape.

It gets worse. Pine cones and other debris were found in the moat, evidently thrown by someone taunting the tiger. Police found a human footprint on a metal fence inside and police say that the tiger may have been able to escape by "latching on to a leg or body part." Yikes.

If this is true, then the boys' stupidness caused the death of one of them and of the tiger, who was just being a tiger. Where were all the zoo attendants? Good question that I hope someone puts to the zoo administration. The SF Zoo is tiny, yes, but still should have adequate security.

It does, though, make you wonder if urban dwellers are so divorced from nature that we just can't conceive of something as outlandish as a tiger attack, especially when most of the tigers on TV are of the friendly talking variety. Or maybe it's just the nature of teen-age boys.

When I was in Costa Rica some years back, I made the mistake of visiting the zoo in the capital city, San Jose. The enclosures were so small that people could get real close to the animals. I was horrified to come across a group of young boys terrorizing spider monkeys by whacking them with peanuts and rocks. There was no one official there to do it, so I had to scare them off. But those boys at least had the sense to stay away from the tiger which they could have easily reached through the inadequate bars.

I'll try to avoid hyperbole here, but let's just say that the NFL's decision to air Saturday night's historic match-up between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants on broadcast TV is a victory for life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the American Way, freedom, quality entertainment and all things noble and decent.

Oh, yes, and it's also a victory for big government, but let's not try to focus on that part, OK?

As a native New Englander and a Patriots fan, I am thrilled. This Saturday night I have a family party to attend, so I'll need to tape the game and watch it later. Unfortunately, had the game only been on the NFL Network, as originally scheduled, I wouldn't have been able to tape it, as said network is unavailable in my area. And because I can't watch this one live, the sports bar wasn't an option.

But now, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has come to my deliverance, decreeing that the game -- in which the Pats can finish off an undefeated season, while shattering various offensive records along the way -- will be on both NBC and CBS!

Of course, Goodell was nudged by some of my least favorite people in government -- Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), who basically threatened the league with a congressional hearing and/or losing its anti-trust exemption if it didn't agree to put this game on broadcast TV. And as a conservative, it's hard to cheer this kind of heavy-handed government intrusion into the private sector, especially when all that's at stake is entertainment.

But well, heck, I'm no libertarian, and this is big-H history in the making! So hooray for big government! Not since Congress wiped out the 55 mph speed limit has it done something that I can specifically point to as directly improving the quality of my life. And this may top even that! Why, this ought to push Congress' approval rating up into the thirties!

So thanks to the senators, and thanks to the commissioner. And one last thing ... Are you ready for some football?!?

First, here's a commentary of mine on subprime. I've longed to write about it but have avoided it previously, due to various family members working in it. Now that none of them are active in it, I thought I could open my mouth. And I hope to discuss it more on this blog in the future.

Second, let me be blunt. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a few miles from where I used to live, was tragic, sad, senseless, etc. And it was also predictable enough, in that volatile nation (any leader there risks death). This incident doesn't say much for stable, pro-American democracy in my homeland: An incompetent and corrupt yet charismatic leader gets killed, even though (and perhaps because) the U.S. likes her. A friend of mine tells me it's a cliche, but I always say that Pakistan is where easy answers go to die, and I'll keep saying that till someone gives me a better way of saying that (besides, nothing's a cliche till I'm done with it).

Some of the horrified but ignorant reaction on the part of U.S. politicians reflects the nature of how we inadvertently contribute to the mess. Statements by Giuliani or others indicate that Benazir was somehow the spinal column of Pakistani democracy. She wasn't. She was a disgraced politician who made a deal with Musharraf that would allow her to evade genuine and severe charges of corruption, so that she could return and share power with him. She then turned around and denounced him as an autocrat, when that proved the more pragmatic move.

Pardon my cynicism. I realize it seems out of place and politically incorrect so soon after a public death. But the manner in which U.S. politicians pandered to her, and promoted her, indeed reflects why many Pakistanis on the street feel manipulated by our nation's leaders.

