iBrattleboro Christmas Calendar

For a few years now, Lise and Grotke of iBrattleboro.com have given us the Christmas Calendar. Some of the things displayed are sort of insider references but it's always great and every year they tweak it up a bit. This year's is here:
http://www.ibrattleboro.com/media/christmas.html

Each day opens as the month goes along. You can't cheat by skipping ahead. ;)

Each day also features an old town photo and a piece of history. It's very sweet.

Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!
Welcome Christmas, come this way!
Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!
Welcome Christmas, Christmas Day!

Welcome, welcome! Fah who rahmus!
Welcome, welcome! Dah who dahmus!
Christmas Day is in our grasp!
So long as we have hands to clasp!

Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!
Welcome Christmas! Bring your cheer!
Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!
Welcome all who's far and near!

Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!
Welcome Christmas, come this way!
Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!
Welcome Christmas, Christmas Day!

Welcome, Christmas! Fah who rahmus!
Welcome, Christmas! Dah who dahmus!
Christmas Day will always be!
Just as long as we have we!

Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!
Welcome Christmas! Bring your cheer!
Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!
Welcome all who's far and near!

Pine Sugar?

A culinary craze this holiday season is pine sugar. Meant to give a waft of tannenbaum as you bite into whatever it's riding, I can't see ever using this stuff. The SNL skit of , "It's a floorwash! It's a dessert topping!" comes to mind. Care for a dash of Pine-Sol on your pudding?

Not that I can criticize the inventor. Cooks are always looking to make something new. I've made some doozies, like chocolate-covered bacon in 1999. One of those 2 great tastes that taste great together? Not really. It seemed like a good idea at the time but my boss and co-workers quickly corrected that. I hear people actually eat it now. The maple-covered bacon was a hit, though.

I'm not huge on tree flavors, maple aside.

But these are the daring ideas that change cookery. It isn't easy to find new combos after all this time of human eating.

Me, I'm sticking with mincemeat. And yes, Stevil, I'm making mincemeat. It won't be entirely a White Trash Christmas. ; ) 

From Dick Durbin

The GOP is threatening to throw working families under the bus -- again.

This week, Republicans are poised to vote to force average working families to pay $1,000 more in taxes next year by blocking an extension of the payroll tax holiday instead of asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share on income over $1 million.

That's the stunning admission that Republican Senator Jon Kyl made when I appeared with him on Fox News Sunday last weekend.

While Senator Kyl may have already decided, we still have time to convince some of his colleagues to stand with hardworking families -- instead of coddling those (and only those) earning over a million dollars a year -- before the payroll tax holiday extension comes up for a vote in the Senate tonight.
Co-sign my open letter to my Republican colleagues urging them to extend the payroll tax holiday for hardworking middle class families -- before tonight's vote!

If Senator Kyl’s admission reflects Republicans' true priorities, they aren't just the wrong priorities for middle class families; they are the wrong priorities for our struggling economy. Economists estimate failure to extend the payroll tax holiday could bring our fragile economic recovery to a screeching halt and cost 750,000 jobs.

During these tough times, hardworking families need all the help they can get to make ends meet and purchase goods and services that will help turn our economy around and create jobs.
For Republicans to impose a huge payroll tax on middle class families because they don't want to ask millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share just defies logic.
Co-sign my open letter to my Republican colleagues, demanding an extension of the payroll tax holiday for lower and middle class families -- before tonight's vote!

Thanks for taking action on this issue before the payroll tax extension comes up for a vote in the Senate tonight.
Sincerely,

Dick Durbin

The White House Says "Wonky"

Every week I get an email newsletter from the White House, the "Weekly Womens' Update". It must have several different writers as the style varies from item to item. It focuses on things women deal with in particular- work, health issues, opportunities and discrimination, family, education, like that.

This week there was a bit about the Pres talking to, well here:

"President Obama traveled to Scranton, PA yesterday to talk about an issue that impacts millions of women and families across the country – the extension of the payroll tax cut. It sounds like another wonky issue, but this one has the potential to hit all of our pocketbooks. If Congress doesn’t vote to extend the current payroll tax cut, taxes will go up for millions of Americans. For a typical family earning $50,000 a year, that means a $1,000 tax increase."
Good to know, but "wonky"?

Wonky is defined by the Urban Dictionary as:
  "weird, whacked out, messed up, not working for no definable reason. Usually applied to technology."

I wouldn't call this issue"wonky", even if it fit the definition, which it doesn't. Another assault on working people, an opportunity for this people-hating lying spoiled and corrupt amoral gang of puppets for the rich to make their masters happy, yes. Wonky, no. I could write better copy and speeches.

Is this some kind of marketing to the young and presumed ignorant? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines wonky as

British : unsteady, shaky

2

chiefly British : awry, wrong

probably alteration of English dialect wankle, from Middle English wankel, from Old English wancol; akin to Old High German wankōn to totter — more at wench

First Known Use: 1918

If used in the chiefly British sense, it fits.

So my conclusion is that this bit was written by either

A) A centegenarian Brit

B) A 40-something nerd who's not quite a PR genius and doesn't know what wonky means in the USA in 2011

My money's on B. 

World AIDS Day

30 years ago nobody knew it was AIDS. It hadn't been named then. 10 years later AIDS would have already decimated the gay male population, blood transfusion patients, intravenous drug users and children born to AIDS-infected parents.

Classified a retrovirus, and within that group a Lentivirus, HIV was named the cause of  Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome. Retroviruses are tricky, as they change and mutate over time, making chemical therapy ineffective. Recent advances have helped people with AIDS live longer, but they are very expensive and not universally available. There is no cure and no vaccine, for AIDS, still. More than 30 million people have died of AIDS

World AIDS Day began in 1988 and since then, infection rates have dropped in "first world" countries. But in "third world" countries it is a leading cause of death. It is this awareness, that the pandemic isn't over, that AIDS is preventable and that education works, that's the focus of World AIDS Day.

Today I remember those I lost with love.

For more information:
http://aids.gov/world-aids-day/

http://www.worldaidsday.org/