>The Black Friday edition

>If you haven’t picked up today’s print edition of The Register Citizen, be sure to grab one for the local Gift Guide we published. It has many great, quality gift ideas from locally owned businesses.
If you plan to participate in the Black Friday rush on the area’s big box stores, though – and hey, it’s a tradition, right? – you won’t want to miss out on tomorrow’s paper.
In addition to including the launch of a new 8-page local Arts and Entertainment section, tomorrow’s Thanksgiving Day edition of The Register Citizen will have more than 20 circulars from retailers who are holding Black Friday sales of some kind. Many of them include valuable coupons.
A great deal for only 50 cents!
Here’s a list of some of the circulars you’ll find tomorrow:
Kohl’s
JC Penney
Home Depot
CVS
Ocean State Job Lots
Target
Staples
Walgreens
Dick’s Sporting Goods
Radio Shack
Rite Aid
Bernie’s
Michael’s
Best Buy
Kmart
Sears
Big Lots
Olympia Sports
Ikea
Peebles

>Coming Tuesday

>We have a number of things in store for Tuesday’s print edition of The Register Citizen, including:
* A special insert – our 2008 Christmas Song Book, with sheet music for your favorite Christmas carols.
* Part 2 of Tracy Kennedy’s series on domestic violence and the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Susan B. Anthony Project.
* Coverage of what should be a very interesting Torrington Board of Education, where members are expected to discuss Superintendent Susan O’Brien’s handling of the departure of former Torrington High School Principal John Metallo.
* Coverage of a Winsted Planning Commission meeting in which a final vote may be taken on the controversial Aurora housing development. Expect some critics of the development to be mentioning The Register Citizen’s long Sunday interview about developer Anthony Silano’s colorful past.

>So let us know what you think

>We changed a few things in The Register Citizen’s print edition this morning and would love to know what you think.
Anytime you mess with the organization of the paper, you worry that readers will find it difficult to find their favorite items. Reading a daily newspaper is a habit and falls into a routine that one messes with lightly.
We hope and expect that folks will like that we’ve expanded space for local news and opinion. The other changes were designed to be more consistent about where to find stuff each day, but if we’ve screwed up (i.e., putting the comics with the TV listings), please let us know.
Drop me a line at 860-489-3121, ext. 350, or email me at mderienzo@registercitizen.com.
If I’m not in, feel free to call our editor, Jordan Fenster, at 860-489-3121, ext. 333, or jfenster@registercitizen.com.

>Series on local victims of crime starts Monday

>In addition to the launch of expanded local news and opinion sections (CLICK HERE for an old column about that), you’ll want to pick up Monday’s edition of The Register Citizen for the start of a series of articles by reporter Tracy Kennedy.
On her beat covering courts in Litchfield County, Tracy writes almost every day about people charged with crimes that are sometimes horrific, almost always destructive or damaging in some way, to somebody.
Tracy’s series starting Monday will explore what happens to the victims of these crimes … the resources and restitution available for them and how these crimes can impact the rest of their lives.

>Warm The Children on Channel 5 tonight

>An interview with me and Register Citizen Business Manager Andrea Benedict about the newspaper’s “Warm the Children” program will be aired at 7:30 p.m. tonight on Channel 5 of Torrington-Litchfield-area Cablevision TV.
Warm the Children is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and Andrea has been coordinating it pretty much singlehandedly the entire time.
We are appearing on a show hosted by Bill Egan, executive director of the United Way of Northwest Connecticut, which is our partner in Warm the Children.

>Visit our table on Tuesday

>A not-to-miss event on Tuesday evening will combine the Northwest Connecticut Chamber of Commerce’s phenomenally successful “Business After Hours” series with a general local business expo.
The “Table Top This” Expo will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Cornucopia banquet hall in Torrington, and 55 local business exhibitors are signed up to show off what they do.
As always with Business After Hours, there will be complimentary beverages and refreshments.
We (The Register Citizen and our affiliate publications, the Foothills Trader, Good News About Torrington and Thomaston Express) will be one of the exhibitors.
Stop by our table and pick up a free coffee mug, at a minimum.
If you were thinking about subscribing to the paper, stop by and sign up at our table, and you will get a free Thanksgiving turkey (I’ll check on this, but I’m assuming a coupon for one … I don’t plan to have frozen turkeys at the Expo!).
If you’re curious to see what we have in store as part of the expansion of the paper Nov. 24, you can sign up for a free, no-obligation 2-week trial subscription.
And anyone, even if you are already a subscriber or choose not to, can stop by the table and enter a raffle for a $100 grocery store gift card perfect for buying those Thanksgiving dinner essentials.
To RSVP for the Table Top This Expo and Business After Hours, visit the Northwest Connecticut Chamber of Commerce’s Web site at www.nwctchamberofcommerce.org.

>Christmas Songbook Coming

>Just in time for community Christmas tree lightings, holiday parties and caroling, The Register Citizen’s Wednesday, Nov. 26, issue, will include a specially printed keepsake booklet, the “Raise Your Voices In Christmas Song 2008 Songbook.”
The 24-page booklet includes holiday greetings from local businesses and words and sheet music to some of our favorite Christmas carols, including “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” “Joy to the World,” “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” “O Christmas Tree,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “What Child Is This,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Silent Night,” “The Holly and the Ivy” and “We Three Kings.”
Extra copies of the Christmas Songbook are available at The Register Citizen office at 190 Water St., Torrington, for any church, school or other group that would look some for holiday sing-alongs they are planning.
Call 860-489-3121, ext. 312, for more information.

>Remember When?

>Do you remember former Torrington businesses such as Howard’s, Genovese Drug Store, Richman’s Jeweler’s, Op Arcade and the Ace of Clubs?
Do you remember when bread cost 25 cents a loaf?
In this Wednesday’s Register Citizen, we’ll publish a special “Remember When” section of historic photos and memories of Torrington.
The specially printed booklet should be a great coffee table read or keepsake.

>Try the paper, for free

>We’re making some improvements to The Register Citizen (CLICK HERE for previous column about some of the things that will be added starting Nov. 24), and I’d like you to have the opportunity to see for yourself, without risking a dime.

So I’m offering anyone who wants to take me up on the offer a free two-week subscription. Just call 860-489-1450 and ask for my two-week offer.

This is not a gimmick. It’s not a situation like those free magazine trials, where the publication keeps coming and you get a bill. You won’t have to call and cancel or anything. You’ll get The Register Citizen delivered to you free for two weeks, and then it will stop, unless you tell us you want to keep getting it.

>Gray areas get lost in black and white

>It’s troubling to me how daily newspapers like ours end up handling stories like the one this morning about the local man who got arrested at a church in Florida.
Like many stories involving arrests and crime, there’s more to this one than the big headline and shock value details that were included in the article.
But often, it’s impossible to get at the gray areas or background of a story like that. Family problems that spill into the news are traumatic or embarrassing enough. While the subject of these kinds of stories, or their family and friends, are outraged that it made it into the paper, and in the manner it did, there’s typically little appetite for extending the story another day by helping a reporter flesh out how things got to this point of chaos.
The best-read stories about crime are those with the most bizarre, funny or shocking details, but most people, including us at the newspaper, lose sight of the fact that mental illness is often at the root of the incidents that lead to these types of stories.
Living with mental illness, or living with a family member or friend who is caught in its grip, is a serious, sometimes tragic, issue that makes enjoyment of a good bizarre crime story seem cheap and inappropriate.
I don’t have many answers on this one, but do believe it’s worth, from time to time, to stop and think about the human side of these types of stories.
And it’s important for all to know that there are resources out there to educate the unaware and support those who are all too aware of the nightmare that mental illness can cause for a family.
Litchfield County, in fact, has its own chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and that’s as good a place as any to start. CLICK HERE for a link to NAMI’s Connecticut-based resources and information.