No-shot GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul tossed out yet another juicy zinger this time on Meet the Press when he said that Lincoln was a bad guy for fighting the civil war. Paul’s solution: simply shell out some cash, buy the slaves, and set them free. One would like to believe that Paul is just jerking off the press and the public with his shoot from the lip, loose brained, solutions on everything from taxes to ending the Iraq war. And that his dig at Lincoln for fighting the Civil War is the latest in the train of dumb wit Paulisms.

But the Civil war and the Lincoln jibe needs a response for two reasons. The first is for its idiot read of history. Lincoln as an Illinois Congressman in 1849 proposed a bill for voluntary and gradual emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia. Lincoln toyed with the idea of offering compensation to get the slavemasters to go along with it. Congress dominated by Southerners and the slave owners showed absolutely no interest in taking a government bribe to give up their slaves in D.C. Lincoln didn’t give up the idea. In 1861, Lincoln, now president, dangled the carrot of federal dollars in front of the slaveowners in the Border States. He’d pay them $400 per slave to free them. There were no takers. The next year, Lincoln even arm-twisted Congress to pass a resolution providing for payment to the slaveowners in the Border States and elsewhere. That went nowhere too.

The slave masters understood something that Paul doesn’t. Slavery was not an aberrant, patchwork system that consigned a few million luckless blacks to hard, unpaid labor. Slavery was a cornerstone of the Southern economy. It wove personal lifestyle, custom, and comfort together for the benefit of the slave owners. Slavery was slyly encoded in articles in the Constitution, protected by court decisions, and bolstered by the full force of federal law (the enforement of the fugitive slave law). Lincoln had a better chance of dismantling slavery with dollars than Paul has of winning the White House.

The other more compelling reason to take on Paul’s dumb crack is that while the North may have won the war, the South won the peace. No other region has so dominated national politics--the military, the courts, Congress, the White House--as the South. It retooled slavery into a iron clad sytem of Jim Crow segregation, economic domination, and state government sanctioned violence to maintain power. No amount of money could have changed that.

The South maintained political dominance for nearly century after the end of slavery by forcing every Democrat or Republican that wanted to bag or stay in the White House to do and say as little as possible about race and racism, slavishly adhere to states rights, and pander to Southern politicians. When the civil rights movement momentarily changed this neat political formula white Southern Democrats simply swapped their Democratic political pin for a Republican one. In the eyes of many white Southerners, the Democratic Party became the hated symbol of integration and civil rights.

Millions in the South and elsewhere agree with Paul that the legacy of slavery has ruined the nation. If they could turn the clock back a century and a half they’d do just what Paul says and would not shed one drop of blood to free the slaves. Worse, they wouldn’t spend a penny to free them either. My suspicion is that neither would anti-big government, abolish-taxes Paul. Lincoln are you listening?

Chris' post on McCain reminds me of a recent Economist essay on a McCain revival:

Mr McCain is such a familiar figure that it is easy to forget how remarkable he is. He fought heroically in Vietnam, spending more than five years as a prisoner-of-war, when many other politicians of his generation discovered, like Dick Cheney, that they had “other priorities”. He has repeatedly risked his political career by backing unpopular causes.

Mr McCain's qualifications extend beyond character. Take experience. His range of interests as a senator has been remarkable, extending from immigration to business regulation. He knows as much about foreign affairs and military issues as anybody in public life. Or take judgment. True, he has a reputation as a hothead. But he's a hothead who cools down. He does not nurse grudges or agonise about vast conspiracies like some of his colleagues in the Senate. He has also been right about some big issues. He was the first senior Republican to criticise George Bush for invading Iraq with too few troops, and the first to call for Donald Rumsfeld's sacking. He is one of the few Republicans to propose sensible policies on immigration and global warming.

Mr McCain's qualities are particularly striking if you contrast him with his leading rivals. His willingness to stick to his guns on divisive subjects such as immigration stands in sharp contrast to Mr Romney's oily pandering. Mr Romney likes to claim that his views on topics such as gay rights and abortion have “evolved”. But they have evolved in a direction that is strikingly convenient—perhaps through intelligent design. Can a party that mocked John Kerry really march into battle behind their very own Massachusetts flip-flopper?

