Ohio is the nation's largest producer of Swiss Cheese. Swiss Cheese has no holes when it is first made; the "Eyes" need 5-7 weeks of aging at room temperature to develop. Over one-third of all the milk produced in the U.S.is used to make cheese. It takes slightly more than one gallon of milk to make a pound of cheese. The average American consumes about 30 pounds of cheese each year. Cheese tastes best when served at room temperature--allow the wrapped or covered cheese to "warm up" for about an hour before serving. Cheeze can be frozen; always thaw frozen cheese in the refrigerator. Pearl Valley Cheese Co. Fresno, OH www.pearlvalleycheese.com

Most watches in advertisements are best photographed at 10:10, but not all. The brand name is "framed" by the hands. Ulysse Nardin is photographed at 8:19 so that the name is clearly seen. To preserve batteries, Timex ships many watches turned off at 10:09:36, which lends synchronicity to Timex displays in store windows. At Rolex, watches are always photographed at 10:10:31, and for models that list the day of the week and calendar day, it is always Monday the 28th. “In advertising we would never expect someone to look at a watch and say, ‘The watch is smiling,’ but it’s just a feeling you get,” said Linda Kaplan Thaler, co-author, with Robin Koval, of “The Power of Nice,” which features a big smile on its cover. The watch theme, she added, is typical of “subconscious cues that are used in print ads.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/business/media/28adco.html

Questions to ask candidates for president of the U.S.
Shall we abolish the filibuster?
Shall we restrict each bill to one subject?
Shall we abolish the alternative minimum tax?
What will you do to control the immigration of Canada geese? Asian carp?

Sort out fact from fiction in statements of candidates at PolitiFact. PolitiFact is a project of the Tampa Bay Times to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters and editors from the Times fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups and rate them on our Truth-O-Meter:
TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.
FALSE – The statement is not accurate.
PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim. http://www.politifact.com/

cali- or calo- or calli- or callo [from Greek kalos beautiful] In taxonomic names: beautiful, beauty, white (Calliandra). http://www.macroevolution.net/biology-prefixes-ca.html#cali
Examples: California, Callisto, calligraphy, calliope, calisthentic

New Year's resolutions
Write a poem. If you like, choose a form from choices at: http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/formsofverse/furtherreading/page2.html
Remind yourself of sweet memories.
Learn something new every day.

Eric Arthur Blair (1903 –1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism. Considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote fiction, polemical journalism, literary criticism and poetry. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945)—they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues decades after his death. Several of his neologisms, along with the term "Orwellian"—now a byword for any totalitarian or manipulative social phenomenon opposed to a free society—have entered the vernacular. In an autobiographical piece that Orwell sent to the editors of Twentieth Century Authors in 1940, he wrote: "The writers I care about most and never grow tired of are: Shakespeare, Swift, Fielding, Dickens, Charles Reade, Flaubert and, among modern writers, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence. But I believe the modern writer who has influenced me most is Somerset Maugham, whom I admire immensely for his power of telling a story straightforwardly and without frills." Elsewhere, Orwell strongly praised the works of Jack London, especially his book The Road. Orwell's investigation of poverty in The Road to Wigan Pier strongly resembles that of Jack London's The People of the Abyss, in which the American journalist disguises himself as an out-of-work sailor in order to investigate the lives of the poor in London. In his essay "Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels" (1946) Orwell wrote: "If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put Gulliver's Travels among them." Other writers admired by Orwell included: Ralph Waldo Emerson, G. K. Chesterton, George Gissing, Graham Greene, Herman Melville, Henry Miller, Tobias Smollett, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad and Yevgeny Zamyatin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell

Doublespeak is language which pretends to communicate but doesn't. It is language which makes the bad seem good, the negative seem positive, the unpleasant seem unattractive, or at least tolerable. It is language which avoids, shifts or denies responsibility; language which is at variance with its real or purported meaning. It is language which conceals or prevents thought. A neologism based on the compounds Newspeak and Doublethink in George Orwell's novel 1984 (1949) http://grammar.about.com/od/d/g/doublespeakterm.htm

Is it downsizing or rightsizing? Outsourcing or rightsourcing? Are these doublespeak?

The Froebel star carries the name of the German educationist Friedrich Fröbel (1782–1852), founder of the Kindergarten concept. He encouraged the use of paper folding in pre–primary education with the aim of conveying simple mathematical concepts to children. It is, however, likely that Froebel did not invent this item and that it had already been within the realm of general knowledge for a long time. Descriptions of how to fold a Froebel star date back to at least the 19th century. In Germany the name Fröbelstern has been the common name for this paper decoration since the 1960s. It is used as ornament on Christmas trees and wreaths, and to make garlands and mobiles. The three-dimensional Froebel star is assembled from four identical paper strips with a width-to-length proportion of between 1:25 and 1:30. The weaving and folding procedure is rather complex and can be accomplished in about forty steps. The product is a paper star with eight flat prongs and eight cone-shaped tips. The assembly instructions can be aborted midway, producing a two-dimensional eight–pronged star without cones. See pictures and read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froebel_star

"I'll Be Home for Christmas" is a Christmas song recorded in 1943 by Bing Crosby who scored a top ten hit with the song. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" has since gone onto to become a Christmas standard. The song is sung from the point of view of an overseas soldier during WWII, writing a letter to his family. The song was written by the American lyricist Kim Gannon, and the Jewish-American composer Walter Kent. Buck Ram, who previously wrote a poem and song with the same title, was credited as a co-writer of the song following a lawsuit. See a list of recordings at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'll_Be_Home_for_Christmas

STRANGE HAPPENINGS
Christmas Eve--directing a choir while seeing a flashing electronic sign through clear glass
Christmas--serving tomolives thinking they were olives when they were actually olive-shaped pickled green tomatoes;
hearing Frosty the Snowman sung as a slow dirge on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion