WAR ON HANUKKAH?

Joel Stein:

Think Christmas has it bad?
You don't hear Jews complaining about the War on Hanukkah.

THERE IS A WAR on Hanukkah. I know this because, even by late last week, I had absolutely no idea it was Hanukkah.

Usually my grandmother sends a card, or the radio plays that Adam Sandler song, or one of those Chabad people in a Mitzvah tank picks me out on the street as Jewish and hands me candles, causing me to worry that I'm balding and short and my nose is too big. Apparently, disseminating self-loathing is a mitzvah.

War is a zero-sum game, so when Christmas is winning, Hanukkah is losing. Crumbling under pressure from conservatives, Wal-Mart, Macy's, Target, Kmart, Walgreens and Kohl's dropped "Happy Holidays" and brought back their "Merry Christmas" campaigns. The Seattle airport put back its Christmas trees after removing them last week when a rabbi complained. That controversy never would have happened if Gentiles simply realized that absolutely no one ever listens to rabbis. If we did, kids who went to Hebrew school would actually speak Hebrew.

Meanwhile, as Christmas piled up victory after victory, the city of Fort Collins, Colo., refused to display a 9-foot-tall menorah next to a Christmas tree in its town square. Instead, it sits in CooperSmith's Pub & Brewing. There's nothing sadder than watching a 9-foot-tall menorah drink away its pain.These should be good times for Hanukkah and the Jews. After all, the Christmas story offers nothing besides a guy who erases all our sins, but the tale of Hanukkah centers on a magical, super-efficient oil that causes an eightfold decrease in carbon emissions.

But instead of this being our year, we had the worst run-up to Hanukkah in 62 years: Iran hosted David Duke at its Holocaust denial conference; Mel Gibson got a Golden Globe nomination; Jimmy Carter equated Israeli policy with apartheid; Ehud Olmert — the least-smooth Jew since Jerry Lewis — accidentally admitted that Israel has the bomb; and the subtext of "Charlotte's Web" is that pork is irresistible.

So until the world backs off on its war against Hanukkah, we're not going to play your reindeer games. We may not have enough Mitzvah tanks, but we do have other weapons just as annoying. Until Hanukkah gets its proper respect, we're pulling our singers from Christmas albums. No more Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow.

You'll quickly find you don't have many entertainers of your own when you're at Banana Republic listening to that one Kristin Chenoweth album over and over. You have deployed your most annoying Gentiles against us: John Gibson and Bill O'Reilly. So forget Al Franken. Once we find the alley that Pauly Shore is sleeping in, he'll be singing the dreidel song outside your house. We'll force storeowners to greet you with a "Happy Hanukkah" — and not the secular version but the one with the "Ch" in front and all the accompanying spittle.

We're also going to shoot you. Us Jews hear war, we take it seriously.Because if you're going tribal, we're going tribal. And though our tribe is small and often out of shape, we're scrappy. So think twice before you spill out too much vitriol about this war on Christmas that you're winning. When the empowered convince themselves that they're under attack, they often convince themselves that cruelty to the powerless is justified.

These are the scary sugar plums that dance in Lou Dobbs' head.

I realize these are difficult times. I understand the desire to declare "our" unified Christianity in public places, to fence out the Mexicans, to fight against the luxury of Muslim free speech, to pass English-only legislation. But a great nation, as our Constitution figured out, fights its populist instincts. And uses Latin to confuse its citizens.

And if getting along means accepting a manger and not hearing "Happy Hanukkah," I'm willing to surrender in this war. As long as you realize that without those of us who don't celebrate Christmas, this nation would lose its purpose.

And the chance to have this dumb debate every year.

Though, if we keep it going for another two years, I think I can sell CBS on a claymation holiday special, with John Gibson singing about the "Island of Misfit Toupees."*

