‘Twas a long time ago, longer now than it seems,
That the holiday season was crafted from dreams.
There were visions of friendship and light through the land
As if darkness itself had been thoroughly banned.
But the times closed around as the blackness enveloped
And the victory of dark very slowly developed.
Home » 2011 (Page 4)
Yearly Archives: 2011
Thanksgiving
The Thanksgiving table groans under heaps of food, more elbows resting on it than it ever before, and the weight of heavy conversation catching up on the last year. The holiday scene painted in the minds of every American plays out differently for each family. Some open with the Baruch, some the Lord’s Prayer, and others with a call away from the Lions game. The expression is the same but the words and actions are different.
This is not only Thanksgiving, it is what the USofA is all about. The story of how we came to be such a people cannot be told often enough. It is a story of deliverance away from terror to a tough land that, in the end, always provides.
Buy Little, Buy Small
The first snow of the season fell around us in Saint Paul, a wet gloppy snow that froze into a slick shield of ice. The city pulled in tight around itself as driving became an ordeal, knuckles tight and eyes wide and everything as white as the world itself. A week and a season defined by rush-rush and shopping started with a moment apart from the world made for hot cocoa.
Perhaps nature was telling us something.
This is the week that starts with a great American holiday but ends with an orgy of spending and crowds for many people. But it can instead be one long holiday, one celebration of what really counts in our lives – family and community. After Thanksgiving there is Buy Nothing Day, followed closely by a little light shopping on Small Business Saturday. Together they make a holiday which is more meaningful and bright.
Print or Die
Europe has come to understand that what is at stake right now is not just the economies of a few member nations, but the future of European Union itself. The cornerstone of that union is the Euro, the single currency that has made close cooperation even tighter. But in order to save that currency, there is little that can be done short of the member nations drawing much closer together. That, and risk killing off the Euro in order to save it.
The growing realization is that they will have to print a lot more Euros to get out of this.
Election Recap
The election is over. As everyone decompresses the habit of constant analysis flashes back to what happened over the long months of campaigning. Like any process, it’s good to step back at the end and think about what went well, what went wrong, and how it all could have been better.
Dave Thune won re-election to the St Paul City Council in Ward 2 on the third IRV re-allocation by 806 votes, a 58/42 win. It was by far his highest ever once all the sorting, counting, and math were finished the Monday afterward. The great irony is that the strongest skeptic of the new IRV (or Ranked Choice) system wound up benefiting from it more than anyone else. How did this all go down?
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 