THE BEST (AND WORST) MOVIES OF 2006

The most striking distinction between the prestige pictures of 2005 and those of 2006 involves an unmistakable effort on the part of Hollywood to step back from in-your-face leftist politics.

Last time, radical message movies like “Syriana,” “Munich,” “Broke Back Mountain,” “North Country,” “Good Night and Good Luck,” and “Paradise Now” dominated many year end “best” lists. This time, even Oliver Stone stayed away from political preaching with his compelling 9/11 melodrama “World Trade Center.” Some of the better movies of 2006 certainly touched on significant contemporary issues (“Blood Diamond,” “The Queen,” “United 93,” “The Last King of Scotland” and others) but they did so without aligning themselves with a partisan point of view. This year, documentaries (“An Inconvenient Truth,” “Shut Up and Sing,” “Who Killed the Electric Car?”, “Jesus Camp”) did the cinematic dirty work of promulgating leftist messages, while major movies returned to their traditional role of engaging the emotions and providing an artistic (rather than hectoring) experience for the audience.

Herewith, my list of the Ten Best of the Year, in ascending order of excellence---

10. BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN- Sure, it’s crude and rude and occasionally mean, but it’s also hilarious – providing more raucous, uncontrollable laughter than any comedy of recent years. The lawsuits and complaints that followed release of this startlingly original effort only underlined the unprecedented comic genius of Sacha Baron Cohen, who also happened to create one of the year’s most vivid, engaging and fully realized characters.

9. FLYBOYS. The fact that nobody saw this rousing, richly entertaining, crowd-pleasing gem helps to explain the shameful lack of broader recognition. Director Tony Bill showed extraordinary devotion, dedication and flair in re-telling the true story of the Lafayette Escadrille – the volunteer American pilots who fought for France before our own country entered World War I. In addition to creating a dozen endearing, indelible characters, the film provides the most thrilling scenes of aerial combat ever captured on film.

8. LASSIE. Not only the best family movie of the year, but one of the great dog movies of all time. Peter O’Toole makes a memorable appearance in this lovingly crafted retelling of the original 1930’s tale of “Lassie, Come Home,” in which a courageous Collie successfully traverses hundreds of miles of gorgeous highlands scenery to reconnect with her master, the young son of an unemployed coal miner. Among female stars this year, only Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep showed more emotional range than this intelligent, complex and luminous Lassie—an incomparably charismatic canine super star.

7. THE DEPARTED. You expect great performances from a Martin Scorsese film but you can’t necessarily count on a smart script or taut pacing or a satisfying plot. This triumph, however, delivers on all counts and represents one of his finest efforts since MEAN STREETS some thirty years ago. The twisty, complicated story keeps you guessing till the very end about fates and intentions of its dazzlingly diverse characters, played by the distinguished likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen.

6. LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA. Clint Eastwood’s heart-breaking vision of the Japanese side of one of the great battles of World War II, this subtitled battlefield classic exceeds the acknowledged excellence of its American-perspective counterpart (”Flags of Our Fathers”). Through directorial alchemy and consistently capable performances, Eastwood makes the suicidal intensity of the doomed Imperial defenders look believable, if not comprehensible. Far from a whitewash of a fanatical enemy, the film highlights both the best (with a compassionate commander played by the great Ken Watanabe) and the worst of the Japanese militarist traditions.

5. APOCALYPTO. If his drunk-driving arrest and its accompanying comments hadn’t rendered him radioactive among his colleagues, Mel Gibson would be heavily favored as an Oscar nominee both for Best Picture and Best Director. From its opening shot, “Apocalypto” grabs you by the neck and plunges a syringe full of undadulterated adrenalin into your blood stream as one of the great chase movies of all time. The recreation of Mayan savagery of 500 years ago challenges every notion of political correctness in the interest of breathtaking, unforgettable historical recreation. Gibson deserves kudos not only for the emotional satisfactions of his stirring tale but for capturing the singular, sci-fi strangeness of ancient Mesoamerican civilization.

4. THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS. Leave aside the spelling error in the title (based on a real-life graffiti quirk on a San Francisco wall in the ‘70’s), because this heart-tugging classic makes almost no errors in its captivating story telling. Will Smith will win an Oscar nomination for his performance as Chris Gardner, a frustrated salesman who copes with abandonment by his disapproving wife (Thandie Newton) and a painful spate of homelessness with his son (played by Smith’s irresistible off-screen seven-year-old son, Jaden). This true story ultimately affirms fatherhood, faith, hard work, optimism and the American Dream while inspiring free-flowing affection for its heroic characters.

3. THE QUEEN. This filmic passport into the private world of Queen Elizabeth II provides such an unblushing, intimate glimpse of the aging monarch that you almost feel like a guilty spy. Helen Mirren’s performance qualifies as one of the indubitably great achievements by any actress in any film: she not only imitates Elizabeth’s speech, appearance and mannerisms with altogether uncanny accuracy, but seems to capture her richly appealing essence and her noble, ultimately selfless soul. Michael Sheen also captures the essential decency of Tony Blair, highlighting his eminently useful, constructive role as the new Prime Minister who helped to save the monarchy in the turbulent week after the death of Princess Dianna. “The Queen” counts as one of those rare films where you sincerely, passionately regret the end of the picture, because you’re suddenly separated from the admirable, fully-realized human beings with whom you just shared an unforgettable experience.

2. UNITED 93. It took five years before Hollywood offered a serious cinematic treatment of the darkest day in recent history, and it took a British director (the superb Paul Greengrass) to recreate the experiences and emotions of 9/11 without the slightest hint of political bias or ideological axes to grind. The scenes of Air Traffic Controllers struggling with unimaginable realities, and of Air Force officials trying to respond to unprecedented multiple hijackings, emphasize the well-intentioned, fatal and totally predictable confusion that afflicted the only Americans who could have counteracted the implacable terrorist murderers – who are also brought to life here with conviction, complexity and suprirsing humanity. Among contemporary films, only “The Passion of the Christ” can rival “United 93” in delivering overwhelming emotional impact with a story whose conclusion we all know in advance.

1. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Hysterically funny, deeply touching, occasionally shocking, this wildly original ensemble comedy highlights film’s amazing ability to create an on-screen family that seems as demented, demanding and endearing as your own eccentric relatives in real life. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette take this seven-year-old daughter (the amazing, Oscar worthy Abigail Breslin) on an ill-fated road trip to participate in a tacky kiddie beauty pageant. Along the way, Collette’s suicidal gay brother (Steve Carell) and teenaged, vow-of-silence son (Paul Dano), interact with the porn-and-drug addicted grandpa (Alan Arkin). Despite salty elements that make the film appropriate only for adults, “Miss Sunshine” conveys an unmistakable pro-family message: the members of your clan may count as maddening and dysfunctional, but you ultimately need and love each other as irreplaceable, essential and life-giving. The vivid, vibrant characterizations provide enough fully-realized, expertly rendered individual portraits to populate a half-dozen excellent movies: concentrated in this spell-binding, laugh-out-loud adventure, there’s an overflow of rewards and abundant “Sunshine” (through some tears).

AND NOW (as they say in Monty Python land) for something completely different….

