Here we are, getting comfortable with the new year. I still haven’t gotten used to writing 2010 on my checks yet, but it’ll come, I’m sure.

I had a chance over the last month of celebrating to attend various social functions, catching up with friends on what’s going on in everybody’s life. Repeatedly I heard folks compliment the Crescenta Valley Weekly, thankful that a local paper is around to let them know what’s going on with our com­munity. I love to hear that, let me tell you! But there’s one thing I repeatedly heard that needs clarification. That is, “So this is a free paper, right?”

So, we are into the first week of a new year, a new decade. I still remem­ber being a bit skittish over Y2K.

Recalling certain phrases, such as Y2K, remind us instantly of aspects of an era in similar way how certain songs can transport you to another time. I visited The Global Language Monitor at www.thelanguagemonitor. com for a review of those words that were most used over the past decade.

The Top Words of the Decade from 2000 – 2009

Word (Year) Comments

1. Global Warming (2000) Rated highly from Day One of the decade

2. 9/11 (2001) Another inauspicious start to the decade

3. Obama (2008) The US President’s name as a ‘root’ word or ‘word stem’

4. Bailout (2008) The bank bailout was but Act One of the crisis

5. Evacuee/refugee (2005) After Ka­trina, refugees became evacuees

6. Derivative (2007) Financial in­strument or analytical tool that en­gendered the meltdown

7. Google (2007) Founders mis­spelled actual word ‘googol’

8. Surge (2007) The strategy that ef­fectively ended the Iraq War

9. Chinglish (2005) The Chinese- English Hybrid language growing larger as Chinese influence expands

10. Tsunami (2004) Southeast Asian Tsunami took 250,000 lives

Other notables on the list included H1N1, more commonly known as swine flu; chad, those Florida voter punch card fragments that the presi­dency would turn upon; and subprime as in subprime mortgages. However, I personally like the definition offered by the Glendale Area Schools Credit Union: “Subprime – sounds like a bad steak.”

So, happy new year and here’s to a better year – heck, a better decade.

Uh, not exactly.

The cost of printing and distribut­ing the CV Weekly to 20,000 residents and businesses every week is stagger­ing. We rely on advertisers and sub­scribers to offset these costs.

Subscribers? But doesn’t the paper just “show up” on my driveway every week?

Generally it does. What a subscrip­tion gets you is guaranteed delivery meaning that if our distributor misses your house for some reason, we’ll get into our car and drive it over to your place. We’re also looking at partner­ing with some local businesses so we can offer discounts for our subscrib­ers. But the main thing a subscription does is support this privately owned venture and that support is very much needed and appreciated. At the bottom of this page is a subscription form. If you haven’t already made the commitment by subscribing, I ask you to do so. It’s $52 a year – a dollar a week – to make sure that you receive uninterrupted delivery of local news, sports and community events.

As far as advertisers are concerned, we here at the paper urge you to sup­port our advertisers. They’re the ones who recognize the value of this pa­per, who realize how popular it is and plunk down their dollars to support it. They need to know that their invest­ment is well placed. We encourage you to visit them, or even just call them, and say that you saw their ad in the Crescenta Valley Weekly. If you own a business and want to get the word out to 20,000 of your closest friends and neighbors about what you’ve got going on, what better way than the lo­cal paper?

I hope that I’ve clarified some points. Feel free to give me a call if you have any questions and thank you for your support.

  global warming, robin