SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET:  

I'M SO MOVED – FROM TOWNHALL:   After decades of ignoring, embracing and enabling rampant sexual abuse in Hollywood, some of its biggest male (and female) stars plan to wear black at Sunday's Golden Globe awards as a protest against Harvey Weinstein and those like him.   Male actors have decided to join forces with their female peers who will protest sexual harassment by wearing black to the 2018 Golden Globes.  A number of high profile actors including Dwayne Johnson, Tom Hiddleston and Armie Hammer will sport black on the Globes red carpet according to their stylist Ilaria Urbinanti.  After receiving many questions on the matter, Urbinanti took to Instagram to confirm the fashion news.  “YES the men WILL be standing in solidarity with women on this wearing all-black movement to protest against gender inequality at this year’s Golden Globes. At least ALL MY GUYS will be,” celebrity stylist Ilaria Urbinanti wrote last week on Instagram.    I'm sure all these fine folks are just so sincere, and so concerned, and never knew anything of the foul deeds within the industry.   They also own a bridge in Brooklyn they'd like to sell you.

LET US REMEMBER – FROM REAL CLEAR DEFENSE:   SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A San Francisco Bay Area man who survived the infamous 1942 Bataan Death March and symbolized the thousands of unheralded Filipinos who fought alongside American forces during World War II has died. He was 100.  Ramon Regalado died Dec. 16 in El Cerrito, California, said Cecilia I. Gaerlan, executive director of the Bataan Legacy Historical Society, which has fought to honor Regalado and others. She did not have a cause of death.  “He really embodied the qualities of the greatest generation and love for country,” she said.  Regalado was born in 1917 in the Philippines. He was a machine gun operator with the Philippine Scouts under U.S. Army Forces when troops were forced to surrender in 1942 to the Japanese after a grueling three-month battle.  The prisoners were forced to march some 65 miles (105 kilometer) to a camp. Many died during the Bataan Death March, killed by Japanese soldiers or simply unable to make the trek. The majority of the troops were Filipino.  Regalado survived and slipped away with two others — all of them sick with malaria. They encountered a farmer who cared for them, but only Regalado lived.  A man who truly walked the walk, along with his Filipino and American comrades. 

THE GRIM RECORD – FROM THE LATIN AMERICAN HERALD TRIBUNE:  MEXICO CITY – Mexico is closing out 2017 – tied with Syria – as the world’s most dangerous country for journalists, with 12 reporters murdered during the year, the highest yearly total in its history.  Twelve journalists also were killed in wartorn Syria during 2017.  Although Reporters Without Borders (RSF) registered a global decline in crimes against reporters in 2017, with the year being the least deadly for journalists in the last 14 years, Mexico stood out as an exception with a rising trend of killings.  Of the 65 journalists killed worldwide in 2017, 12 died in Mexico, where drug traffickers and organized crime threaten, extort, attack and execute journalists who report on their criminal activities.  According to RSF, Mexico and Syria both had 12 reporters killed this year, followed by Afghanistan with nine and Iraq with eight.   Remember this story when American journalists tell you that President Trump is such a threat to freedom of the press. 

January 1, 2018