THE TEN WORST OF 2006---

… in ascending order of awfulness

10. PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (never before in Hollywood history have so many Oscar winners and nominees collaborated on a film that offers so little to its weary audiences— an crushingly dull, utterly empty farewell to the late director Robert Altman)

9. JACKASS NUMBER TWO

8. THE HILLS HAVE EYES

7. ALEX RIDER: OPERATION STORMBREAKER

6. THE DEATH OF A PRESIDENT

5. LADY IN THE WATER

4. JESUS CAMP

3. THE GOOD GERMAN

2. LARRY THE CABLE GUY: HEALTH INSPECTOR

1. DECK THE HALLS—Even worse, more tasteless than Danny DeVito’s appearance on ABC’s “The View” --- one of the very worst Christmas movies ever made.

May the New Year bring us better news, more compelling politicians, and more entertaining movies……

Today I spent a few minutes listening to another nationally syndicated talk radio show and felt outraged and embarrassed to hear the guest host (an otherwise bright and well-informed conservative) facilitating the twisted, ignorant mounting public hysteria over the looming menace of a “North American Union.”

This paranoid and groundless frenzy has been fomented and promoted by a shameless collection of lunatics and losers; crooks, cranks, demagogues and opportunists, who claim the existence of a top secret master plan to join the U.S., Canada and Mexico in one big super-state and to replace the good old Yankee dollar with a worthless new currency called “The Amero.” Another delusion usually associated with these fears involves the construction of a “Monster Highway” some sixteen lanes wide through Texas and the Great Plains, connecting the two nations on either side of the border for some nefarious but never-explained purpose.

Actually, I am afraid of wasting government money on useless mass transit or light rail projects, but I’m hardly terrified by road-building. Any time they want to build super-highways and lay down old-fashioned asphalt to facilitate cars and reduce traffic, every red-blooded American ought to stand up and cheer—especially when the construction takes place largely through private financing.

But aside from the chilling prospect of a “Monster Highway” (why is a new road in Texas supposed to be so scary?) there’s no reason at all to believe in the ludicrous, childish, ill-informed, manipulative, brain dead fantasies about a North American Union. The entire chimera has been conjured up to scare people over nothing—to solicit contributions to fight a non-existent threat, and then when that threat never materializes the exploiters and charlatans who’ve been lying to you about this nonsense can beat their chests and say, “Look at that! We stopped the globalists in their evil, diabolical plans to terminate American sovereignty—now send us even more money!”

I’m sorry to sound cynical and intolerant about this stupidity, but I’m furious, actually – ashamed to be part of a proud medium (conservative talk radio) that increasingly encourages this paralyzing, puerile paranoia. The record couldn’t be more clear on the “North American Union” – there’s no one anywhere near the Bush administration, the Congress of the United States, Cabinet departments or even major think tanks who believes it’s a good idea to merge Canada, Mexico and the U.S. Yes, there was one article in the journal Foreign Affairs that suggested further reducing trade barriers and economic obstacles in the style of the European Union, but that article drew spirited opposition and condemnation from readers of the same magazine and other members of the Council on Foreign Relations. The goal of “North American Union” is far from a policy aim of the Council on Foreign Relations, let alone of the US government.

Concerning the feds, the entire horror story about “North American Union” is based upon the “Security and Prosperity Partnership,” an utterly innocuous, open, above-board, well-advertised and widely publicized initiative to promote inter-governmental cooperation to fight terrorism, the threat of Avian flu, improve and tighten border security, and promote mutual prosperity. The then Presidents of the three countries (Bush, Fox and Martin) met in 2005 to pledge to work together on such issues and to initiate open working groups to facilitate cooperation – BUT THERE WAS NO AGREEMENT OR TREATY OR COVENANT of any kind, secret or otherwise. To find more information about this unthreatening and appropriate project, try going to the website whitehouse.gov, or otherwise checking out government sources (especially the Department of Commerce) under “s.p.p.” to see what’s going on – and what isn’t going on.

The idea that there’s some malevolent, hidden agenda to abolish the USA through working more closely with Mexico and Canada to combat potential flu outbreaks is only slightly less sick and pathetic than the belief that our government orchestrated 9/11, or that Y2K would end civilization as we know it (because Bill Clinton wanted to declare martial law and suspend the election—remember that one?) The same bastards and creeps and jug-heads and drunks and reprobates (yes, they are all of the above) who are now scaring you over SPP or NAU or the Monster Highway were busy 7 years ago peddling the Year 2000 computer bug crapola (which I consistently derided and denied on the air). Did you huddle in fear, expecting blackouts and riots and food shortages on New Year’s eve seven years ago? If you did, don’t you feel embarrassed to entertain these new fears from the same asinine sources?

If those jerks could be so wrong about Y2K, why should you give the slightest credence to their warnings and alarms over this latest hysteria?

Remember when the same miserable cretins tried to frighten the public over the “UN is taking over our National Parks” garbage? They openly predicted blue helmets (and black helicopters, no doubt) at Yellowstone and Yosemite and Mt. Rainier and….. nothing happened. Northing! The world body hasn’t seized the Sequoias or the Grand Canyon because a few American natural wonders were designated as “World Heritage Sites.”

Please remember: the hysterics and fringies who now promote the “secret plan” to eliminate the border with Mexico are the same psychotics who for decades suggested that the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderbergers and the TriLateral Commission and Bohemian Grove and Skull and Bones and the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds were all working together to make sure that Communism took over the whole world. But then, inconveniently for the conspiracists and Birchers, Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher and Pope John Paul and Lech Walesa forced the Soviet Union into collapse and some of the formerly Commie nations (Poland and Hungary and Czech Republic prominent among them) now count as our closest, most valiant allies, and are members of NATO, in fact..

So what happened to the all-powerful conspiracy of international bankers and globalists and commie dictators? Ah yes, they just got the old Soviet Union to play possum for a while but soon they’ll be roaring back (isn’t Putin a former KGB man?) and prove that they’re even stronger than before --- even though the once mighty, now largely dismantled nation has lost more than a third of its population and nearly half its natural resources.

The problem with the demagogues and exploiters is that they make it more difficult – vastly more difficult – for decent people to face the real problems involving our border with Mexico (which clearly, undeniably needs better security and more protection) and to correct the altogether unacceptable outrage of more than 12 million illegals who live and work in the United States in open contravention of our immigration laws.

Yes, we need immigration reform, but if substantial elements of the right become fixated on secret plans for “North American Union,” then they will make themselves irrelevant to the national debate framing and shaping that reform. Paranoia is paralyzing, and leads to powerlessness and marginalization.

In the 26 years I’ve been a conservative Republican I’ve never seen our party and our principles facing greater danger of pushing our ideas and our leaders out of the mainstream, out of the sunlight of sanity and rational discourse and into the fever swamps of sickness and delusion and dementia.

Please – take careful note of anyone in politics (even some “reputable” US Congressmen) or media who gives even a moment’s credence to the “dangers” of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or the North American Union, or the Monster Highway. Write down the names of such people, and remember the names. And then when the fraudulent stories have been discredited or simply disappeared (like the brain-dead, laughableY2K scare, or the U.N. National Parks conspiracy, or the concentration camps and black helicopters that were supposed to menace opponents of globalization), or when the tall tales have morphed into some other attempt to paralyze the unsuspecting public with paranoia, please refer once again to the names on your list of fatuous fear-mongers AND TREAT THEM WITH THE DERISION AND CONTEMPT AND DISREGARD THEY SO RICHLY DESERVE.

