Friday Donuts

Dear Members and Constituents, Happy… New Year!?! Yes, today marks the beginning of a new Jewish year . Technically, yesterday and today meld into a giant 48-hour-long mega-day (which is kind of a bummer because, if today is still the 29 th , we will have effectively skipped my birthday this year). While this may seem a bit odd, let me tell you what’s really weird: this holiday happens half-way into the calendar year (and here I thought the Gregorian calendar was arbitrary ). I suppose you can think of it as the beginning of the Jewish fiscal year (you know, for accounting purposes –a pun, as you will soon see). On this extra large day, 5,772 years ago, God put the finishing touches on creation and is reported to have sat down for a cigar, cold brew and kosher hot dog –Scotch had not yet been invented, you see. He looked at everything He’d just made and thought to himself “sweet!” As you may know, humanity soon rebelled, creating the need for a “book of life” (BoL) –think of it as San

Dear Members and Constituents, Hard as it may be to believe, this year marks the first time I’ve actually enrolled in a fantasy football league. Yes. I’ve participated in office pools and brackets –and have occasionally bet the line, but that has been the extent of my involvement in sports gambling. You make a choice, put it down on paper and move-on. Fantasy football is a lot more involved. Sitting at 1 – 1, I’m still not sure whether this will be a long term thing for me. I’m fumbling around the graphical user interface, can’t seem to score the right players and have yet to engage in a satisfactory level of unsportsmanlike conduct (all puns, although bad, were intended). I have found that my interest level for games in which I would normally not have any emotional investment has increased, even though it creates some perverse incentives (hoping your kicker’s team is held to field goals or your quarterback’s team falls behind so they will be forced to pass more). I’d say moving

Dear Members and Constituents, On foggy mornings such as this, it's easy to let the mind wander and fancy myself a rider galloping through a mysterious realm on a spirited steed. I picture myself in a timeless mountain valley where ghosts and magic are ready for an encounter, just beyond that 30 yard horizon. As I advance on this quest, I feel the crisp air against my skin, sharpening the senses. The world is smaller in this pocket of space which time forgot and my imagination is free to fill the blank. Alas, this magic moment lasts but a short while. As I drive up the hill that leads to the office, I notice that like a sharp battle axe, cutting through soft flesh the sun is breaking through the clouds; claiming victory in this mythical battle. The vision fades away like a distant dream. But wait! It appears not to be a dream after all. Evidence can be found at my desk. Sir Jim Johnson (donut boy) has delivered a bounty of delicious donuts. This treasure awaits in gold-plated

Dear Members and Constituents, It would seem garbage is everywhere. Whether you call it waste, refuse or rubbish; we are adept at producing it. The U.S. alone produces over 250 million tons of trash annually. You find it in music (the band Garbage and some genres older generations wish their children would not hear); politics (time to hunker down for a new dose of trash talk as the presidential campaigns heat-up) and even people (white trash, junk in the trunk…). Cyberspace is littered on a daily basis with an estimated 183 billion junk mail messages. Outer space is not safe, with  an estimated 600 thousand pieces of “space junk” orbiting the earth (19,000 or so of these large enough for the U.S. Strategic Command to track). Trash can even be seen on the Moon, thanks to newly released NASA orbital pictures of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Further out in the solar system, the donut-shaped rings around Saturn might be thought-of as spatial debris (technically no

Dear members and constituents, A three day weekend is almost upon us. I think they should call this holiday non-labor day. After all, not a lot of people labor on Labor Day. In-fact, not a lot of people are expected to labor today either. From a very practical perspective, what this means to you is there are probably going to be more than enough donuts to go around. Hopefully you'll do your part and not let the donuts Ben Peterson (donut boy) brought-in go to waste. Instead, you might let them go to your waist (or, feel free to recruit... I mean bring a guest –there is, after all, an extra dozen). Five dozen delicious LaMar's donuts await. Happy Friday!