Friday Donuts

Dear Members and Constituents, Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated by the different shapes which can derive from a circle. Aside from the two dimensional form itself, if you move a circle along a straight line perpendicular to it’s plane you get a cylinder. Connect the circle’s edge to a point perpendicular it’s center and outside it’s plain and you get a cone. Spin the circle on its own axis and you get a sphere. Of course, if you spin the circle around the edge of a circle on another plane you get a torus. This morning Michael Frost makes his debut as donut boy with 42 torus-shaped pastries. Why not 48, you ask? That’s because he’s also brought half-a-dozen specialties. So don’t beat around the bush and come get a treat better than Pi. Happy Friday!

Dear Members and Constituents, You know the world is getting smaller when the news features a man with an outrageous French accent speaking of marching to Timbuktu. The capital of Mali, whose name had become synonymous with the farthest reaches of the earth, is now headline fodder. France felt it was important enough to defend against a coup d’etat and the Algerians used it as a pretext to stage a hostage crisis. It makes one hopeful US media coverage may be abandoning its ethnocentric roots. Sure we need to hear about what's going on in the country with stories about the proposed mental health parody act (or was that parity?), but it's healthy to also hear about places like Aleppo, Syria -if only to be reminded of atrocities. In the spirit of broadening our horizons Jamie Moyer (donut girl) delights us this morning with a premium Krispy Kreme donut selection, which includes a healthy dose of jelly filled. So come broaden your horizons. Happy Friday!

Dear Members and Constituents, You are probably familiar with the concept of burn rate -the pace at which startups and growing companies burn through cash. But what about individuals? Have you considered your personal burn rate? At a fundamental level, your body is always burning calories, which requires you to buy food. Doctors and Shamans get a cut, and unless you're homeless or living in a feral state, you also need to pay for shelter. Maybe it's rent, maybe it's a mortgage. Even after your mortgage is paid-off, you pay property taxes and utilities. You burn fuel to get to work and if you've ever purchased on credit, you burn cash on interest to creditors who floated your consumption before you could afford it. You purchase roads, protection from bad guys and a safety net with your taxes. In this world of disposable income there is of course travel and entertainment which, in most cases, rounds-out your burn rate. As a Friday Donut Club member, you also burn

Dear Members and Constituents, Happy new year! If you’re like me, you may still be recovering from your New Year's Eve celebration. You see, as some of you already know, Ecuadorian New Year's Eve celebrations are a pretty big deal –and my household has imported most of these traditions for our New Year's Eve party. Above and beyond the ten second countdown and the festive party libations, we have a few other quirky traditions. There's the widow –a man dressed like a woman who pesters bystanders with “mourning” for the old year (her husband) who is about to die. Then there's the reading of the will (chock-full of humorous "inheritances" for guests and relatives). The most visible of these traditions is the Año Viejo (literally "old year"). It's one or more manikins which anthropomorphize the ending year and gets burned at the stroke of midnight. As adults wish each other well and eat 12 grapes to symbolize good fortune, younger folks jumped o