Few people ever actually read politicians' books, and for good reason -- usually they consist mostly of self-serving drivel. But Jeff Jacoby of The Boston Globe, to his great credit, read John McCain's tome, and gleaned this fascinating tidbit:

Eight years ago on the presidential campaign trail, after being burned in South Carolina for calling the Confederate flag is a racist symbol, McCain "clarified" his statement. His new position was that while some people regard the Stars and Bars as a symbol of slavery, he was not among them. McCain saw it "only as a symbol of heritage." Whenever reporters asked him about the subject, he would pull a note from his pocket, and re-read that statement. Why? As Jacoby writes:

By the fourth or fifth time the question came up, McCain later wrote in his 2002 memoir, Worth the Fighting For (coauthored with Mark Salter), he could have delivered the new response from memory.

"But I persisted with the theatrics of unfolding the paper and reading it as if I were making a hostage statement. I wanted to telegraph reporters that I really didn't mean to suggest I supported flying the flag, but political imperatives required a little evasiveness on my part. I wanted them to think me still an honest man, who simply had to cut a corner a little here and there so that I could go on to be an honest president. I think that made the offense worse. Acknowledging my dishonesty with a wink didn't make it less a lie. It compounded the offense by revealing how willful it had been. You either have the guts to tell the truth or you don't....

"I had not just been dishonest. I had been a coward, and I had severed my own interests from my country's. That was what made the lie unforgivable. All my heroes, fictional and real, would have been ashamed of me."

Wow. Ironically, in speaking about his lie, McCain is being more honest than any candidate in recent history. No excuses, no backpedaling, no rationalization. McCain admits he was wrong, that he is flawed, that he tries to learn from his failures.

Back when this race began, I never envisioned myself supporting John McCain. I knew his flaws too well, and measuring him up against my dream candidate, I found him wanting. But my dream candidate was only that -- a dream -- and compared to the flaws of his real-life rivals, McCain's no longer seem quite so troubling.

Like Bridget, I find myself "going back to the tried, true, and tested." McCain is a man of honor -- which doesn't mean he's perfect, but does mean he tries to grapple truly and honestly with his human imperfections. He's also moderate in the true sense of the word, which doesn't mean aping the liberal position on liberals' most sacred issues (a la Rudy), but bringing a non-ideological, principled pragmatism to his policies.

McCain might not be the ideal candidate, but to me anyway, he increasingly looks like the best one.

This seems like proof of this. Americans, let's show some taste and imagination, shall we...?

You just knew there was a local connection to the deadly Christmas Day tiger breakout at the San Francisco Zoo. And that connection is Manuel Mollinedo, the former general manager of the L.A. Zoo. Yikes. No matter what the decide will happen he will forever be the guy who let the tigers escape and eat people.

Santa caps off to Chris for his perspectives on Bill O'Reilly, the great Christmas Warrior, and Defender of the Faith.

I have some questions of my own for Mr. O'Reilly:

Now that secular culture has gone back to the malls to return gifts and forage at post-holiday sales, how are you continuing to celebrate the Christmas holiday that you so obviously cherish? Are you celebrating the full twelve days of Christmas, while tuning out secular culture's obsession with New Year's Eve parties?

And if, post-Dec. 25, you choose to have a profound, meaningful and ongoing encounter with the Jesus who is the reason for the season, have legal authorities been attempting to haul you away? Who, exactly, is keeping you and other pious men from enjoying the full potential of your holiday? Beyond your politically convenient grandstanding against the secular left, are you going to use your considerable media platform to encourage your own flock to enjoy said potential?

Just wondering.

My Sunday Viewpoint column on my down-and-out childhood and important lessons learned has been reprinted, well, lotsa lotsa places, including the Dallas Morning News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Houston Chronicle, the Montreal Gazette, and even as far away as the Daily Dispatch in South Africa. Consequently, I've been plugging away at answering lotsa reader mail. One pastor from North Carolina noted how much churches do to help the homeless; it was, indeed, a Catholic school where I found help as a kid. Others shared their own personal stories of hardship. And there was this letter from a reader of the Akron Beacon Journal:

"I have always thought about this very topic and your article touched me. Unfortunately, I am not sure if or how to act on my feelings. I would love to know if you are aware of any type of organization dedicating themselves to the humaness of homelessness; therfore offering every season as a season of giving respect and recognition."

