Today's Liberal News

This holiday season, I’m grateful for antidepressants

In many ways, I’m extremely privileged when it comes to surviving the COVID-19 pandemic—I work remotely, have excellent employer-provided health insurance, and I don’t live with any chronic health conditions. From the time people started staying home and staying safe, I was socializing less, sure, but in many ways, my life was the same: work, read, get a (solo) walk in, cook, bake, write, repeat. One thing that didn’t stay the same, however, was my mental health.

This is my Christmas playlist. What’s yours?

I don’t listen to a lot of Christmas music, but when I do, this is it.

What are your Christmas music favorites, be they standards or off the beaten path? 

(Here’s where I confess that while I generally dislike Mariah Carey, I can tolerate “All I Want for Christmas.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry! No, Really.

Christmas, they say, is the most wonderful time of the year. We take time off of work, gather with friends, and indulge in eating, drinking, music, and merriment. For a brief period, the pleasures we ration through the rest of the year take center stage.And then, each January, the newspapers fill up with advice on dieting, teetotalism, and the return to work.

The Wait Was Worth It

KOUROU, French Guiana—More than 25 years ago, the Next Generation Space Telescope was mostly a dream, an idea for a complex instrument meant to see farther than Hubble ever could, which no one had ever attempted to build. A few years ago, the dream was ready to be assembled into a real observatory—gold-covered mirrors, sensitive instruments, a sophisticated sun shield.

Pentagon Clamps Down on Extremism & White Supremacy After Dozens of Jan. 6 Rioters Had Military Ties

The Pentagon has announced new rules to slow the spread of extremism in the military, one of which will discipline soldiers for liking or resharing white nationalist and other extremist content on social media. The Pentagon announcement comes just two weeks before the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, where more than 80 of the 700 individuals charged with the attack had ties to the U.S. military.

“It’s a Win for Us”: Striking Kellogg’s Workers Get Raises, Improved Benefits & Avoid Two-Tier System

In a major victory for labor rights, 1,400 unionized Kellogg’s workers have ended their nearly three-month strike across four states after approving a new contract that provides a wage increase and enhanced benefits for all. The prior agreement that Kellogg’s tried to bargain only offered wage increases and improved benefits to longtime workers, whereas the new agreement ensures newer workers have a guaranteed option to receive the same improvements.

Tea Party Redux: How the Koch Network Funds and Fuels the Anti-Lockdown Movement

A new report titled “How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On COVID” reveals how a right-wing network linked to billionaire Charles Koch has played a key role in fighting public health measures during the pandemic, including mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing and lockdowns. The groups include the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), Donors Trust, the Hoover Institution and Hillsdale College.

No One Is Safe Until Everyone Is Safe: Oxfam on Vaccine Equity & Taking On Moderna

Oxfam America has accused Moderna of misleading its investors about an ongoing dispute over whether it needs to share vaccine patent rights with the U.S. government. Oxfam filed a shareholders complaint against Moderna with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the company’s resistance to recognizing the role played by three scientists with the National Institutes of Health in developing the vaccine.

Settle down by the fire, and have yourself a merry little Christmas

It’s that time again: time to snuggle up in front of your virtual fire, listening to the crackle and pop or maybe your favorite holiday standards, and maybe sip on your favorite holiday libation (this one’s mine).

YouTube Video

If you want to know why watching a fire burn on an electric screen is a thing, here you go. And if you want to see the original, or a bunch of creative spinoffs, you can find them here.

Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, the last surviving captive Southern Resident orca, has a shot at returning home

First of two parts:

Her Lummi name is Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (pronounced SKA-li CHUKH-teNOT). It references the cove on Whidbey Island where she was captured as a calf in August 1970. She has other names, including Tokitae, taken from Chinook jargon, bestowed by Jesse White, the veterinarian who took charge of her that day when she was ripped away from her L Pod family.

Movies to watch over the holiday break if you want to see Black people thriving

The Black experience is so diverse culturally, socioeconomically, and ethnically that it’s difficult to summarize with one descriptive phrase. It is no one thing, but media culture can depict it as such. So it’s refreshing and much appreciated when films centering Black people show Blackness as something more than what it means to be Black to white people.

Cheers and Jeers: Xmas Eve Baked Beans and Conspiracy Theory Liveblogging

Maine Folklife Center:

Across New England, and certainly throughout Maine, a tradition of baked bean suppers takes place in community institutions such as churches, granges, and firehouses…

While Boston is known as bean-town, only in Maine can you ever really get to know beans. B&M (Burnham and Morrill) baked beans of Portland still bakes beans in huge iron pots in brick ovens before they can them for distribution around the country.

A Pandemic Guide To Anime: Non Non Biyori; Azumanga Daioh

Welcome back to our impromptu and sporadically scheduled pandemic guide to anime. If you’ve missed any of our earlier entries, you can find them all here; for our introductory post you can go here.

Having run through many of the most famous choices and most popular genres, it’s now time to switch things up.