No one in my line of work, privileged to earn a living by communicating with the American people, can justify lying outright about non-existent dangers for the sake of ratings or popularity or shock value or “emergency fundraising.”

Where does the money go from such contributions? Usually into the pockets of the blood-sucking exploiters (check out the Washington Times expose of the “Minutemen” as an example). Meanwhile, has anyone heard recently about the “Paul Revere Society,” promoted by a prominent talk host, which was supposed to protect us from a Mexican invasion? It’s disappeared into thin air (and rumored scandal) but what happened to the funds you contributed out of idealism and enthusiasm and well-intentioned commitment?

You may not agree with me on everything I say or report in this blog or on my radio show but I can promise you one thing: I will never lie to you, or pander to your fears, or try to exaggerate dangers when I know better. I will tell you the truth to the best of my ability and I refuse to insult your intelligence with ludicrous conspiracy tales.

Some of my colleagues are dissembling, and they know it, and they ought to be ashamed.

Please take note of who they are and force them, some day soon, to face some consequences.

The universal and appropriate sadness at the passing of President Gerald Ford should reassure President Bush that after his retirement he will inspire fresh affection from the public.

The connection between the two presidents goes well beyond the fact that Ford’s two chiefs of staff—Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney – have played dominant roles in the Bush administration. From the beginning of his first term, Bush has enjoyed questionable legitimacy in the eyes of many Americans because of the circumstances of the disputed election of 2000, but no president ever had less legitimacy than Gerald Ford. He came to power after the previous Vice President and President both resigned in disgrace; he had never before faced an electorate larger than a single,obscure Congressional district in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As President, Ford presided helplessly over the final American humiliation in Vietnam and made scant progress in dealing with an economy badly wounded by an Arab oil embargo following the 1973 Middle Eastern War. Worst of all, Ford provided a full Presidential pardon for the reviled Richard Nixon, the same man who appointed him Vice President, and then barely beat back the Reagan insurgency within his own party when he tried to win election to a term of his own. Like Bush, this intellectually able holder of a Yale degree (Ford graduated from Yale Law School; Bush from Yale College and Harvard Business School) endured constant derision for his purported stupidity. Lyndon Johnson said of Ford: “He’s so dumb he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time,” while Chevy Chase won TV popularity by imitating the President’s klutzy habits—stumbling down ramps from Air Force One, or hitting innocent bystanders with his golf shots.

Nevertheless, Ford’s essential decency and sincerity eventually won out with the public and helped make him a beloved figure during his retirement. Bush – whose Presidency, unlike Ford’s, features very real achievements (major tax cuts, distinguished judicial appointments, economic recovery) along with its many controversies – will probably enjoy the same fate of renewed affection from from the public if he’s blessed with a similarly long life after the White House. 

Americans celebrate Christmas in many different ways but in Bakersfield, California, an apparent secular fanatic observed the holiday by dousing himself with flammable liquid and setting himself ablaze.

According to press reports, he meant to show his passionate objection to Thursday night’s decision by the Kern High School Board of Trustees to change the name of the winter break to “Christmas vacation” and the spring break to “Easter Vacation.” The protester (the headline proclaimed, “Name Change Sparks Protest”) first set fire to a Christmas tree and several flags, then lit himself to express his displeasure at the Board’s decision. Fire Department spokesman Garth Milam indicated he “suffered first degree burns on his shoulders and arms” and received treatment in a local hospital.

Many commentators have condemned the alleged hysteria and extremism by religious conservatives who complain about the “War on Christmas,” but none of the holiday’s defenders has tried to burn himself (or herself) to death to protest less attention to the season’s religious origins. It took a militant secularist (driven to suicidal rage by the designation of a school break as “Christmas vacation”?)to give macabre new meaning to the “season of light.”

Yes, it’s a sad story and the perpetrator is probably insane but the incident still illustrates a point I’ve made repeatedly on the radio show: in today’s battle between America’s religious majority and a beleaguered (and tiny) secularist minority, there’s far more extremism, intolerance, militancy, aggressiveness and even insanity on the secular side. The “separationists” and non-believers feel threatened by religiosity, and compelled to attack it, in a way that the faith community seldom feels menaced by atheism or secularism. The reason for the greater tolerance from religious believers is simple but profound: if we’re wrong about God’s existence, the long-term consequences are insignificant, but if atheists are wrong in their non-belief the impact on them could be substantial and, in fact, eternal.

In contrast to our Muslim counterparts, Christians and Jews don’t observe our holiday seasons by attempting to secure heaven through suicide or self-mutilation, but a secular-minded lunatic just lit himself ablaze in order to protest even the slightest, most subtle reminder that he might face even more painful flames in the future.

Why should Americans view Jimmy Carter with affection or respect?

Why would anyone who remembers the devastating impact of his presidency give serious consideration to his opinions on any subject in foreign or domestic policy?

An alarming survey suggests that a plurality of the public now considers Carter an “above average” President –in stark contrast to George W. Bush, considered “below average” by an overwhelming margin. Bush, however, won a decisive victory when he ran for re-election (the first candidate to win an outright majority in 16 years – since his father’s triumph in 1988), while Carter lost to Reagan in a landslide of historic proportions – even handing Republicans control of the Senate (with a staggering gain of 12 seats!) for the first time in 26 years.

The voters rejected the former Georgia governor based on his catastrophic record, not to mention his sanctimonious, priggish, insufferable personality. In his notorious “malaise speech,” Carter blamed the people themselves, not government missteps, for the nation’s economic and energy problems. Scandals among his top aides (Hamilton Jordan and Bert Lance, prominent among them) demonstrated the appalling incompetence of the White House staff (well-documented in the critically acclaimed 1979 book, THE SHADOW PRESIDENTS, by a young political writer named…. Michael Medved). In 1979 alone, Carter participated in three of the most devastating defeats of the entire Cold War – the removal of the Shah of Iran and the installation of the murderous, Islamo-Nazi regime of Ayatollah Khomeini and the mullahs; the takeover of Nicaragua by the Sandinista Communists; and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Worst of all, Carter (with both houses of Congress dominated by overwhelming Democratic majorities!) presided over the worst, most painful economic crisis in the nation’s post-war history: complete with 21% mortgage interest rates, 12% inflation rates, and unemployment above 8%.

No wonder that the voters turned against him, handing victory to Ronald Reagan even in die-hard “blue states” like New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and California (his overall electoral vote margin was a staggering 489 votes to Carter’s 49).

If Carter qualifies as an “above average President,” what would an “average” or “below average” president look like?

And what about Carter’s allegedly distinguished post-Presidential career?

He’s best known for building a few homes for Habitat for Humanity (very nice, but Newt Gingrich gets no credit for similar participation in the same charity) but his admirers want to forget about his typically disastrous role in arranging Clinton’s appeasement of North Korea – a diplomatic debacle which greatly facilitated Kim Jong Il’s nuclear ambitions. Of course, Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize for his reliably pro-Castro, anti-American comments but so have all kinds of fringe figures of the international left—including Rigoberto Minchu, anti-nuclear fanatic Linus Pauling and, yep, Yasser Arafat.

Now Carter’s at the center of new controversy with a book (PALESTINE: PEACE NOT APARTHEID) that Arafat himself would heartily applaud. The work is so rife with factual errors, plagiaristic “borrowings” and irresponsible distortions that even a long-term associate of the former President’s felt required to resign in disgust from the Carter Center at Emory University. In an interview last week on NPR, the former President described the Palestinian Authority (in which scores of innocent civilians have been dying in civilian, Palestinian-on-Palestinian political violence) as a “beautiful democracy” and twice praised their electoral process as “perfect.”

Considering the damage he’s done to his own country, his instinctive support for Third World “liberation movements” that threaten and blame the West, and an almost unparalleled record of incompetence and folly, it’s amazing that many unsuspecting Americans view this self-righteous fool as an elder statesman worthy of reverence.

Why, exactly, should we give respectful attention to the present preposterous opinions (“beautiful democracy”) of a disgraced (and possibly senile) 84-year-old who wants more than anything else to distract attention from the actual appalling record of his blessedly brief moment at the center of national power?

Regular listeners to my radio show already know that I proudly nurture, indeed cherish, a long list of idiosyncrasies: the single most consistent element between my life today and my earlier incarnation as a 1960’s liberal involves my refusal to conform to convention. In that regard, it’s always great to see scientific confirmation that one of my personal quirks, frequently derided by friends and colleagues, has received unexpected scientific backing from authoritative research.

Since my college years, I’ve always avoided eating anything substantial before some significant intellectual challenge – like a big exam or, more recently a speech or TV appearance. Every day, I eat next to nothing before my radio show – limiting myself to a muffin or a piece of fruit or, at most, an early morning bowl of cereal before I finish with the broadcast (at 3 PM Pacific Time). It’s always seemed to me that the hunger associated with this habit gave me an “edge” that helped my performance – and now a new study from Yale Medical School supports that idea.

According to a fascinating article in the March, 2006 issue of Nature Neuroscience, the stimulation of hunger causes mice to process information more quickly and to retain it better – in general, making them smarter. According to the researchers, humans almost certainly experience the same connection between hunger and peak brain function.

Tamas Horvath, chairman of Yale’s comparative medicine program, analyzed the impact of ghrelin, a hormone produced by the stomach lining when the stomach is empty. In extensive tests with mice, the bio-chemically “hungry” mice- mice infused with ghrelin – performed substantially better than the well fed critters with normal levels of the hormone. Dr. Horvath explained: “When you are hungry, you need to focus your entire system on finding food in the environment.” This means, he told the New York Times Magazine, “we can use the hormonal discoveries to our cognitive advantage.”

He specifically concludes that when facing “a final exam or a half-day job interview,” it makes sense to “go in mildly hungry, not carbo-loaded for endurance.” In other words, there’s a solid basis for my instinctive desire to avoid big meals before some challenging task—for avoiding dinner until after an evening lecture, for instance, in order to make sure that I give the audience my best. Dr. Horvath also theorizes that the current, well documented “obesity epidemic” among American kids has “contributed to declining test scores and other educational woes.”

He doesn’t make the connection to misguided government “feeding programs” in schools, but I can’t skip the opportunity to slam these utterly misguided abuses of federal power. For years, bureaucrats and do-gooders have justified the daily provision of federally funded “free lunches” and “free breakfasts” for disadvantaged students based on the idea that these kids fare badly in school because they’re not eating properly. The new research, however, suggests that making sure kids face their morning or afternoon classes with full bellies may actually harm, rather than help, their academic performance.

It turns out that our bodies provide their own paraphrase of my favorite quote from Dr. Johnson. “The gallows doth wonderfully concentrate the mind,” he observed. Now, it turns out, that “Hunger doth wonderfully concentrate the mind” – and that stuffing kids full of food to confront the school day may damage them nearly as much as stuffing their heads full of nonsense in the classroom.

On Sunday night we traveled across the continent at the same time we made an even more radical journey—from powerlessness to the very center of power.

As you would know from my prior forlorn account, our home lost electrical power on Thursday night and it’s still not restored. In addition to the two freezers and two refrigerators full of spoiled food, there’s the not inconsequential inconvenience of no computer access—making it a genuine challenge to keep posting these up-dates for the larger world of friends and listeners.

And meanwhile, during our attempts to soldier through the mess with candles, flashlights and fireplaces, we had scheduled a trip to Washington, D.C. (or “the other Washington” as it’s known in the environs of Seattle) to attend the President’s Hanukah Party on Monday night. Our daughter stayed with one of her friends (whose parents did the smart thing and took hotel rooms downtown, where electricity abounds) while our son stayed with our friends, the Lapins (who did the other smart thing and acquired a generator so that at least their heating system worked). Diane and I went to the airport for the red-eye to the nation’s Capitol, arriving on Monday morning…. greeted by wildly unseasonably weather that reached above 70 degrees.

During the day, we slept and showered in our hotel room two blocks from the White House, walked to an art gallery and then showed up at the East Entrance of the Executive Mansion at 5.30.

With these quick notes (dashed off on a computer at our broadcast studios, after the show) I can hardly convey the elegant, festive atmosphere provided by the lavish decorations at the President’s House… beginning with the huge strands of greenery draped down toward the big lamp under the portico. Two eight-foot-tall toy soldiers stood guard at the entrance to the East Wing—and inside hardly a surface, or mantelpiece, or wall, or corner, escaped some splash of glitter or greenery.

Two years ago, I’d received an invitation to a previous White House Hanukah Party but turned it down due to the expense and inconvenience of traveling across the country. This time, with the Bush administration counting down the months until its expiration, we resolved to take advantage of the opportunity. The President and the First Lady had invited a huge cross section of Jewish leadership – we spent time at the party talking to Alan Dershowitz (who talked of his upcoming book WHY I LEFT THE LEFT) and Daniel Pipes and Tamar Jacoby and Matt Brooks (impresario of the Republican Jewish Coaltion) and, for a few minutes, George and Laura Bush.

Among the many indelible aspects of the occasion, the food and drink stand out – since the White House went to enormous trouble to secure strictly kosher meat and chicken and fish and sushi (smoked tuna loin with jalapeno salsa!) latkes (potato pancakes), as well as red wine, champagne, and a fully stocked open bar (it’s the festive season, after all). The President’s Hanukah message sounded just the right note – emphasizing our festival as a celebration of dedication, not “tolerance” or “diversity.”

The very idea of elegant, delicious kosher food at the very center of US power overwhelmed many of the people with whom we spoke—and represented a recognition of Jewish religiosity that is unique in this great (and uniquely Christian) nation. In addition to all the other insights and emotions of the evening (more of that later, when I get the chance) I could escape the sense of the distance we had traveled as a family, and as an extended family.

Just five days ago, the world’s Jew-haters gathered at Teheran to deny the Holocaust and commit themselves to Israel’s eradication --- and here, the President (and the supremely jovial and expansive First Lady) welcomed their Jewish fellow-citizens as an integral thread in the national tapestry, offering honor and consideration and affectionate regard.

Just two generations ago, my grandparents (all of them) came to this country as immigrants and refugees --- fleeing the murderous hatred and oppression that embittered their lives (in Russia and Germany, respectively) because of their Jewish identity. Now their grandson celebrated that identity with the President of the United States, in his home. I wish I could send some of the photos to my grandparents (all of them, alas, long ago departed).

Meanwhile, it’s still Hanukah, and I must go home to try to build fires and light candles in our dark house…. But couldn’t escape taking some note of the journeys of the last forty eight hours, and the last two generations. It’s a joyous season, all right, for Christians (the birth of new light and hope), for Jews (the gift of light and rededication) and for all Americans. God bless the United States of America and those who lead this divinely favored land in these challenging times….

More reflections on the White House and its occupants when I get the chance…..

 

Those who pay regular visits to this neighborhood of “townhall.com” know that I’m fairly reliable with my daily posts on a wide variety of subjects. That’s become especially difficult in the last few days because of the windstorms that struck the entire Seattle area on Thursday night – knocking out power for more than a million homes. We lost our power shortly after ten p.m. and as of this afternoon (Sunday) it still hasn’t returned --- leaving us franticly lighting candles and building fires in the fire places to try to keep warm (the temperature outside is close to freezing). We’re conscious of our good fortune: the level of devastation in the Puget Sound isn’t anywhere near Katrina levels, of course, and our home was mostly undamaged (except for one skylight that was blown clear off the roof and which has already been repaired thanks to an excellent roofing company – Haider Construction – that advertises on my show). On Friday, I managed to drive into work (detouring around some of the huge, downed trees that blocked major roadways) and did the show and I’ve gone back into the radio studio in downtown Seattle today (Sunday) in order to use the computers and the power and to catch up on writing. Last night (Saturday, obviously) we welcomed more than 30 friends to our home for a pre-scheduled Hanukah party and the atmosphere (with every corner lit by some flickering candle) of improvisation and defiance (along with free flowing spirits, in every way) made for an especially joyful mood. Our daughter even brought seven girls from her sorority at the University of Washington (most of whom had never experienced anything about Chanukah before) and they got caught up in the spirit of celebrating this holiday of “dedication” in spite of inconvenience and minor adversity.

Two lessons suggest themselves about these days without electricity:

Most obviously, we’re reminded of the amazing power (of communication, home heating, cooking, microwaves, lights (!), refrigeration, music reproduction, computers, communication, opening garage doors, and so forth) that depends on electricity and which we take so utterly for granted. It’s impossible to avoid walking into some dark closet and instinctively reaching for the light switch – even though that’s useless at the moment. A loss of power for three days (it could be several days more before it’s returned) should be a profound lesson in the amazing opportunities, choices, conveniences and comforts that a typical American family enjoys – a standard of living unimaginable even to aristocrats of, say, 100 years ago. With electrical crews working around the clock to restore power (of a million homes in our region that lost their power, 750,000 have already been brought back into the grid), it’s a reminder of our utter dependence on the economic system that pays these guys to spend time away from their own families, to brave the cold, to compile abundant overtime in the midst of holiday season, to try to allow thousands of strangers to live safely (and comfortably) in their homes. There’s nothing like a natural disaster to remind us of the fragility of our busy lives, and the intricate webs of interdependence that make them possible.

The other lesson involves power displayed, as opposed to power denied. Between midnight and three a.m. on Thursday night/Friday morning the howling winds that struck the island on which we live reached levels close to 60 miles an hour – not hurricane force, of course, but more than enough to terrify us as we huddled in the dark, trying to sleep, listening to huge branches crashing against our metal roof or our windows. We also watched the huge trees that surround our home bent like tooth-picks by the ferocious winds; than God, none of them blew over, but neighbors suffered major damage from 100 foot high Douglas Firs knocked down and into their homes. A windstorm like any showy natural display – tsunami, earthquake, hurricane, major flood - brings a message of our puniness and vulnerability in the face of the truly awesome might of nature (or, if you prefer, God).

Yeah, I know it’s a cliché to talk about the insignificance of human beings in the face of a big blow that destroys literally thousands of beautiful, noble, sometimes ancient trees and smashes countless homes and power-lines. But as we await the restoration of our normal comforts, as we celebrate the third night of Hanukah (tonight) in our dark home, part of the dedication of the festival (yes, “Hanukah” means “dedication”) will be to keep a more clear, unwavering focus on our own tiny, modest position in the overall scheme of things – both natural and spiritual. Happy Hanukah – and Merry Christmas – and may we all cherish the natural light that’s a gift from God, as well as the precious man-made light and flame and warmth that stem from human ingenuity and cooperation.

According to a new poll sponsored by the LA Times, some 74% of respondents feel “concerned” or “very concerned” about the gap between rich and poor. As a result, Congressman Barney Frank, incoming Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, promises February hearings to explore “why some Americans are not reaping the benefits of a mostly healthy economy.”

In this context, it’s not popular to make the point that poverty (especially long-term poverty) predictably flows from an inability or unwillingness to work.

As a matter of fact, there’s a brilliant, top-secret, sure-fire strategy that can empower virtually anyone to avoid a life of poverty: get a job (yes, even a low paying job) and keep working and there’s very little chance that you’ll stay poor.

Economist Alan Reynolds (of Cato Institute) has written a new book (Income and Wealth, cited by National Review’s Rich Lowry) that includes the stunning revelation that the poverty rate among full-time, year-round workers above the age of 16 is a minimal 2.6%. In other words, if you’re over 16, and you get a full-time job, and hold it for a full year, there’s a better than 97% chance that you won’t be poor. Meanwhile, among those households that occupy the bottom rung of the economic ladder (the lowest one-fifth in terms of annual income), the majority (an astonishing 56.4%) contain no one in the home who’s working.

By contrast, the Census Bureau reports that the top one-fifth of households contain six-times as many full-time workers as the bottom fifth. In part, that’s because the low-income group contains a disproportionate number of single people, while the high-earners are disproportionately married. But it also reflects the fact that in prosperous families more people are likely to work – producing more income, and more wealth.

The dirty little secret in this economy: the more you work, the more you make. What a concept!

Of course, one of the reasons that high-earners work harder and devote more energy to their jobs is because they’re more likely to work at jobs that they enjoy. But in most cases, the only way to qualify for those enjoyable and satisfying jobs is to work with furious intensity at some point – at the beginning of your career, or in school, or by building up your business.

Conventional wisdom suggests that a gap between rich and poor indicates an unjust society, but that’s never true. Does the vastly different salary structure for a doctor on the one hand, and a bagger at a supermarket on the other, indicate some massive injustice? The medical field requires vastly greater training, skill, sacrifice and stress. If an 18 year bagger earned anywhere near the same hourly rate as an experienced, effective 50-year-old doctor, that would demonstrate injustice.

A just society doesn’t require that everyone earn similar rewards. It does require, however, that hard work should be reliably rewarded.

With this demand in mind, the statistics on poverty avoidance for full-time workers (96.4% of whom don’t count as poor) indicates the essential justice of our economic system: if you work hard, you get ahead. Maybe not as quickly as you desire, but you’ll almost certainly avoid destitution.

The startling fact that only 43.6% of our low-income households include anyone who’s gainfully employed suggests hard work may not, in every case, bring wealth but it will serve to keep you far from poverty.

On occasion, rampant political correctness leads even the most respected, mainstream publications to run articles that resemble rollicking parody.

