Thanksgiving Dinner

Young Chang George and Sue Crisp packed in everything from a Sunday sermon and a glimpse into North Korea to a trip to the Blue House (equivalent to our White House) during a trip to South Korea that ended in October. A reverend at Newport Beach's Christ Church by the Sea, George Crisp was one of 22 Christians with the Western Jurisdiction Korean Mission Tour who visited Korea to get acquainted with foreign Methodist churches. He and his wife stopped in on several religious institutions and places of worship, including the Korean Methodist Theological Seminary, a church in the city of Inchon and a smaller church on the island of Cheju.

LOLITA HARPER It was not the place I necessarily wanted to be on Thanksgiving Day. At work and in the middle of a soup kitchen, where the down-trodden would come for a cafeteria-style dinner before going back to their motel, shelter or "campsite," for lack of a better term. I stood in the corner for a long time, just watching the scene -- the volunteers working the soup line, the long rows of tables seating various people of all ages and ethnicities.

The time to act is now if you, your family, club, church, youth group, school class or business would like to adopt a family for the coming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Even with this great economy, there are still less fortunate people who live in our communities and need help. If you adopt a family for Thanksgiving, you would provide a Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings. For Christmas, it would be not only dinner, but a toy or two for each child in the family.

Stephen Santacroce Thanksgiving is a truly American holiday, one that recognizes the hardships our forefathers bore to establish the groundwork of freedom that would become the foundation of our democracy. The focus of Thanksgiving (besides football) is a feast that traditionally celebrated the bounty of the harvest. Many of us have fond memories of the family meal, from dad carving the turkey to the oohs and aahs of relatives as mom breathed a sigh of relief that the marathon of cooking was at an end. Well, mom will be happy to know that the Thanksgiving feast can be enjoyed with much less effort, as many of the area's finer restaurants have special menus that will satisfy even the most traditional diner.

Stephen Santacroce Thanksgiving Day is one week from today, and I'm sure many readers have already planned an elaborate feast celebrating this truly American holiday. It's no wonder Thanksgiving centers around food, settlers in the East found the winters in New England quite harsh, and the Pilgrims had plenty to be thankful for in a bountiful harvest that would prevent them from starving during the long, cold months ahead. Now I'm sure none of us are worried about starving through the winter (just ask the health club marketing people)

Over at Pacific Investment Management Co., the world’s largest bond fund manager (better known as Pimco), they have a particular keen insight into how bad the economy’s ailing. So the gang recently aimed to raise $25,000 for the Orange County food bank. They did better than that. Together the staff raised $34,000 by each “adopting” a box of food for $25. The county’s adopt-a-box program pays for Thanksgiving dinner for a family of four. The Pimco employees raised so much money the food bank used it to buy food and deliver it to Pimco’s Newport Beach headquarters.

2 UCI professors win Fulbright grants UC Irvine professors Alison Brysk and Gene Tsudik have won research grants in the Fulbright Scholar Program, a U.S. State Department-sponsored program that funds study projects abroad. Brysk, a political science professor, will serve as visiting chair in global governance at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Canada. There, she plans to work with an international team to compare human rights foreign policy efforts by Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Japan and South Africa.

The eldest son of the late President Ronald Reagan said Friday at a political conference in Newport Beach that he wanted to unite conservatives under the values of his father. “Everyone is talking about my father, but they’ve gotten away from what he stands for,” said syndicated conservative radio talk-show host Michael Reagan, at a news conference for the Western Conservative Political Action Conference. “My father made friends out of enemies and changed the world.

Is it possible? Could an entire year have gone by since the last extremely significant November dinner? Apparently it is, and it has, as hard as that is to believe. Yes, it is time to get that chubby little bird in the oven once again. If you don’t know the history of Thanksgiving by now, there is no more I can do for you. As far as the first T-Day goes, we have covered the where: Plymouth colony; the who: Pilgrim settlers and Indian neighbors; the what: turkeys, the wild kind, seafood by the boatload, lots of deer, loads of vegetables, fruits and nuts.