The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 was signed on December 17, 2010. President Obama signed the $858 billion tax bill into law that extends the Bush tax cuts for two more years and extends unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed for 13 months. Obama has called it a compromise plan and it has generated spirited political debate.

The Moment of Truth: the report of the National Commission On Fiscal Responsibility and Reform was published on Dec. 1, 2010. The recommendations of a bipartisan commission examining the nation’s deficit released its findings in early December. The commission was created in February and charged with coming up with ways to bring the federal budget in primary balance by 2015 and to improve the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook. The commission was chaired by Alan Simpson, former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, chief of state to former Democratic President Bill Clinton.

Thirty years ago today, John Lennon was shot and killed, leaving the music world both a loss of talent and a lasting legacy, both from his work with the Beatles and his own independent projects.

The Third-Thursday Book Discussion Group’s November selection is Pearl Buck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Good Earth. The 1931 novel is a heartfelt look at the life of Chinese farmer Wang Lung and his family’s struggle to live off the land in early twentieth-century China. The novel outlines not only Lung’s passion for acquiring and working his land amid famine and other hardships, but it gives readers a revealing look at Chinese ideas about family, women, marriage, religion, and class relations.