Two Tiered Society

Irene and I have often commented on how we do not have many (if any) friends who are out of work because of the recession.  However, I now realize that all of our friends are college educated and the jobless rates is a two tiered statistic:
College educated unemployment is 4.4 percent
High school degree only is 8.8 percent (high school dropouts are at 13.2 percent!)
(source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm)

Yet another example of how society is losing the middle and bifurcating into the haves and the have-nots.

Winter Solstice Season

First off, Season's Greeting from the Rideouts:

Next, my friend WW turned me on to the fact that Newton was born on Dec 25 and many have had their fun with this, but here's my favorite:
(from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/the-ten-days-of-newton/)

On the tenth day of Newton,
My true love gave to me,
Ten drops of genius,
Nine silver co-oins,
Eight circling planets,
Seven shades of li-ight,
Six counterfeiters,
Cal-Cu-Lus!
Four telescopes,
Three Laws of Motion,
Two awful feuds,
And the discovery of gravity!