Consider, for example, the following headlines and opening paragraphs from a recent (December 7) report prominently featured on Page 3A of USA TODAY:

“LATEST SHUTTLE CREW IS ONE OF DIVERSITY-

NASA Corps still has ‘a ways to go’

The seven astronauts on space shuttle Discovery will be undistinguishable today as they wait for liftoff clad in bubble helmets and orange launch suits, but their gear will mask a milestone: For the first time, two African-Americans will rocket into space together.

They’ll be joined on their 12-day flight by a half-Indian astronaut, making this the most diverse shuttle crew in recent years. The six crewmembers on September’s flight were white.

The composition of Discovery’s crew illustrates how far NASA has come in building an astronaut corps that reflects America…. ‘We’ve made some great strides, and this mission is an example of that,’ says former astronaut Winston Scott, an African-American who is vice president of the Engineering Sciences Contract Group in Houston. ‘But clearly there is a ways to go.’”

The article (by reporter Traci Watson) also features a little graph (this is USA TODAY, after all) under the amusing heading DIVERSITY IN SPACE, comparing “Percentage of minority groups in the U.S. population and astronaut corps.” Here, we learn the alarming news that Asians comprise 4.8% of the population at large, but only 3% of the astronaut corps! Even worse, African-Americans are 12.8% of the nation, but merely 5% of the astronaut corps. Apparently, we’re meant to feel horrified and guilty over such discrepancies.

Of course, the article never explains why anyone should worry about “diversity in space.” The miniscule number of African-American geeks who closely monitor space shuttle missions (and white space shuttle fans are just about as rare) will no doubt feel proud and inspired by the presence of two – count ‘em, two! – black astronauts on the same flight, but it’s hard to understand why this represents a significant development for the nation, for the African-American community, or for NASA. Why does the darker pigmentation of three of the seven crew members (one of the four white guys is a Swedish national, by the way) deserve recognition as a national “milestone?”

Worst of all is the suggestion that this racial representation represents “an astronaut corps that reflects America.” Does the crew reflect America in terms of education level, physical fitness, scientific background, leadership ability, or raw intelligence? One would hope not--- obviously, we need astronauts who are highly un-representative in all these significant areas. Why do we permit the suggestion that race – and race alone – determines whether or not a group “reflects America.”?

The obsessive focus on skin color as a means of classifying individuals may be well-intentioned, but it’s become an illness – an impulse to reduce truly important distinctions (values, philosophy, life experience, socio-political outlook, temperament) to irrelevancy while concentrating exclusively on the abstraction of racial identity. It tells you nothing truly significant about anyone to say he’s white (Irish or Rumanian?), or black (Jamaiican, Nigerian, Aborginal Australian, or American for 300 years?), or Latino (Cuban, Mexican, Salvadoran, or Puerto Rican?) or Asian (Chinese, Indonesian, Pakistani, or Vietnamese?). These white-black-Latino-Asian characterizations, so adored by bureaucrats and race hustlers, diminish our humanity, ignoring individual differences and life histories and shrinking people to the status of color-coded jelly beans.

Want a truly diverse shuttle crew? How about insuring representative divisions among liberals and conservatives, scientists and artists, right-handers and lefties, married and single people, faithful and atheists, pessimists and optimists, overweight and anorexic? Of course, this sort of diversity sounds ridiculous, since the only thing that matters in preparing astronauts for a journey into space is competence and the ability to work together as a team. Why should we allow an emphasis on “diversity” regarding race, when we’d never allow such insistence regarding any other categories – no matter how meaningful?

When officials say the astronaut corps has “a ways to go,” they’re not talking about excellence or ambition or achievement – they’re speaking only about race. How sad! Despite all the shortcomings and stupidities in the dubious shuttle program, we’re led to believe that NASA will have achieved nirvana if only they can insure that the racial make-up of the astronaut corps reflects the percentages in the nation at large.

Our tolerance for such inanity indicates that the whole nation has “a ways to go” before we move beyond our admittedly bigoted past and make the necessary acknowledgement that skin-color should count for nothing in space – or anywhere on earth, for that matter.

You’ve got to hand it to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: he’s managed to unite the civilized world in denouncing his holocaust denial conference in Teheran. Aside from obscene claims that the painstakingly well-documented deaths of six million innocents were faked, there’s the logical disconnect between these lies and his stated desire to “wipe out” modern day Israel. Even if he could somehow prove that the Nazi murders never took place, how does that relate to the future of another six million Jews who’ve built their homes in today’s Israel? After 120 years of intensive re-settlement, 58 years of internationally recognized independence and six major wars of self-defense, what’s the connection between bizarre Holocaust conspiracy theories and the reality of the vibrant, powerful society proud Israelis have constructed in their ancient homeland? Ahmadinejad’s denial of the rights of six million Israelis today is every bit as dangerous and offensive as his denial of Hitler’s murders of six million. .

A few months ago, in the bitter, turbulent aftermath of his Malibu Meltdown, conventional wisdom pronounced a gruesome end to Mel Gibson’s career. According to leading experts in public opinion and pop culture, no one would pay to see his movies after his drunk-driving arrest exposed his loathsome anti-Semitic attitudes.

Amazingly enough, despite some of the worst and most one-sidedly negative publicity endured by a major celebrity since the O.J. trial, Gibson has bounced back with a stunningly strong opening for his latest opus, “Apocalypto.” The film—despite a two-and-a-half hour running time that limited the number of daily showings per-screen—opened in the number one position at the box office with solid earnings of some $15 million. Among other things, “Apocalypto” now stands a real chance of qualifying as the top-grossing Yucatec-language film in history. Since it is also the only Yucatec language film in history, that actually counts as a safe bet.

Concerning the public’s unexpected embrace of all the Mayan-mayhem in Mad Mel’s maelstrom of malevolence, there are only four possible explanations:

1) Most people never heard about his anti-Semitic outburst.

Yeah, and most people never heard about Hurricane Katrina. Who are you kidding?

2) People knew about Mel’s anti-Semitic statements, but they didn’t associate him with this new film.

Right! The film’s been promoted as “Mel Gibson’s APOCALYPTO” since he’s the only recognizable name in any way associated with it.

3) People know about Mel’s anti-Semitic tirade, and they know he’s behind the film, but they embraced the project anyway because they share his bigotry.

Sorry to disappoint the energized Nazis out there, but poll-measured anti-Semitic attitudes continue to register at historic lows in the United States, and the recent election just brought to power two more Jewish Senators (for a total of 14), five more Jewish members of the House, and eight new Jewish chairs of major committees. If people are so anti-Semitic, how come no one (except for proud Jews) has noticed the recent surge in our political power?

4) People know about Mel’s outburst, they know he’s behind the movie, they condemn anti-Semitism, but they went to see “Apocalypto” anyway-- because they know it’s foolish to associate a man’s off-screen failings with the quality of his work.

Number four obviously represents the right answer, and it’s encouraging to see that consumers of American pop culture are smart enough to disassociate private-life foolishness with artistic production.

The fact that Mel’s poppa is a barking lunatic and holocaust denier doesn’t prove that “The Passion of the Christ” was anti-Semitic, any more than Mel’s drunken tirade in Malibu proves anything at all about his new film—which is brilliant, visually intoxicating, electrifying, unforgettable and unspeakably brutal. First rate art emerges all the time from reprehensible individuals—Beethoven was a louse and a grouch in his personal life, Richard Wagner was a committed, shameless Jew-hater, Tolstoy raped literally hundreds (if not thousands) of peasant girls, Picasso used and abused all the women he ever knew, T.S. Eliot drove his first wife, Viv, to the loony bin and also hated Jews, and so on and so forth.

The most serious objection to Gibson’s movie at the moment concerns not his prior expression of anti-Semitism, but the alleged hostility and distortion in his treatment of indigenous peoples. I actually believe Gibson went relatively easy on the ancient Maya – the historical record shows they were even more whacked and bloodthirsty and sadistic than the way they are portrayed on screen.

It takes singular courage for an embattled filmmaker (and celebrity) to defy political correctness by showing the arriving Europeans as rescuers and a source of enlightenment—rather than as predators and despoilers and exploiters of pure, warm-hearted natives.

In any event, his movie pulses and throbs and explodes with a life of its own – like all the most formidable works of art, cinematic and otherwise.

It’s only good news that Mel Gibson (who’s tried hard throughout his career and his personal life to be a decent collaborator and professional, husband and father, whatever his faults and shortcomings and addictions) defied expectations to connect with the public. As usual, the American people showed better judgment and more sophistication than elite opinion ever expected and embraced a fiercely original film despite the controversy surrounding its creator.

There’s an outrageous story out of Seattle (my home base) that shows the way that good intentions can occasionally produce disgusting results. Because of the prevailing climate of political correctness, a decent guy and honorable clergyman looks like a horse’s rear end and has provoked appropriate indignation from millions of people.

According to misleading news stories featured prominently in newspapers and on TV (including KING 5 TV News): “All 15 Christmas trees inside the main terminal at Sea Tac Airport (Seattle-Tacoma International) have been removed in response to a complaint by a rabbi. A rabbi wanted to install an eight-foot menorah and have a public lighting ceremony. He threatened to sue if the menorah wasn’t put up and gave a two day deadline to remove the trees.”

Who is this wretched rabbi who, apparently, wanted to spoil the holiday joy of his Christian neighbors out of pique and selfishness simply because he didn’t get the right to erect his own Hanukah display?

As a matter of fact, I know and like Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky, the now notorious clergyman at the center of this swirling controversy. He’s a good guy, a young father of five (including new-born twins), and the son-in-law of the wonderful Rabbi at the synagogue I attend each week. I know that Rabbi Bogomilsky harbors no animus whatever toward Christians or Christmas. In fact he told the Seattle Times that he felt “appalled” by the airport’s decision to remove all its Christmas trees without warning on Saturday night. According to Rabbi Bogomilsky, “Everyone should have their spirit of the holiday. For many people the trees are the spirit of the holidays, and adding a menorah adds light to the season.” According to the rabbi’s lawyer, Harvey Grad, “They’ve darkened the hall rather than turning the lights up.”

I spoke to Rabbi Bogomilsky less than a hour ago and he may join me on my radio show tomorrow to apologize to the community at large for the totally unintended consequences of his desire to include a large menorah along with the airport’s holiday decorations (according to various stories there were either 22, or 15, or 9 different Christmas trees before the airport cleared them away in the dead of night). When I asked the rabbi directly whether he would want the trees removed if the airport refused to put up his menorah he insisted, “Absolutely not.” He has no problem with the Christmas trees, which have brought seasonal joy to the airport (and provoked no complaints) for more than a decade. He would greatly prefer that the airport restore the trees – even if they fail to include the requested menorah alongside the seasonal greenery. In fact, another local rabbi and close personal friend, Daniel Lapin, has begun soliciting Jewish signatures on a petition to demand the return of the trees – and we will gladly recruit Jewish volunteers to provide free labor if that would help get the job done.

Those of us who are comfortable and secure in our own religiosity (which would surely include the rigorously observant Rabbi Bogomilsky) don’t feel threatened by public displays of faith by our Christian neighbors. Generally, it’s secular fanatics (of both Jewish and Christian background), militant separationists, who have waged war on Christmas trees, ten commandments monuments, crosses, and other benign symbols of the nation’s religious heritage.

So what went wrong with this whole miserable affair?

After two months of indecision from the Port of Seattle (the quasi-governmental agency that runs the airport) concerning the request for a menorah, the rabbi’s lawyer made the mistake (yes, it was a mistake) of threatening a federal lawsuit and the airport people panicked and ordered the removal of the trees. “We’re not in the business of offending anyone and we’re not eager to get into a federal lawsuit with anyone,” said Craig Watson, chief lawyer for the Port of Seattle. Patricia Davis, head of the Port Commission said, “We didn’t have other cultures represented and rather than scramble around to find representations of other cultures at this late date, we decided to take them down and consider it later.”

This is ridiculous, of course. “Other cultures” do not observe popular holidays at precisely this time (the Islamic month of Ramadan is over) and in thousands of public and private locations across the country the abundant, prominent and very beautiful Christmas decorations are harmlessly complemented (if hardly balanced) by menorahs.

Of course, in the current climate of hyper-sensitivity regarding public expressions of religious commitment, Rabbi Bogomilsky and Harvey Grad should have avoided the chilling, unnecessary phrase “law suit” at all costs --- even if the Port of Seattle refused to give them a timely answer on their menorah request. As a result of the threatened litigation, the whole world is witnessing a horrible situation in which the religious enthusiasm (however well intended) of one individual has led to the removal of decorations enjoyed by literally hundreds of thousands.

In addition to apologizing to those masses, and working conscientiously to restore the Christmas trees, I hope that Rabbi Bogomilsky and his colleagues in the sincere and warm-hearted Chabad-Hasidic movement in Judaism will reconsider their menorah strategy next winter. They’ve already succeeded in magnificent terms in installing some 6,000 highly visible menorahs in public places across the country (including, by the way, the Washington State Capitol in Olympia) – and even at unlikely sites like Red Square in Moscow. This is a singular, even inspriring, achievement. If, however, local authorities prove unwilling to accommodate the menorahs, it’s a terrible idea to try to force their hands by comparing our candelabra to Christmas trees or wreaths or Santa Claus effigies already in place.

Though some of my fellow Jews may howl in protest when I say so, there are strong arguments to be made against public menorahs that can’t be made against Christmas trees. It’s not just that Christians outnumber us in this society by about 40 to 1; it’s that Christmas trees reasonably can be construed as a secular symbol but a menorah (despite some prior court decisions) emphatically cannot. The eight-branched “Hanukiah” or “Menorah” that we light every year for the holiday specifically recalls the seven-branched menorah that was a sacred element in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem up till 70 A.D. Though the big menorahs with bulbs that are prominently displayed in public places are not, strictly speaking, sacramental objects (because they don’t use candles or oil), they distinctly resemble the smaller menorahs we use at home and over which we recite blessings (citing the Almighty, of course) every night of the holiday. In fact, the chief mitzvah (holy commandment) of the Hanukah holiday requires the lighting of these candelabra and reciting the blessings, so it’s deeply misleading or, at best, a stretch, to call the menorah a secular symbol. Christians do not routinely pronounce blessings or recite prayers over Christmas trees.