jstein@latimescolumnists.com

IF YOU'RE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION THEN YOU MUST BE PART OF THE PROBLEM

Good soldier finally defies the bad war

Tuesday, December 12, 2006


With 71 percent of the American public now opposing the president's handling of the disaster in Iraq, that Oregon maverick, Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., finally realized "the current course (of the war) is unacceptable."
With the election long over and the rejection of his party almost complete, Smith, a "student of history, particularly military history," suddenly remembered an 80-year-old Winston Churchill quote that compared Iraq to "an ungrateful volcano."
And with the ABC lights and This Week's George Stephanopoulos in his face Sunday, asking about his "dramatic change of heart," Smith allowed that, yes, he remembers "every day that I sit in the seat of Mark Hatfield."
Give Smith credit: He just illustrated the dramatic difference between sitting in that seat and actually filling it.
To compare Hatfield's storied opposition to the war in Vietnam and Smith's belated protest of the war in Iraq is a glorious stretch. Hatfield was voting against Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam policy in 1965 when that stance was both inconvenient (Bob Duncan used the issue against him in the '66 gubernatorial race) and unpopular. He condemned the administration's "consistent policy" of "misleading the American public" long before the '68 Tet offensive fixed public opinion against the war.
Gordon Smith? He sat on his hands when it mattered. He didn't search out the Churchill quotes until the Iraq Study Group laid its cards on the table. He remained quiet while life in that "ungrateful volcano" degenerated into the deadly carnage of sectarian violence, which has steadily escalated since the February 2006 bombing of the Shiite mosque in Samarra.
"I have tried to be a good soldier in this chamber," Smith explained last week. "I have tried to support our President, believing at the time of the (2002) vote on the war in Iraq that we had been given good intelligence and knowing Saddam Hussein was a menace to the world. . . . I have been rather silent on this question ever since."
Silent? "Our lives begin to end," Martin Luther King Jr. said, "the day we become silent about things that matter." But Smith was hardly quiet. Last June, he rose on the Senate floor to condemn an amendment calling for a phased deployment of U.S. troops, arguing, "As I have studied history, I have never found an instance whereby victory is won by announcing retreat."
"Al-Qaida is counting on us to go home," Smith said then. "Al-Qaida is counting on us to set a date." He invoked the terrorist group six times, and Sept. 11 once, to insist -- even at that late date -- Iraq was a test of American will in the war on terror, rather than an increasingly barbaric civil war.
There is no future, Smith said Monday, "in the crossfire of an ancient civil war. It's not our problem. It's not something we can fix. . . . That's why the American people, in their wisdom, ceased to support this conflict."
Thirteen months ago, former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., reached that very conclusion. He opened his mea culpa with the words, "I was wrong" -- in voting for a war that was sold on the basis of deeply flawed and politicized intelligence -- and hit most of the themes Smith touched on last week.
Smith said he stayed "silent" at the behest of an Oregon soldier in Kirkuk. "I believe even that soldier would now tell me to speak up, when I can make a difference," he said Monday.
A month after the election? Six months after casting the war as a referendum on al-Qaida?
"If I wanted to effect change, I had to speak now," Smith insisted. "I had a duty to speak now. The confluence of events -- the election, the Iraq Study Group, the new secretary of defense -- definitely makes it much more likely that I can effect change."
I imagine quite a few of the legendary strategists in Washington would agree with that sense of duty. Mark Hatfield just isn't one of them.


Steve Duin: 503-221-8597; 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 steveduin@news.oregonian.com http://steveduin.blogs.oregonlive.com

Auto racing loses a gentleman

Auto racing loses a gentleman
The renowned Portland racer was second in the 1962 Indianapolis 500, had 43 career top 10 finishes while winning the admiration of his peers
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
PAUL BUKER

Portland's Len Sutton, one of the greatest race car drivers of his generation and the second-place finisher in the 1962 Indianapolis 500, died in his sleep Monday morning at his Portland home.
He was 81, and his wife Anita, the love of his life for 59 years, was close by.
"He's at peace now," said Rolla Vollstedt, the Portland race car builder and Sutton's lifelong friend.
Sutton suffered a heart attack in 2004, and bouts with lung cancer and prostate problems had slowed him, but as recently as last summer, the Northwest legend was behind the wheel of the 88-year-old Vollstedt's roadster, barreling past cars on the outside lane at Sunset Speedway in Banks -- after race promoters implored him to be careful for insurance purposes.
Sutton was a popular driver known for his outgoing personality. He cheated death many times in his career, starting out in an era when drivers wore T-shirts, coveralls and flimsy leather helmets. The cars had no roll bars and could easily burst into flames.
"We weren't going all that fast," Sutton said in a 2005 interview, "but fast enough to get killed."
Sutton worked at Oregon Air National Guard as a propeller mechanic before a chance meeting with Vollstedt in 1947 at the old Union Avenue Speedway in North Portland got him hooked on racing.
He and Vollstedt dominated the Northwest roadster and sprint car circuit before they ventured into the big time. Sutton drove Vollstedt's rear-engined, Offenhauser-powered cars in the 1964 and 1965 Indy 500. The two remained close long after their racing association ended, meeting for breakfast each Friday at Bill's Steakhouse in Parkrose.
"I knew something was wrong because last Friday, he didn't make it," Vollstedt said.
Vollstedt owned cars raced by two-time world champion Jimmy Clark and notable U.S. drivers Gordon Johncock, Johnny Rutherford, and Bobby Unser but he said Monday that Sutton, in his low key way, was "on a par" with those other drivers before he retired in 1965.
While horrific racing accidents claimed the life of Oregon drivers Les Anderson, George Amick and Art Pollard over the years, Sutton survived several close calls, raced in seven Indianapolis 500s, and won United States Auto Club championship races at Trenton, Springfield and Milwaukee. Sutton had 43 career top 10 finishes.
"I guess it just wasn't my time," Sutton would say of his ability to either walk away or be carried away -- still breathing -- from numerous accidents.
Sutton crashed into a ravine trying to avoid a herd of cattle in the 1954 Mexican road race.
He was in a full body cast when Anita drove him back to Portland.
In 1961, Sutton lost his brakes chasing A.J. Foyt at Milwaukee, hit the wall, and broke several vertebrae in his back. Anita dutifully drove him home again.
He got through the inferno that took the lives of Dave MacDonald and Eddie Sachs at Indy in 1964, with Anita in the grandstands, anxiously searching the track, waiting for her husband's car to emerge from the smoke and flames.
Sutton's first appearance at Indianapolis, in 1958, was nearly his last: a wind gust flipped his car in practice. It landed upside-down and slid nearly 1,000 feet. The Indianapolis News story the next day noted, "Sutton was at first believed dead by observers on the scene."
When Sutton regained consciousness, he wondered what all the fuss was about.
"Maybe they were just looking for some headlines that day," Sutton said in the 2005 interview. "All I had was a skull fracture, a bunch of hide torn off my back and hand and a broken shoulder. It wasn't a big deal as far as I was concerned."
An ambitious young driver named Mario Andretti watched Sutton race in the late 1950s and they would become friends. Sutton's career was in its twilight when Andretti burst to stardom.
"I loved the man," Andretti said Monday. "I'm totally saddened by this. . . . I remember as a kid, seeing him in 1956, 1957, when he came to the East Coast. For some reason or another, I was always impressed by his demeanor. There was just something about him. And later on, when I got to know him, I always had a special feeling for him. He was truly, truly one of the gentlemen of our sport."
Donald Davidson, the noted Indianapolis Motor Speedway historian, wrote the introduction to Sutton's 2002 book, "My Road to Indy."
"Back then, you got the impression that race drivers were these intense, tough guys but I was amazed how truly nice a person he was when I first met Len in 1964," said Davidson, who worked Indy 500 radio network broadcasts for several years with Sutton in the booth serving "as the driver expert."

Chris Economaki, the world-famous motorsports journalist and TV commentator, said he first encountered Sutton when Sutton was racing midgets back east and Economaki was the track announcer.
"It was just amazing to me that a guy from the Pacific Northwest would be racing in New England," Economaki said. "Here was a guy who came from an era when you didn't get paid unless you earned the money. There was no salaries, no bonuses, no retainers. You got a percentage of what the car won, so as a consequence, you had to do a lot of traveling. Len had to hustle to make a living."
Economaki was impressed with Sutton's versatility.
"Most drivers had their specialties," he said of 1950s and 1960s-era racing. "There were drivers who drove midgets, or drivers who drove sprint cars, etc., but Sutton drove everything. And he drove everything well."
Economaki remembered Sutton as a skilled driver, "but he was a much nicer person and human being."
Among his numerous honors, Sutton said he was proud to be a member of the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame, joining ageless stock car racing legend Hershel McGriff and Portland sports car racer Monte Shelton, who noted simply of his longtime friend, "he was almost too nice to be in racing. You couldn't find a mean bone in that guy's body. And yet, when he raced, he was really good."
Sutton is survived by his wife and his two daughters, Christy and Hollie.
Funeral services are pending.

Paul Buker: 503-221-8167; paulbuker@news.oregonian.com

Friday the oneth

I’m still around. I have not dropped off the edge of the earth. I have just been too lazy to write. In fact, I feel remarkably well. I was engrossed with the 87th Precinct and then shifted to stories about Lew Archer and then I went on to blood, gore and mayhem with Alex Cross, to avoid watching the TV news of blood, gore and mayhem.

After the pre-Halloween party I spent half a day on a second grade field trip to an historic firehouse in Portland. Two half days with eight year olds was enough for a whole year for me.

The month of November was the wettest on record for Portland and it also included freezing temps. It’s strange to be looking forward to December and winter.

I did hear from a head-hunter so the job front does look promising. I may yet get back to work although my daily routine is acquiring a life of its own;

6:30AM Rise and shine
6:45 Wake the little princess & start to fix breakfast for the two of us
7:45 Head out the door for school
8:00 Head for the gym and my daily work-out
9:00 Return home, exercised, showered and refreshed, to read the newspaper and do the crossword puzzle.
2:00 Pick-up the little princess after spending the day reading, running errands, reading, working at the computer and reading some more.
2:30 to 4:00 Spending time with the little princess on homework, projects or reading while she works on her computer.
4:00 Wake Sue!!!
6:00 Dinner, and then it’s my TV time. Football on Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights.

This would easily change if I got gainful employment. I’m not really ready to retire.