JIMMY CARTER, 100: Flags are at half-staff today to honor former President Jimmy Carter, a Georgia peanut farmer who rose to be leader of the free world and one of the most decent men ever to occupy the Oval Office. He died yesterday at age 100 after nearly two years in hospice care.

  He said in his 1975 book, “Why Not the Best?”; “We have a tendency to exalt ourselves and to dwell on the weaknesses and mistakes of others. I have come to realize that in every person there is something fine and pure and noble, along with a desire for self-fulfillment. Political and religious leaders must attempt to provide a society within which these human attributes can be nurtured and enhanced.”

  Carter was the 39^th President, famously a one-term Democrat whose tenure was mired in economic turmoil and the Iran hostage crisis who lost his bid for re-election to the sunny promises of Ronald Reagan and his lasting question to the electorate; “Are you better off now that you were four years ago?”

  Carter’s wife Rosalynn, a childhood friend and his wife of 77 years, pre-deceased him in 2023.

  Carter came to Washington as an outsider intent on reforming Washington and was quickly greeted as what he was in the insular city … an outsider … but he got things done. He brought peace between Israel and Egypt with his Camp David Accords, signed a nuclear arms deal with the Soviet Union, and formalized diplomatic relations with China. Over the objection of conservatives, he turned over the Panama Canal to Panama. 

  But Carter was unable to turn around a flagging economy and win freedom for 53 Americans held hostage by Iranian militants in time to win re-election.

  After leaving office in 1981 Carter became what many considered the best ex-president the country’s ever had. He established the Carter Center to promote peace, fight disease, and combat social inequality. He became a freelance diplomat traveling the globe, sometimes irritating and undermining his successors but being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

  He said of his efforts to bring peace to the world; “War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices.”

  Carter was a skilled woodworker and, as a man who once held the audience of world leaders, taught Sunday school to children.

  He broke the code of the “presidents’ club,” criticizing President Bill Clinton for his fling with aid Monica Lewinsky, and condemning Donald Trump for inspiring the January 6^th insurrection, warning that “our great nation now teeters on the brink of a widening abyss.” 

  Carter was a born-again Christian who grew up on a peanut farm with no electricity or running water. He won an appointment to the US Naval Academy and served eight years on active duty from 1946 to 1953, including with the fledgling nuclear submarine program.

  In his early days in politics, Carter was a rare elected official in the South who favored racial integration. In his inauguration as governor of his state he said, “The test of a government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few, but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who must depend upon it.” 

AIR CRASH: A South Korean airliner bound from Bangkok crashed and burned on landing in southwestern South Korea yesterday, killing all but two of the 181 people on board. Two crew members were rescued from the tail section of the plane.

  Footage of the accident shows the white-and-orange plane skidding down the runway on its belly leaving a trail of sparks before it overshoots the tarmac, hitting a barrier, and exploding into a fireball.

  There’s confusion about the cause of the accident. The tower had warned about the possibility of a bird strike, but the wheels on the Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 failed to deploy.

  Moments before the crash a passenger texted a friend to say a bird struck the plane, according to messages widely shared in South Korean media

  “Wait a minute… we can’t land because a bird (or birds) caught in our wing,” the passenger said at 9 am local time Sunday on a Korean messaging platform, KakaoTalk.

  “Since when?” the other person asked.

  “Just now… Should I leave my last words?” the passenger responded before contact was lost.

THE OBIT PAGE: Dayle Haddon, the dark-haired model and actress who once peered alluringly with her green eyes from the covers of Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Vogue, died of carbon monoxide poisoning over the weekend at her daughter’s home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She was 76.

 Emergency responders found Haddon’s body at around 6:30 am in a second-floor bedroom as well as a 76-year-old man … the father-in-law of Haddon’s daughter … passed out on the first floor. Investigators say there was a leak from the heating system.

  Haddon was one of the top models in the 1960s through early 80s. She bucked the fashion world continuing to work for years beyond age 38 when she was told she was done. 

THE SPIN RACK: Two sailors in the 628-mile Sydney to Hobart yacht race were killed in separate incidents over the weekend when they were hit by swinging booms. Both yachts dropped out of the race.  — Belgium starting on January 1 will become the first country in the European Union to ban the sale of disposable electronic cigarettes. Belgium’s health minister said the cheap e-cigarettes have become a health threat because they are an easy way for teenagers to get hooked on nicotine.  

BELOW THE FOLD:  Two Oregon men were found dead of exposure in a Washington state forest after they failed to return from a trip hunting for Sasquatch.

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