In my column, I wrote about some of the everyday gestures that anybody can extend one-on-one to the homeless. In Los Angeles, we have people like Ted Hayes, who tirelessly advocates for the homeless. If you have advocates like Ted in your town, help their mission with fundraising activities or appealing the issues to your elected representatives. Remembering that so many of the homeless are veterans, there are opportunities to help with the Disabled American Veterans, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, or the National Veterans Foundation. Visit a local shelter and ask what you can do. Are there homeless folks in your neighborhood? Make a game plan with your friends, neighbors, fellow church members, fellow Rotarians, etc., about how to help. Remember that many programs to help the homeless are mired in bureaucratic red tape, and that many homeless need a bite to eat now -- so don't be afraid to brown-bag a few lunches and just hand them out.

One reader suggested using decommissioned military bases to house the homeless. Any other ideas on how to help? Post 'em here!

Yes, Virginia, there is a “War on Christmas,” and it dates back to well before political correctness, secularism, squeamish retailers, hyper-sensitive believers, or even Bill O’Reilly.

The real War on Christmas is so old, in fact, it’s older than Christmas itself. It began when Jesus was still in his mother’s womb. King Herod, learning that the Christ would soon arrive, dispatched the three wise men to find the newborn king — so that he might “come and worship him.”

The wise men, warned of Herod’s treachery in a dream, knew better than to comply with his wishes. So the king, “in a furious rage,” took matters into his own hands. As the Gospel of Matthew tells us, “He sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under.” Jesus only survived because Joseph — also warned in a dream — fled for Egypt by night.

Now that’s a war on Christmas.

And for 2000 years, with varying degrees of intensity, the war has raged on.

"It's a Wonderful Life" is the all-time Christmas-eve movie, and on this Christmas Eve, Jonathan has blessed us with a beautiful essay about the film in today's Daily News:

We are inclined, like George Bailey on the bridge, to see our lives in black and white, as success or failure, as good or bad. It is not so simple. Life is not so simple, and we are complex beings.

George chased a dream. He wanted success and adventure. He wanted to be an explorer, someone famous. He wanted to be an architect and build skyscrapers a mile high and bridges (ironic, huh?) miles long.

He equated success with fame and fortune - and when that didn't happen for him, he was blinded to what success, real success, is and how he had, in fact, achieved it.

The gift that he got on that bridge was not a literal angel. (I'm no "It's a Wonderful Life" fundamentalist.) He got to attend his own funeral and hear the eulogies - only done in the dramatic form of how the world would have been without him.

George was thus able to see that his success was in his family, in the good will of his neighbors and the love and respect of his friends. He came to understand that while he was looking up and not seeing the skyscrapers he hadn't built, he also did not see the houses he had built, the hearths he had stoked, the lives he had touched and the good he had done.

But you really need to read the whole thing. Merry Christmas, everybody!

I spend a lot of time following current events. It’s sometimes difficult not to get a little down about the state of humanity. Such encounters with the darkness are for me very brief. I’m an optimist. Like Anne Frank, I too “despite everything believe that people are basically good at heart.”

Yes, at this season we remember that there are Herods who destroy, but there are also heroes who heal our weary hearts. There are far more good people of every religion, ethnicity, race and class than there are bad. We read about the monsters. We see the violence. We feel afraid and dispirited. This is why I am so buoyed by an incident that took place this week in San Francisco (that was reported in Leah Garchik’s column on Friday in the S.F. Chronicle).

Cesar Martinez, a 14-year old student at Sacred Heart Academy was trying to get home after school and found himself at the BART station (the “metro” of SF). He also found that he was 25 cents short of the price of a ticket. Trying to get that quarter, he sought the assistance of strangers. He went up to well-dressed business people and regular commuters. They did, what many of us do, and that is averted their gaze, refused to look him in the eye and hurried past.

Just when he thought it could not get worse, it seemed to have. A homeless panhandler came up and hit on him for money. Cesar said that he couldn’t help because he himself was short of what he needed to get home. The panhandler reached deep into his own pocket, pulled out a quarter and gave it to Cesar.

