Topic - Ebenezer Scrooge

• Britain marks Charles Dickens' 200th birthday

  He wrote about life in the modern city, with its lawyers and criminals, bankers and urchins, dreamers and clerks. He created characters still known to millions _ Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Pip and Miss Havisham, Fagin and Oliver Twist. And it made him a star, mobbed by fans on both sides of the Atlantic.

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  Dickens seen as a man of today 200 years later

  He wrote about life in the modern city, with its lawyers and criminals, bankers and urchins, dreamers and clerks. He created characters still known to millions — Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Pip and Miss Havisham, Fagin and Oliver Twist. And it made him a star, mobbed by fans on both sides of the Atlantic.

• Philadelphia celebrates Dickens' 200th birthday

  Past the glass case containing sketches for his novel "Oliver Twist," beyond the handwritten letter to his publisher about Little Nell, and away from the first published installments of "Hard Times" sits Charles Dickens' pet bird.

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  LAMBRO: Reorganizing deck chairs on U.S. Titanic

  President Obama's puny election-year plan to consolidate a handful of government agencies and programs is about three years and $4 trillion too late. With America's jobless rate stuck at a few tenths below 9 percent and his dismal job approval polls in the mid-40s - the equivalent of a failing grade - Mr. Obama is attempting to impersonate a budget cutter. He's fooling no one.

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  GOLDBERG: Gingrich the compassionate

  Newt Gingrich wants to pay poor kids to clean toilets. And all of the right people are horrified. The Nation says Mr. Gingrich is running on "a platform that seems to have been written by the unreformed Ebenezer Scrooge." The editors of the Newark Star-Ledger proclaim he wants to "bring back the days of Oliver Twist." The host of "Meet the Press," David Gregory, suggests Mr. Gingrich's take on the inner-city poor is a "grotesque distortion."

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  'Toughest sheriff' holding caroling contest for pre-trial prisoners

  The self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff" in America, Phoenix's Joe Arpaio, who cranked up his Christmas music machine for inmates last month, has scheduled a caroling contest for interested pre-trial prisoners - with the winner to receive a "real Christmas dinner for himself and his cell mates."

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  FEULNER: A hand up, not a handout

  Whose job is it to help those in need? Some say it's the government's. That's certainly the view of Ebenezer Scrooge. When asked to contribute to the poor, he responds: "Are there no prisons? And the union workhouses? Are they still in operation?" Substitute "welfare checks" and "food stamps," and you find the same attitude prevails today: Let Uncle Sam handle the problem.

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  The List: The many faces of Scrooge

  Here's the many ways "A Christmas Carol" has been brought to movie and television screens over the years.

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  INNES: Netherlands' tragedy of state compassion

  Even young Mick Jagger, bless his heart, could see that it's hard getting old.

• Taking Names

  Aiken performing badly

• Executive pay brouhaha

  No one has the least idea how much money a corporate chief executive deserves to earn — is that the word, "earn"? — but if you don't hear a campaign issue starting to crackle and sizzle, you just aren't listening.

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