Happy New Year and Lucky Legumes

Happy New Year to you and yours from NotionsCapital.com

Remember: If you must eat black-eyed peas and drive, roll down the windows.

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Best New Year’s Resolutions Ever

If asked about your New Year’s Resolutions for 2012, the best response is “I am far from perfect, but self-criticism sessions went out with Chairman Mao. So Happy New Year, and let’s have another drink.”

If friends and family insist you make resolutions, perhaps at gunpoint, you may benefit from this list of the Top 10 Best New Year’s Resolutions Ever:

Samoa Takes a Day Off

Samoans are taking a day off before the New Year weekend. In fact, they’re taking Friday, December 30th right off the calendar.

The island nation of Samoa is on the East side of the International Date Line but key trading partners Australia and New Zealand are on the West side, so Samoa is moving to the other side of the date line. That change of time zone means resetting the clock so hard that it shakes a whole day out of the calendar. Samoa has picked December 30, 2011 as that day.

So if you have a Friday appointment in Apia you’re going to miss it. Everyone in Samoa will move straight from Thursday to Saturday.

Relax; you’ve still got the weekend.

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Woman of the Year 2011

BBC News named its Women of the Year for 2011. The list: Gabrielle Giffords, Adele, Eman al-Obeidi, Sarah Burton, Nafissatou Diallo, Jelena Lecic, Princess Charlene, Pauline Pearce, Rebecca Leighton, the Duchess of Alba, Corporal Kelsey de Santis, and Sweetie the panda (aka Tian Tian).

As you might expect, the last choice endeared The Beeb to women in the UK and worldwide.

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Chinese Food: Special VIP Menu

“There are few issues more deeply and universally felt in China than the safety of its food; after years of scandals on cooking oil sifted from gutters, glow-in-the-dark pork, deadly infant formula, and so on …. So it was grim news last fall when Chinese reporters uncovered a network of ‘special farms’ dedicated to providing Party leaders with top-quality vegetables, chicken, pork, rice, beef, fish, and tea oil. In the province of Zhejiang, for instance, forty ‘high-class eco-farms’ were said to have been earmarked to supply the land-resource department, water conservancy, agricultural units, and other government offices. (What are we to make of the fact that the offices receiving special food are exactly the ones overseeing the public’s supply?)”

 – “Is a Clue to China’s Future on Its Dinner Tables?” Evan Osnos, New Yorker

 

Boxcar Tavern Opens Friday

Eastern Market will have a new neighbor starting Friday. Boxcar Tavern opens on December 30, 2011 at 224 7th Street SE, formerly the site of the Petit Gourmet food shop. Check out the handsome tavern website and the write-up and photos of the interior at Thrillist .

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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New Year for the GLBT Museum

Among the many celebrations this season, the museum of San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society marks its first year of operation. From the website:

“Often referred to as San Francisco’s ‘queer Smithsonian,’ the GLBT Historical Society houses one of the world’s largest collections of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender historical materials. The society’s new GLBT History Museum is the first full-scale, stand-alone museum of its kind in the United States.”

More:

“GLBT museum celebrates fight for social justice.” Steven Short, KALW-FM

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Washington Re-Crossing the Delaware

Artist Mort Künstler unveils a new painting of “Washington crossing the Delaware” today at the New-York Historical Society. The new version is more historically accurate than the iconic 1851 work by Emanuel Leutze that hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The new painting shows the American rebel raiders crossing the river at a narrower location on a stormy night in a flat-bottomed ferry barge with the correct flag. We do not know if there will be a postage stamp or T-shirts.

Virginia’s Newt Gingrich Scratched from Virginia Primary

As a Virginia registered Republican, presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is eligible to vote in Virginia’s GOP Primary on March 5, 2012, but he isn’t eligible to be on the ballot. His campaign in the Old Dominion failed to get the signatures of 10,000 fellow Virginians on its nominating petition.

This really hits him where he lives. Newt Gingrich moved to McLean in 1999, where he and Callista Bisek moved in together in May 2000. They were married in Fairfax County that August. Mr. Gingrich has voted in McLean since 2002.

From the North Pole Fulfillment Office

Greetings Occupant:

We have reviewed your Naughty/Nice Statement for calendar 2011. A coal-filled stocking will serve as your Notice of Naughtiness. If you are not in receipt of same, enjoy your gifts and have a happy holiday.

Sincerely,

North Pole Fulfillment Office Staff

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Image (“Santa’s Spreadsheet, after Haddon Sundblom”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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