EXTRA...

Budget cuts at DA's office; Turbines galore available; Economy claims Cape Cod Sports Report; Thanksgiving is No Turkey; Giving, not forgetting

TODAY's quote: "Had the Pilgrims deferred eating until late November, the only thing left to harvest on Cape Cod would have been Red Sox hopes for the next season."
          - Curtis Seltzer (Read his Thanksgiving is No Turkey here.)

Cape Cod Sports Report bids farewell
Troubled economy claims beloved newspaper

In March of 2007 the local sports world was saddened to learn of the passing of an icon, Frank Finn, writer-editor-everyman of the Cape Cod Sports Report. That same world was tinged with sadness again this week when it was learned that the paper had published its final issue.

A letter posted on the CCSR Web site states that the publication “suffered irreparably from the toll of our latest economic crisis.” The paper was no longer able to afford the high costs of publishing and distribution.

The Cape Cod Sports Report was the brainchild of Finn, a well-known and highly regarded sports writer from Osterville. Having written for both The Register and The Barnstable Patriot, Finn longed to do more regarding sports in his hometown of Barnstable... Barnstable Patriot.

Cathy Finn's final column is an eloquent farewell:

.....I’ll admit, I’m crying while I write it, but that’s okay, too... Sure, fall has come, and the marigold along the side of the road is going to die; its will to grow will only last until the first real frost. But remember what happens to dying marigolds; they go to seed.
      That’s what I hope Frank and Sean and I will have left behind after the Sports Report is gone; a few very important seeds. I hope that we have helped instill a concept that every person who makes an effort and tries to do their best deserves to be praised and acknowledged, not just the stars. I hope that we have carried on the history of years of sports on Cape Cod recorded it in great detail, and have shown the value of sports to the quality of life on our little spit of land.
      I hope that there are lots of little Cape Cod Sports Report clippings from our paper tucked away in drawers that parents will be proud to show their children, to show that those moms and dads had their moments in the sun, once.
      Take all those seeds and run with them, all my friends- spread them around, and I’ll be satisfied that Frank and I and Sean did what we wanted and needed to do, and, like that stubborn marigold and its seeds, we’ll have been beautiful in the past, and will be carried on into the future.
Love, Cathy Finn
_____ 

Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said he and his fellow DAs have proposed 2.5 percent budget cuts.“It will hurt all the facets of our offices, and it may, in some instances, result in furloughing people” - O’Keefe.

Budget cuts force furloughs at DA’s Office
O'Keefe warned of problem in October

In an effort to trim $218,000 from his budget, Essex County District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett has asked his staff to take up to three days of unpaid leave between January and June 2009.

“It’s the only thing that I can do to keep people from being laid off,” Blodgett says.

When Gov. Deval L. Patrick announced in October that the state would have to slash its spending, the commonwealth’s district attorneys volunteered to cut 2.5 percent from the 2009 budget. At the time, Cape & Islands District Attorney Michael D. O’Keefe told Lawyers Weekly that the cuts might “result in furloughing people”... Lawyer's Weekly.
_____

Siemens turbines now available to North American projects
The product is similar to ones proposed for Nantucket Sound

The NaiKun 110 turbine project is in the Hecate Strait south of Alaska in waters not unlike Nantucket Sound

NaiKun Wind Energy Group (TSX VENTURE:NKW) has signed a letter of intent (LOI)  for the purchase up to 110 wind turbine generators from Siemens Wind Power for NaiKun's offshore wind energy project in northern British Columbia.  NaiKun will purchase Siemens' SWT-3.6-107 model turbines, along with service, maintenance and warranty provisions.  Installation of transmission facilities and turbine foundations will begin in 2012, and the turbines will be installed in 2013 and 2014, according to the terms of the LOI. The offshore turbine farm will be built in Hecate Strait, off the northwest coast of British Columbia.

The first phase of NaiKun's project should produce between 320 MW and 396 MW of electricity, enough to serve approximately 130,000 homes in British Columbia with clean, renewable energy. A buried, submarine cable will transmit the power generated from the offshore turbines to the mainland. NaiKun is working with Siemens Canada Limited's Power Transmission and Distribution Division on this leg of the project... EEM-News. Each turbine is capable of generating 3,600 KW.

_____

Giving, not forgetting
These Christmas Trees keep on giving all year round

The values of family, love and sharing are celebrated every year during the Festival of Trees in support of Cranberry Hospice.  With more than 50 personally decorated Christmas trees from 6 to 15 feet tall on display at Plimoth Plantation Friday, Dec. 5, through Sunday, Dec. 7, the Festival of Trees attracts thousands of people from not just Plymouth, but all across the South Shore and Cape Cod.

The Friends of Cranberry Hospice raise approximately $100,000 a year from the Festival of Trees, now in its 19th year, to provide direct patient care and support for the hospice’s Children’s Bereavement Program, according to event coordinator Sue Withington. A Friends board member and volunteer, Withington has been coordinating the event for the last six years.
“We get such great support from families, companies and individuals in many communities,” she said... Carver Reporter.
_____

Thanksgiving Is No Turkey
From a relative by marriage of Oceanus Hopkins

You can’t go too far wrong with a good Thanksgiving.   For starters, everything smells good all day, even me. Then, everybody’s nice as pie for as long as they can stand it. It’s our only holiday when we’re supposed to think about what we eat, the folks who produced it and the land it comes from. Thoughts of Pilgrims and Indians may flash by between a wing and the prayer. Then everyone falls asleep watching the Detroit Lions lose another football game.

I’ve shirked my fatherly duties to 23-year-old Molly. She never got either my three-hour, before-the-meal lecture on The True Meaning of Thanksgiving or my four-hour, after-the-meal talk on Indigestion, Its Causes and Cures...  I’ve never told her that I was once related by marriage to Oceanus Hopkins, the one child born on the Mayflower during its two-month crossing in 1620... Oceanus did make the First Thanksgiving in 1621. The second was held in 1863 after President Lincoln issued his famous “Eat-A-Turkey Proclamation,” which freed20all the geese in Yankeeland but did nothing for those in the Confederacy.

The 1621 get-together wasn’t called Thanksgiving incidentally. The Pilgrims reserved that name for religious celebrations. It was, instead, a three-day, boogie party, which Puritans were not exactly known for.  As a traditional English Harvest Festival, it was held in late September or early October. Had the Pilgrims deferred eating until late November, the only thing left to harvest on Cape Cod would have been Red Sox hopes for the next season... Curtis Seltzer in the Huntington VA News.