should they be bracing for? well, you have to prepare for the unexpected and expected or the probable or the possible. it s such a tenuous situation and things are changing on a dime. you never know what will cause an extended burst of emotion or some immediate response. even from, you know peaceful law abiding protesters you know when you have a group of people who congregate in one particular area and have some impact on the flow of traffic or commercialism in that particular area it s necessary to have a police response so you want to be overprepared as opposed to under prepared as they were on friday i mean op the first day of disorder when the young people let out of school. they were a bit caught off guard. you don t want that to occur again. you would rather ber prepared for events. mark claxton, thanks very much for joining us. thank you, wolf.
it or not, the beloved christmas special is now in its 50th year. do you realize that special has been around all most 50 years. you are making me feel old. reporter: that s right. charlie brown turning the big 5-0. good grief. charlie brown feels depression trying to find deeper meaning to life. i won t let all this commercialism ruin my christmas. reporter: tv historian says interestingly the special known for frowning on the commercialism of the holidays was sponsored by coca-cola. check out the now deleted scene of linus running into a coca-cola sign and look at original closing credits. popularity of a charlie brown christmas spawned dolls, toys and above all, charlie brown christmas trees. what do you call it? charlie brown christmas tree. blanket around it. you knew that was linus blanket. of course. for adults and kids alike, the magic of the special comes
what is today all about? if you poll americans, what do they say christmas is all about? i think they might get in the word giving, which is good. it s the beginning of it. i don t tend to jump on the whole war on christmas thing and, yes, there s plenty of commercialism. i ve been humming christmas carols and seeing people giving. it s the time of year that people are giving in service and giving in charitable dollars. there s a lot of good that happens despite all the craziness. is it fair to say not too much of a departure to say in this country, christmas isn t necessarily a religious holiday. right. right. and even for many folks that happen to have the days line up or kids are off from school, it can tend to be the vacation, the family vacation maybe they ll squeeze in. one year i actually did a chaplain on a cruise ship. and it was over christmas. they needed a priest there. and i was like, this is christmas. so you are right that it does. i think so many people, even if
reverend michael fauker in. it s great to have you with us. you want a christmas gift from me? i know you re surprised. let s talk about anything that you three want that you believe doesn t, that doesn t get enough attention especially on christmas, okay? i ll start with you reverend. what do you want to talk about? sometimes the harder the christmas message gets lost. the reason for the season. amidst the commercialism and the whole dialogue on the war on christmas. at the heart it s about the eternal invisible god becoming a human being, identifying with the poorest and the most marginalized, the most invisible. i feel like in the war on christmas, what we focus on are the externals of things. what is the war on christmas, reverend, help me. the war on christmas is where everything is materialized about stuff? materials and stuff and the
their children, even out of towners. it was very well received. well received. people were coming to see it. obviously those that worked there felt good about it being up but the freedom from religion foundation had this statement directed right at you. how would brooks feel if his local government put up a sign saying happy birthday muhammad, we love you. your response directly back to them. there was an article in the paper about this issue, and it quoted a muslim cleric, courtney muhammad, and he indicated he and his people had absolutely no objection to this assignment actually they said they had some objection to the santa claus sign because they felt it supported commercialism, materialism. but even the muslim community indicated they absolutely had no objection to this sign. as far as something else, if the guys wanted to put up a menorah, star of