Common Ground: What Counts?

Locavore [loh-kuh-vohr] noun

n. 1. A person who thinks globally and eats locally — usually within a 100-mile radius. n. 2. A gastronomical movement that shuns supermarket shopping in favor of farmers’ markets or backyard gardens and argues that fresh and local produce packs more nutritional punch, tastes better and has less of an environmental impact. n. 3. The New Oxford American Dictionary’s pick for (drumroll, please!) 2007 word of the year.

Usage in a sentence: “OMG I am so stoked that Oxford picked locavore as the word of the year!”*

*Okay, okay, so that doesn’t define the word. But we’re psyched. And we know we don’t need to tell you what it means. Here’s to changing the culture, one dictionary definition at a time...

December 2007 | On Our Radar

What Counts?

108 Million Number of homes Santa visits, assuming he does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist faith, and assuming there is at least one good child in each of those homes

31 Number of hours Santa has to deliver presents, given the time changes and the rotation of the Earth

360,000 Number of flying reindeer Santa would need to pull a sled that would weigh over 500,000 tons, assuming each child was getting nothing heavier than a medium sized LEGO set

14.3 Quintillion Joules of energy the lead reindeer would absorb per second (good thing they’re magic; otherwise they’d burst into flames)

4,315,015 Pounds of force Santa would be exposed to when accelerating from a dead stop (enough to reduce a mortal man to a quivering pile of jelly)

2100 Year in which some scientists predict the melting of the Arctic Ocean (which would present some logistical problems for Santa’s workshop, among other grim consequences)

Sources: Engineering Education Service Center, SierraActivist.org

Compiled by Jenny Rough

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