We thank you

As America pauses today in gratitude, we join in expressing our appreciation for those who have contributed something of value in 2007 -- police and firefighters who risked their lives to protect ours, artists who expanded our vision, activists and public servants who strengthened and ennobled our society. There are, of course, too many to thank. The following are just a few of the people and institutions we believe deserve special recognition on this day.

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Father Gregory Boyle

In a city where many fret about gang violence, Boyle is a rare example of someone who actually does something about it. As the founder of Homeboy Industries, he has been offering counseling and employment to gang members for two decades -- everything from tattoo removal to catering and baking jobs. In October, he presided over the reopening of Homeboy Industries’ headquarters, which now sits on the edge of downtown, its cafe bustling with new business. Boyle is just one piece of the enterprise, but his patient devotion to his ministry has saved many lives and made Los Angeles safer and more compassionate.

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Jerry Sanders

Sanders is the Republican mayor of a conservative city, San Diego, and he’s trying to get re-elected by voters who solidly approved a ballot measure defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Nevertheless, in September, Sanders announced that he had reversed his opposition to same-sex marriage, in part because he couldn’t bring himself to tell his lesbian daughter that he considered her relationship with her partner somehow less than his. “I’ve decided to lead with my heart,” he announced at an emotional news conference. Here’s hoping that others follow.

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Sunila Abeysekera and Hollman Morris

Honored by Human Rights Watch with this year’s Human Rights Defender Awards, Abeysekera and Morris risk their lives daily pursuing basic principles of justice that most Americans take for granted. Abeysekera, director of a Sri Lanka center that documents abuses by and against the minority Tamil population in the midst of an ongoing civil war, has helped focus the world’s attention on the killings of aid workers, the abduction and “disappearance” of more than 1,000 young Tamil men and the displacement of up to 1 million people. Morris is a journalist and documentary filmmaker whose TV show “Contravia” (Countercurrent) investigates atrocities committed by all sides in Colombia’s three-way conflict among government forces, left-wing paramilitaries and the right-wing mafia. He refuses to be cowed despite false accusations by the government of President Alvaro Uribe, which has tried to silence Morris and endangered his life by linking him to leftist guerrillas.

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Gustavo Dudamel

Dudamel doesn’t start his job as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic until 2009, but he’s already an inspiration for its Young Musicians Initiative, which hopes to put an instrument in the hands of every child in the county. Now 26, Dudamel was 4 years old when he joined Venezuela’s storied Il Sistema (the System), an orchestral program that has trained hundreds of thousands of poor children. Nearly 200 of them -- members of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra -- performed here last month under Dudamel’s baton. Their world-class musicianship left audiences and critics breathless, and hopeful for the children of L.A.

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The Global Fund

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria may be the most effective humanitarian organization on Earth, funneling billions in aid from governments around the world toward fighting three of mankind’s deadliest scourges. It’s impossible to know how many lives have been saved in the five years of the organization’s existence, but the number is probably in the millions. Programs funded by the Global Fund have provided AIDS treatment to 1.1 million people and tuberculosis treatment to 2.8 million, and distributed 30 million bed nets to protect against malarious mosquitoes. The organization’s creation and success is inspiring proof of humanity’s capacity for good.

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Los Angeles Police Department

We occasionally have our differences with the LAPD -- over, say, its response to the May Day immigration rally in MacArthur Park, or its now-shelved proposal to map Muslim communities -- but we also appreciate the daily and often unnoticed acts of heroism by its officers. Two of the many who performed such acts this year are Joseph Lopes and Joseph Oyama, who saved an infant from being drowned by a mentally unstable woman in June. Their quick thinking saved the child; their negotiating skills brought the woman into custody and avoided tragedy.

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Firefighters

This fall’s wildfires were some of the worst in California history, killing at least eight people, destroying thousands of structures and burning more than half a million acres. They might have been far worse were it not for thousands of firefighters who bravely and selflessly faced the flames. Moments of heroism -- the refusal of 12 firefighters trapped on a Santiago Canyon ridge to leave for a hospital check-up, the Orange County captain who joined a chaplain and a counselor to take families to the ruins of their homes -- are too numerous to count.

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U.S. Government Accountability Office

As other federal agencies have become politicized -- the Department of Justice, the Food and Drug Administration -- the GAO has managed to remain nonpartisan in its mission as the government’s accountability watchdog. In the last year, its intrepid investigators have smuggled bomb components past airport screeners to expose security flaws, bought radioactive material from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a sting operation and revealed that the Pentagon had lost track of about half of the rifles and pistols it issued to Iraqi security forces. We thank the GAO for working to keep our government honest by exposing inefficiencies and ethical lapses.

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Sen. Chuck Hagel

The Republican senator from Nebraska has staked out bold positions on foreign policy and national security. After months of increasingly strong opposition to the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war, Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran, joined Democrats to cosponsor a resolution opposing the troop surge. And Iraq isn’t the only issue on which he has split from his party. He criticized the National Security Agency wiretapping program, called for the resignation of U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales and introduced legislation to check the FBI’s misuse of national security letters. What’s not to like?

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Steve Barr

A zealot in the best sense of the word, Barr demands attention for his 10 Los Angeles public charter schools at every conceivable opportunity. That doesn’t always make him popular -- the local teachers union doesn’t think much of him, and administrators at the Los Angeles Unified School District view him warily as well. But Barr’s schools, known collectively as Green Dot, are not only providing safe campuses and high-quality education, they are goading the LAUSD into trying to match them. That makes Green Dot an engine of progress and educational reform in a district that desperately needs such energy.

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Apple and Google

This year, Apple and Google shook up the mobile phone industry. After months of anticipation, Apple released its iPhone in June. Despite some early trouble -- notably an upgrade that turned many of the devices into “iBricks” -- Apple delivered a device with game-changing design and power that, unlike most smart phones, let users navigate the Web as they would on a laptop. And this fall, Google pulled together a coalition of manufacturers and carriers willing to open cellphones to Internet-style innovation. Although products based on new software won’t be available for a while, Google’s efforts have pushed the industry to deliver smarter and more capable phones.

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Frank McCourt

What, you say, thank McCourt? The guy who raised the price of parking at Dodger Stadium? Who put in expensive field seats that obliterated sightlines and had to replace them after fans complained? Whose ownership has extended the Dodgers’ decades-long determination never to win a postseason series? Sure, he makes it hard to appreciate him, but he dug deep to get Joe Torre, a manager who wins as reliably in October as the Dodgers lose. Torre could be the beginning of something better for the Dodgers. We thank McCourt in advance of what might be.

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Radiohead

The popular British rock band Radiohead made waves in the music industry this fall for finding a new way to sell an album. Freed from record company obligations and confident of its adoring fan base, it released “In Rainbows” online without electronic locks and let consumers pay whatever they pleased for it. The band’s faith in fans wasn’t fully justified -- by one estimate more than 60% of the downloaders were freeloaders. Still, this do-it-yourself approach is likely to be a net winner for Radiohead, in terms of dollars and fan loyalty.

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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

It’s slim pickings when it comes to state and local leaders who earned our thanks this year. And truth be told, Schwarzenegger hasn’t always been our favorite. Yet the governor has taken on big projects -- global warming, the state’s water supply, healthcare -- and has made good on his vow to work with leading Democrats. He’s won some and lost some, but he’s swinging for the fences. For that, we’re grateful.