HANUKKAH LIGHTS: Renewed debate over a proposed...

HANUKKAH LIGHTS: Renewed debate over a proposed school prayer amendment has sparked concern among Orange County Jews, who observe the start tonight of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. . . . Rabbi Bernie King of Irvine’s Congregation Shir Ha-Ma’alot is also uncomfortable with seasonal religious observances in public schools, “unless you include all the winter celebrations--then you can have very rich public school experience that’s pluralistic and involves everybody.”

MAKING WAVES: Some may say Only in California , but a group of wetlands preservationists plan to put their surfboards on the line for their cause. Surfrider Foundation will join a Dec. 10 protest along Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach. Members are against the Koll Real Estate Group’s major housing development proposal for a section of wetlands there. . . . Hundreds are expected to line PCH with their surfboards--not to block traffic, but to demonstrate against the Koll project. County supervisors are expected to consider it next month.

LINE OF FIRE: Republican victories in the Nov. 8 election have conservative columnists gleefully boasting about political changes they foresee. Among them: the urbane, erudite William F. Buckley, syndicated columnist, author and host of TV’s “Firing Line.” And he’s found a sympathetic audience in Orange County for his thoughts. Buckley is scheduled to speak Thursday night at the National Assn. of Industrial and Office Properties meeting at the Hyatt Regency Irvine.

NOBLE CAUSE: Few know more about books than the people at Barnes & Noble. They’re helping build a library for Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Drop off used books for young people at its six local bookstores--or Bookstar stores in Brea and Tustin--and they’ll see that they go into the new hospital library. . . . Once established, CHOC plans a program of trained volunteers to read to the children in their hospital rooms.