Not To Be Served But To Serve

A moving Christmas story from Terry Paulson:

Last year, Ventura County Star reporter, Adam Foxman, covered Janice Jaynes Christensen’s Christmas Day open house. With the recent loss of both their son and a nephew, Janice and her husband, Fred, could have easily turned their home into a place of Christmas mourning. Instead, inspired by their other son's missionary work in South Africa, Janice chose to make their home a haven of holiday cheer by inviting strangers to share a home-cooked Italian meal.

At noon on Christmas Day, along with a few relatives and friends, their home filled up with strangers who had read about the open celebration in the Star. The strangers included people looking for some company on Christmas and others who were so touched by the hosts' gesture that they wanted to help.

The afternoon was filled with the aroma of homemade lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs and the sounds of a couple of dozen people chatting happily. Some called Janice an angel. She laughed and said, “I’m just an Italian New Yorker who likes food and seeing people mix.” But after a rough year, she confessed that this unique Christmas celebration had been a powerful experience. She said. "It's been really touching for me. I think when this is all over I'm going to go into a room and cry." Once again, Christ came through believers into another Christmas—“I’m not here to be served, but to serve.”

Frost On A Rainy Night

On a rainy, chilly night in Los Angeles, veteran columnist Al Martinez (not usually a movie reviewer) stays in and watches some of the first-run movies, including "Frost/Nixon," that the studios evidently send to journalists:

This is a love story between a disgraced former American president and an unemployed British television version of Regis Philbin. Peter Morgan wrote the screenplay based on his stage play based on the 1977 televised interviews in which Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) and David Frost (Michael Sheen) go at it. There is no sex in this movie and no pounding score, which means it will probably not appeal to anyone under 25. An animated remake with Brad Pitt as Nixon's voice and a sober Paris Hilton as a female David Frost voice would probably make it more palatable for those who prefer amusement over history. As is, two straight shots and a joint.

Fortune Favors The Hackosphere

James Fallows:

One of the big and really alarming trends of 2008 is the hugely-accelerating economic pressure on organizations like the NYT that support reporting rather than pure opinionizing.

U.S.: First Among Weaklings

At "The National Interest," Ximena Ortiz thinks the U.S. will continue to dominate global finance:

The global crisis will continue to profoundly impact the American. and global economy, but the demand for Treasuries will give the U.S. government broader options in dealing with the troubles, even if those options hinge on borrowed liquidity. Some countries, such as India, have proven to be more economically dependent on U.S.-fueled growth than widely presumed. China’s financial standing, meanwhile, remains largely unknown, given its opaque accounting.

It seems increasingly probable, therefore, that while the U.S. economy will suffer in absolute terms, it may not fall behind much in relative terms. The sudden brake on America’s brisk growth may just prompt global economic pain, rather than lead to a change in the global economic pecking order.

Delivering The Paperless Newspaper

Web revenue at the LA Times now more than pays for its reporters and editors. As Jeff Jarvis writes, that means the Times, and presumably other papers, could get rid of their printing presses and even their buildings and thrive anew as on-line news-gathering organizations.

No Brown M&Ms, One Bale Of Hay

The annual living Nativity at Yorba Linda Methodist Church features high school and junior high school volunteers and several veteran paid performers, including a 40-year-old donkey usually appearing at Knotts Berry Farm.

Why Felt Wanted To Take Down the President

Ron Briley on a relatively unexplored aspect of Watergate: Government officials at the FBI and Pentagon working to undermine an elected President:

...[W. Mark] Felt’s own actions as the number two man at the FBI during the 1970s raise some questions regarding the agent’s motivations. Was Felt primarily concerned about issues of democracy and civil liberties or was he more afraid that the White House might intrude upon the national security prerogatives of the FBI?

Higher Prices Are Good? Yep -- Especially Houses

Steve Chapman calls for more inflation.

Cheney Ends Up As The New Nixon, Anyway

The VP was evidently so grateful to Chris Wallace of Fox News for defending the Bush Administration against comparisons to Richard Nixon that he agreed to give Wallace an “exit interview” — ironic, since Mr. Cheney’s interview with Wallace has itself drawn a comparison by Matt Corley to RN’s famous assertion to David Frost about the President’s latitude during a national security crisis.

As TNN’s Robert Nedelkoff has noted, when Frank Langella, portraying RN, says that when the President does something, “it’s not illegal,” the script makes it appear as though he’s talking about the Watergate break-in and cover-up. In real life, Frost and the former President had been talking about the Huston Plan for wartime intelligence-gathering about domestic radicals. The plan was approved and later rescinded by the President.

It’s hard to defend illegal activity by the government under any circumstances. But it would be interesting to know how much latitude the American people would give it in the event of an imminent threat. At his appearance at the Nixon Library on Friday, Bill O’Reilly said that arguments against extreme measures would lose much if not all of their salience if the U.S. is hit again as on Sept. 11.

That doesn’t justify such actions, either. But journalists should not assume that Americans are of one mind on the subject. That’s why, at the start of the new administration, debate and dialogue would be better than the legal scapegoating of Bush Administration officials which is so intensely craved by the President’s and VP’s political opponents.

As for “Frost/Nixon” director Ron Howard and playwright-scriptwriter Peter Morgan, it would be interesting to know why they chose to misconstrue RN’s quote. Without knowing their motives, its likely that most theatergoers are more appalled by the “not illegal” formulation when it’s applied to political shenanigans as opposed to wartime national security policies.

Maybe It was Michael Jordan

Joan Collins:

I saw the face of true fame when we attended a Halloween party given by pop-star Natalie Baine of the Dixie Chicks. Arriving at dusk at her mansion there were several helicopters hovering above the gated entrance and dozens of those lurking paps, waiting for famous faces, no doubt. I was ushered into a private room — I was told — to meet someone special. I thought the person sitting on the sofa had the most realistic Michael Jackson mask I’d ever seen. I marvelled at the resemblance — the voice, the mannerisms, the detailed knowledge — and then I realised it was actually Michael Jackson in the flesh.

She means Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks.