Charlton Helston has died.

It was 48 years ago yesterday that Ben Hur swept the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Mr. Heston was a long-time political activist:

In his earlier years, Heston was a liberal Democrat, campaigning for Presidential candidates Adlai Stevenson in 1956 and John F. Kennedy in 1960. A civil rights activist, he accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights march held in Washington, D.C. in 1963, even going so far as to wear a sign that read "All Men Are Created Equal". Heston later claimed it a point of pride that he helped in the civil rights cause "long before Hollywood found it fashionable", as he often says in his speeches. Heston had also planned to campaign for Lyndon Johnson, but was unable to do so when filming on Major Dundee went over schedule.

More...

This fellow needs a bit more training:

An Air National Guard jet mistakenly dropped a 22-pound, nonexplosive practice bomb on an apartment complex in Tulsa, damaging the foundation, but no one was injured, the police said.

From all of us at TalkLeft to everyone in the Blogosphere and Blogtopia (yes, Skippy coined that phrase)and to all our readers, we wish you a very happy holiday.

I'm not sure about Big Tent or TChris, but I'll be blogging lightly tonight through Christmas, so if you're online, please stop by and say hello.

And yes, this is an open thread, all topics welcome.

It never fails. Every year around this time I find myself surfing around, looking for something different, something with a human touch to read. I always find it. Here's this year's story, The Gift, from Sunday's New York Times.

As a former drug addict cares for his dying mother, an unexpected bond is formed from their sometimes tortured relationship.

Very poignant, very sad, but touching.

Update: I found another story, about a judge who took a gamble on a teen who killed a neighbor who had insulted his mother. He put him in a juvenile facility for 7 years rather than sentencing him as an adult. The gamble paid off.

More....

Update: It's over. The guy surrendered. NY Times report here. The suspect has been identified as Leland Eisenberg, in his 40's, with a history of mental illness and previously known to authorities.

Update (TL): Live video news coverage here. Web coverage at WMUR. The Clinton Campaign has released this statement. There may still be two hostages.

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A man claiming to have a bomb strapped to his body burst into Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign office in Rochester, N.H., today and took at least two volunteers hostage, New Hampshire television stations reported.

"There is an ongoing situation in our Rochester, NH office. We are in close contact with state and local authorities and are acting at their direction," the Clinton campaign said in a statement.

The campaign confirmed to Manchester's WMUR that two workers were taken hostage. The report quotes a witness who said a woman and her baby were released by the hostage-taker.

William Saletan of Slate has received warranted and almost universal ridicule for his pathetically bad series on race, intelligence and IQ. But I got a chuckle from this from him:

Why write about this topic? Why hurt people's feelings? Why gratify bigots? Because truth matters. . . .

Heh. Saletan imagines himself able to hurt feelings. Sorry, we do not think enough of you to be hurt by you sir. You simply made a fool of yourself. As for being the holder of the truth, please stop embarrassing yourself.

How do you stay enthusiastic after three big losses in a row? I can't. What do I conclude? The Red Sox play better baseball.

It's hard to call the Rockies 21 game winning streak a fluke. Maybe they just choked with the national attention and hoopla over their getting to the series at all. Woody Paige in the Denver Post writes:

What are you going to do? The rest of the country is amused. We must laugh, too....And the really good news: We still live in Colorado.

The game is only in the 5th inning and the Rockies could win tonight. But that might just prolong the agony. On the other hand, there's something to be said for positive thinking.

Go Rockies!

This is the front page of today's Rocky Mountain News (larger version here.)

Will the home team advantage kick in? I hope so. Game updates at the Colorado Rockies website and MLB.com

Go Rockies!

The Colorado Rockies face the Boston Red Sox in Boston tonight at 8:20 pm ET. The game is being aired on Fox.

Updates at the Colorado Rockies website and MLB.com

Go Rockies!

Laugh of the day....former FEMA chief "Heckuva Job, Brownie" Michael Brown has sent out a press release announcing he's available for interviews on the California wildfires.

Michael D. Brown, Former FEMA Director and Current Director of Cotton Companies, one of the leading disaster preparedness and restoration organizations in the nation, is available for comment regarding the wild fires that are devastating Southern California.

.... Mr. Brown can speak to the turmoil being caused by the California wild fires as well as to some of the new processes in disaster relief efforts that will help to restore California communities. He can offer advice to residents and businesses on proper relief and recovery efforts and provide suggestions for future disaster preparedness.

Even the Wall St. Journal was surprised.

Related: Check out the You Tube videos on the fires at Voices of San Diego.

The Southern California fires are all over the news. Every time I see hear the words "the Santa Ana winds" I start thinking about writer Joan Didion (who just happens to be my favorite author) and how she captured the phenonemon with such great imagery in Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968), her book about Haight Ashbury during the summer of 1967.

To give you a flavor, I've tracked down some of what she wrote and quote below: