Today, tomorrow and Friday, I'm posting my three favorite Christmas videos. Actually, this one — designed by R.O. Blechman and animated by Willis Pyle — doesn't mention Christmas so it's probably a treacherous, secular attack on the holiday…

If you read only one article to which I send you this week, read David Frum on what's happened to his beloved Republican party. It's the best theory I've read that explains the clamor for Donald Trump.

And as a sidebar, read this New York Times piece which says that an analysis of Trump's economic proposals shows that they will — get ready to be surprised — make the super-rich super-richer and add trillions of dollars to the debt. If you've just read Frum, you've seen him say that this is exactly what Trump supporters don't want from him.

And if you want to read one more piece that fits into this mosaic, read Peter Beinart on why he believes that regardless of who wins what in which upcoming elections, America is moving to the left and that can't be stopped.

Longtime comic book artist Don Perlin has some serious medical problems. He's had a couple of operations — one today, I think — on his head. Unless you're a great surgeon, there's nothing you can do about that but you can help out with the serious problem of his bill at a rehab center not covered by whatever insurance he has.

The comic book industry often does not take care of the people who filled the pages for years, often for terrible money. Fortunately, there are folks like Clifford Meth who care about these folks and often come to their aid. Cliff has set up this page for donations to help Don out. Go over there, learn more about the problem and give whatever you can give. This is a particularly good time of year to do things like that and it shouldn't matter that you don't know Don. I don't know Don either but I'm pitching in.

One of the interesting things to observe on the political scene is how utterly lost so many of the pundits are. Predictions are usually based on precedents and saying things like, "No candidate has ever scored more than 23.5% in the Iowa Caucus unless he or she ate fried chicken and hush puppies at Granny's Home Cooking in West Corning before the election." Ah, but in a World of Trump, so many things have occurred that defy precedents that we're all in uncharted territory. That's why you keep reading or hearing folks saying, "Trump's lead will surely plunge by December 1" — and then it doesn't plunge.

I still think Trump's lead will wither once we get to the point of actual human beings casting actual votes for him. I think he'll underperform in Iowa and maybe New Hampshire and that'll ruin his whole "I'm inevitable" act. But I have to admit I don't have a whole lot of confidence in anyone's predictions, including mine. The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that many things have yet to happen that will turn this election inside-out, upside-down and in new directions no one can foresee. (I do however refuse to believe Trump has a real chance until Nate Silver says he does and he doesn't…yet.)

Another interesting (and I don't mean that in a good way) thing that is happening with this contest is that a lot of heretofore-hidden racism and religious bigotry are bubbling to the surface. The ascent of Obama caused me to be surprised at a lot of acquaintances suddenly saying — in carefully-coded ways — that it was just wrong for a non-white guy to be president, especially since he obviously wasn't Christian no matter what he said. I don't believe that everyone who supports Trump is like that but he's sure convinced me there are a lot more of them out there than I thought. And that I didn't know certain people I thought I knew as well as I thought I knew them.

Examples of actors performing in musicals whose voices were dubbed. Actually, a few of these aren't dubbing; they're actors lip-syncing to already-recorded tracks by others — but you get the idea…

If you're not sick of hearing Kliph Nesteroff talk about comedians — and I'm not — here's a radio interview he did last July when comedian Jack Carter died. I never found Carter to be that funny and in most of our encounters, he struck me as a man perpetually angry that he didn't get every job he thought he should have had — as if anyone in show business ever does. But Kliph's right about the guy's importance in the history of comedy.

I feel sorry for Steve Harvey, a very talented comedian and — as you can see if you ever catch him on the current incarnation of Family Feud — a pretty good game show host. As you've probably heard, last night in emceeing the Miss Universe beauty pageant, he identified the wrong lady as the winner and then had to go out and correct the error in a very awkward, cringe-inducing moment.

To his credit, Mr. Harvey took full responsibility for the mix-up and displayed the card he'd been handed which had the names right. Some sources are saying today that what happened was this: The decision was both on the card and on a TelePrompter and it was wrong on the latter, which is where he read it from. Either way, it still looked awful — especially because Miss Colombia, who had just been erroneously crowned, was standing there looking stunned and hurt and baffled throughout. Someone came over, took the crown off her head and then placed it on the actual winner, Miss Philippines.

Everyone understands mistakes get made and it seems to me Harvey is taking the full rap when he's maybe more deserving of about half. The minute he said the wrong thing, others on the premises knew it and no one immediately stopped the celebration and crowning of the wrong woman.

I believe the Academy Awards telecast is always on guard for someone reading the wrong name and has a planned procedure to halt the proceedings before the wrong "winner" gets up to the stage and launches into their acceptance speech. In live TV, you can't be expected to anticipate everything that can go wrong but you can cover a few obvious possibilities, this being one of them.

Of course, what would have been wonderful is if Miss Colombia had not looked so hurt and had instead taken the crown off her own head, turned around and personally put it on Miss Philippines and congratulated her. Today, everyone would be saying that was the height of classiness and that Miss Colombia had won the night in that regard. But it was all so confusing and wrenching up on that stage, you can't fault the miscrowned runner-up for not thinking to do that. Some people think she should have crowned Steve Harvey.

And of course, people are saying that it all proves that pageants like Miss Universe are stupid and irrelevant — and while I believe they are, I don't think this proves that. The rest of the show probably proved that but this didn't. Alas, what the screw-up will prove to some people is that it's dangerous to do Live TV and that everything should be recorded in advance so editing is possible. I hope it doesn't convince anyone of that but it probably will.

Got an hour to listen to John Cleese? Here's a recent interview and one of the better ones…

My pal Kliph Nesteroff hand-delivered my copy of his new book, The Comedians, to my home to give me something to read while my knee was getting better. I love what I've read of it but I haven't finished it because I keep spending time to listening to great radio interviews he's giving. He was on recently with another pal, Paul Harris, for a 44-minute chat that you won't want to miss if you're anywhere near as interested in the history of comedy (especially stand-up comedy) as I am. Here's where you can hear it.

Jonathan Chait discusses how the arguments of the Climate Change deniers have had to change. It used to be they insisted the climate was not changing. Now, they kinda have to argue that it is changing but nothing human beings can do can stop it.

Here's my question: If nothing can be done to stop it, shouldn't we now be spending tons o' dough to relocate homes, build dams and levees, install new drain systems, etc.? Hurricane Katrina caused over $100 billion in damages. If you'd known it was coming, might it not have been prudent to prepare better for it?

A few loose ends before I disappear for the rest of the day. Yes, I have heard from many folks that George Lucas gets a credit or two on the new Star Wars movie. The point I hope I made clear is that Mr. Lucas negotiated his deal and the sale of his property and that he did so with what I assume is a real, vetted-by-lawyers contract. Someone like Bill Finger back in the early days of comics had a "deal" forced on him — a deal that was not set down on paper and which had its terms dictated by one side. There's a big difference there.

PBS is debuting a special on composer Richard Sherman later today and it reruns a few times over the next few days. I haven't seen it but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't well worth watching.

In a gesture of fairness, I didn't watch the Democratic debate either. What I saw in clips made me think Hillary Clinton has stopped running against Bernie Sanders and is now campaigning against whoever the Republican nominee will be. I still don't think it'll be Trump but I have a hard time imagining it being any of those other folks on stage.

Some of the G.O.P. contenders are trying to rally some support with promises to outlaw Gay Marriage…or at the very least to protect the "religious rights" of those who want to shun same-sex couples or not service them in stores or such. The folks saying they can ban it might just as well be vowing to single-handedly strangle every member of ISIS or abolish all taxes. As conservative pundit Rod Dreher writes, "As a socially conservative Christian, I may not like it, but same-sex marriage is here to stay. Our side lost this battle in the culture war." The latter goal — freeing folks to act on anti-gay sentiments — might be possible but it probably won't rally voters to support a Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio so G.O.P. leaders have little interest in it.

Thanks to all of you who took the occasion of this blog's 15th birthday to donate money to it. We don't do this for the loot (since there isn't much of it) but it's always nice to feel appreciated that way. Barring late-breaking news, I'll be back here tomorrow posting at the usual pace.

Here's the video of that Live From Lincoln Center special I mentioned in the previous message. Its full title is Sinatra: Voice for a Century, which is an odd name considering that I don't think Frank's voice is heard anywhere in it. But it has some nice musical numbers in it and yes, I won my bet. They do sing "New York, New York" in it — as a duet by Seth MacFarlane and Christina Aguilera. Give it a peek…

…and by the way, does anyone know how many Bernadette Peterses there have been? I figured out long ago that as soon as one of them starts showing signs of age, they quietly retire her and bring in a new one who's twenty years younger, but I've lost track of the number of times they've done this. The one in this show must be #4 or #5 at least…

You may have heard about the data breach of Democratic voter records and a lot of accusations between the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Bernie Sanders campaign. It seems to have all been resolved and Sanders apologized in last night's debate and reportedly fired one or more someones. If you want to know what actually happened, pay no attention to all the folks who didn't have a clue but wrote about it anyway. The one guy on the 'net who seems to understand it is David Atkins.

I'm watching a Live at Lincoln Center concert right now on my TiVo, recorded last night off PBS. It's called Sinatra and it's a tribute to the man on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Now, they're telling a lot of stories about Sinatra's life and that's fine but most of the show is folks like Bernadette Peters, Sting, Sutton Foster and host Seth MacFarlane singing songs that Sinatra recorded. Seth, for example, just sang "I've Got the World on a String."

Am I the only person who's ever bothered by this kind of thing? It's like someone said, "Hey, let's pay tribute to Frank by having other people sing all his big hits!" Frank didn't write any of these songs so it's more like a showcase for the genius of Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, as well as others who composed these tunes. There's little to no trace of Ol' Blue Eyes in any of these performances.

Imagine if you went to see something billed as "A Tribute to Rex Harrison" and the show consisted of doing My Fair Lady with someone else playing Henry Higgins in a different style. What a monument to the talent of Rex Harrison that would be.

Now, Sting is singing "Witchcraft," which was written by Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman. I guess you could argue that Frank gets credit for making the song famous in the first place. You could also argue that these songs endure quite well without Sinatra's participation so maybe he was just the lucky guy who got to sing them first. (Oh, wait. Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby recorded "I've Got the World on a String" before Sinatra did. And I've got twenty bucks that says somebody sings "New York, New York," which Frank also didn't introduce, before this show is over.)

I'm probably overthinking this. It's a fine show and the little stories about Sinatra between numbers speak of his contributions to the world. But it just seems odd to me that you honor a man like Sinatra by gathering up a bunch of songs he was once known for…and removing all the Sinatra from them.

Richard B. wrote to ask…

Thank you for reposting the Mel Tormé Xmas story. I enjoyed it very much and shared it with many friends. I can well believe it is the most popular thing you have posted on your blog but I have a question. What do you think has been the second-most popular thing you have posted on your blog?

Probably my story about Larry Hagman. Also, I got an unbelievable number of hits on several of the pieces I posted about Johnny Carson upon his death but that was because several huge news sites linked to them.

But I don't track this kind of thing very closely so I can't give you any sort of real breakdown. I think I'd rather not know that a given post was or was not very popular. That's another of the many reasons I don't take paid advertising. If you do, you have to pay attention to that sort of thing.