Think for a moment about what a potentially transforming and hope-filled moment this was. If they each truly paid attention, they will never be the same. If we pay attention, we may never be the same.

Almost all religions teach us to be generous in spirit and to see beneath the surface of people. In Judaism there is a recurring theme that we ought to treat each person as if he or she could be the Messiah. That beggar, that old man, that young girl, that child could be the one who makes all the difference. And our kindness could make all the difference to that stranger. Christianity teaches the same lesson. Jesus says in Matthew 25 “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.” It is in serving that we are up-lifted and in giving that we receive.

Cesar learned that you cannot always judge people by their exteriors—not their clothes, not their hygiene, not their education. Cesar learned that goodness and generosity can come from unexpected people.

And what might the panhandler have learned? I imagine that he is probably a person who believes that he could have done more with his life. It was surely not his dream or his parents’ dream that he would spend his days asking for handouts in a BART station. He is not likely often to find himself in a position of giving rather than receiving help. Think what it could mean to his sense of himself not have gotten a handout but to have handed out some of his precious substance. Neither the quarter nor the act of giving was an insignificant gesture.

Both in the giving and the receiving there was a blessing. Two people left that moment rich with possibilities of breaking through fears, stereotypes and assumptions. We too can leave this story changed. We can be inspired to look deeper inside ourselves and the strangers with whom we share this life. Not just a Christmas or Chanukah, but all year, we can practice seeing, as Charles Dickens wrote, “people below us as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

This sweet moment certainly changes the meaning and context of the biblical quote but something wonderful happened when a beggar rendered unto Cesar a coin who value far exceeded the number stamped on it. It has touched my heart and I hope yours.

I realize that Ron Paul appeals to the Libertarian in many voters. I realize that his grass-roots band of supports have roved around Los Angeles in a little pack, last seen by yours truly waving signs at 405 Freeway drivers from the Sunset Boulevard overpass. And I also understand that said supporters have taken great pride in becoming the worst spammers on Earth and raising moula for their main man.

But come on, folks: Keeping a campaign donation from a white supremacist is disgusting. Really.

"Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul has received a $500 campaign donation from a white supremacist, and the Texas congressman doesn't plan to return it, an aide said Wednesday.

Don Black, of West Palm Beach, recently made the donation, according to campaign filings. He runs a website called Stormfront with the motto, 'White Pride World Wide.' The site welcomes postings to the 'Stormfront White Nationalist Community.'

'Dr. Paul stands for freedom, peace, prosperity and inalienable rights. If someone with small ideologies happens to contribute money to Ron, thinking he can influence Ron in any way, he's wasted his money,' Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said. 'Ron is going to take the money and try to spread the message of freedom.'

...Black said he supports Paul's stance on ending the war in Iraq, securing America's borders and his opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants."

Oh, please. There's no way to spin this into anything admirable or acceptable. Paul's just being a greedy lil' bastard. And you know I'm not playing favorites with this because just this past week I knocked Giuliani and Romney for accepting endorsements from unsavory religious "leaders."

The Paul Posse claim they're at the forefront of a "revolution" with Ron Paul's candidacy. How about this for a revolutionary political idea -- putting principles of basic human decency before political profit?

For the slightest of moments, before his poll surge, I thought that Mike Huckabee could be the one for the GOP nod. The affection has faded, though. From watching him get mired in these religious back-and-forths to demonstrating a shallow grasp in the field of foreign policy (where Mitt Romney has yet to prove himself an expert, either, and Barack Obama's understanding makes one want to cry), there's something that rubbing me the wrong way. One Jewish Republican friend confided in me weeks ago that he's still nervous about Huckabee's preacher past, and how that would play into future power of the evangelical bloc in the Republican Party. And now that the race is turning into Baptist vs. Mormon, it's getting really annoying.

I feel myself more and more going back to the tried, true, and tested -- and the man who can snag moderates without being so Rudy. Months and months ago, when it was clearly the politically unpopular thing to do, John McCain unequivocally backed the surge in Iraq, even if it would cost him the campaign -- which, for a while, it looked like it would. He turned out to be right. But his surge support never seemed like a political gamble, yet a stand taken out of firm conviction and good understanding of foreign policy. And that's what we need in the White House.