This doesn’t mean that I think that menorahs should come down from public places: they belong in parks and plazas and airports, shedding the light of their message, but so do nativity scenes and other holiday symbols that bear unmistakably religious trappings. When the founders prohibited “an establishment of religion” they did not mean to banish all faith-based imagery from the public square.

Nor, for that matter, did Rabbi Bogomilsky mean to banish Christmas decorations from the Seattle airport.

Spokespeople for the Port of Seattle say they’re “not in the business of offending anyone,” but when did Rabbi Bogomilsky ever say, or even imply, that he was offended by Christmas trees? As a matter of fact, he welcomes the trees, as do I, as do all people of good will – Jewish and Christian alike.

What offended the rabbi and should offend all of us is the banning of religious symbols, not their presence. The airport may not be “in the business of offending anyone” but they’ve just offended just about everyone with their stubborn, wrong-headed, and utterly misguided decision.

Should the federal government recognize a dubious religion called “Wicca” (often identified with witchcraft and earth-worshipping paganism) when it comes to honoring a dead soldier?

That’s the question raised by the family of Sergeant Patrick Stewart who gave his life for his country while fighting in Afghanistan. He was buried more than a year ago in the Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley, Nevada and his widow requested a memorial plaque with a Wiccan pentacle- a five pointed start enclosed in a circle, and sometimes associated with Satanism and witchcraft.

Ultimately, the Nevada Office of Veterans Services granted the right to install the plaque and five family and friends turned up to dedicate the memorial last week.

While I have little personal respect for Wicca—it’s a trendy, phony potpourri of druidical, primitive and New Age elements that’s more a pagan cult than an organized faith – there’s no question that a dead soldier and his family should get the right to choose their own memorial.

In this spectacularly diverse country, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has approved the symbols of 38 different faiths in military cemeteries – including more than a dozen distinctive versions of the Christian cross. Soldiers may also choose the Jewish Star of David, the Muslim Crescent, the Buddhist wheel, the Mormon angel, the nine-pointed star of Bahai, and an “atomic whirl” (like the old school book drawing of a nucleus surrounded by electrons) to honor self-proclaimed atheists.

No matter how much we might dislike Wicca/witchcraft, the Constitution leaves no room for the government to discriminate against its adherents. According to Department of Defense figures from 2005, some 1,800 active duty personnel list their religious preference as “Wiccan.” The First Amendment gives them an absolute right to do so.

Like the recent controversy over Congressman Keith Ellison, the newly-elected Muslim who plans to take his oath of office on the Koran, the issue of the Wiccan plaque in a military cemetery forces us to come to terms with the true meaning of pluralism.

In America, we enjoy a vastly more robust and vibrant religious life than Europe because of the dazzling diversity of religious expression. Free-wheeling competition insures more energetic religious faith for everyone: we’re all strengthened and energized by the wide-open, free market in religious ideas-- with government neither privileging nor persecuting any faith.

The right approach to people silly enough to proclaim allegiance to Wicca is to talk them out of it—show them the error of their ways and the superiority of the faith we happen to practice. But denying hundreds of active duty military personnel their freedom of choice in religious orientation because we disapprove of their preferences is, in the final analysis, not just unconstitutional but un-American.

Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto” is an audacious, unforgettable triumph and, undoubtedly, one of the richest, most electrifying cinematic experiences of the year. In that context it’s unfortunate that the filmmaker has coupled his brilliance as a writer-director with a display of unalloyed idiocy as a commentator on his own work.

The stupidity began in September when he spoke to an audience in Austin, Texas after an early screening of his still unfinished film. At the time, he succeeded in getting advance attention for his work by drawing parallels between the fantastically brutal and dysfunctional Mayan civilization he portrays on screen and the current political situation in the United States. “The precursors to a civilization that’s going under are the same, time and time again,” he explained. “What’s human sacrifice if not sending guys off to Iraq for no reason?”

His comments came across like an unexpected punch-in-the-nose to many of the conservatives across the country who had rallied to his defense during the furious dispute over “The Passion of the Christ,” and even pleaded for forgiveness and reconciliation in his behalf in the wake of his toxic combination of drunk driving and anti-Semitic drivel.

Nevertheless, with his film finished, ready for its Friday (December 8) release, and overwhelming audiences everywhere with its eye-popping visual splendor and relentless narrative energy, the Gibsonian interpretation of his own work has gotten, if anything, even more inane.

The official press kit from Touchstone Pictures (a division the Disney Company) quotes Gibson as saying: “Throughout history, precursors to the fall of a civilization have always been the same, and one of the things that just kept coming up as we were writing is that many of the things that happened right before the fall of the Mayan civilization are occurring in our society now. It was important for me to make that parallel because you see these cycles repeating themselves over and over again. People think that modern man is so enlightened, but we’re susceptible to the same forces – and we are also capable of the same heroism and transcendence.”

The press kit also quotes Farhad Safinia, who co-wrote the screenplay with Gibson, making similar observations: “We discovered that what archeologists and anthropologists believe is that the daunting problems faced by the Maya are extraordinarily similar to those faced today by our own civilization, especially when it comes to widespread environmental degradation, excessive consumption and political corruption.”

On the one hand, these fatuous remarks distort the situation in the United States today--far from “widespread environmental degradation,” for instance, the quality of our air and water has improved dramatically over the last thirty years, at the same time that reforestation has substantially enlarged the acreage of our already impressive woodlands.

Even more startling is the vast, unbridgeable gap between the politically correct comments by Gibson and his collaborator and the raw integrity of the film they actually made. Their observations about the “extraordinary similarity” between Mayan decadence and degeneracy and the realities of American life in the 21^st century receive no support whatever from the thrilling adventure story that unfolds in the nearly two-and-a-half hours of the final version of “Apocalypto.” In fact, their interpretation of the project bears so little connection to the film itself that you wonder not only whether they truly made the movie, but whether they’ve ever actually seen it. Nothing—not one scene, one character, one set, or one passing detail in the film – in any way echoes contemporary America, even as seen by this society’s most embittered critics. The movie contains no sequences emphasizing “environmental degradation” (unless you count a heart-pounding chase through a corn field where the stalks look somewhat withered) or “political corruption.” (The spectacle of enslaving primitive tribesmen, binding them with ropes and sticks, marching them to your capital and then slashing open their chests to rip their hearts out in human sacrifice can’t rightly be described as “political corruption”—nor does this pagan savagery connect in any way with current controversies in our society. No matter how much Mr. Gibson may disapprove of the Iraq war, it’s a stretch to suggest that sacrificial victims captured very much against their will, and after their spirited struggle (and after their village has been utterly destroyed) bear any relationship to the volunteers who chose to fight in the Middle East.

The cruel, sadistic, masochistic, deeply demented culture of the Mayas, with its self-destructive emphasis on mutilation and mysticism, slavery and superstition, emerges with conviction and flair on the screen but will cause no one to think, “Oh, wow, that really reminds me of New York and LA!”

So why would a brilliant artist like Mel Gibson insist on ludicrously describing his masterpiece as a commentary on today’s social, cultural, political problems, when no sane viewer of his picture would note or even suspect those messages?

Perhaps Gibson is so eager to transcend the humiliation of his drunk driving incident, and to bury the lingering suspicions that “The Passion” (despite its huge commercial success) was a right-wing, hate-filled screed, that he’s saying stupid things that he believes will endear him to the “progressive” Hollywood establishment.