1. Two great holiday experience gifts: Savor with Rachel Cole, “Savor is perfect for you if you’re hungry for quiet grounding, if 2019 has put you the ringer, or if you’re seeking an eco-friendly, affordable, unexpected gift for family or friends…Savor is a series of short guided audio meditations. The meditations cover a range of topics, such as resilience, self-compassion, winter traditions, and holiday eating,” and 31 Days of Gifts (Daily Delight for The Holiday Season) with Courtney Carver, “31 Days of Gifts You So Deserve is like an advent calendar in your inbox. You’ll receive meaningful, magical gifts throughout the month of December. These gifts will encourage you to embrace the holidays with joy and intention. They will also help you move into the new year with an open heart.”

2. Questions for The Producer from Austin Kleon.

3. Instagram is enabling white mummy bloggers to silence black women like Kelechi Okafor.

4. Chick-fil-A will no longer donate to anti-LGBTQ organizations. “Going forward, Chick-fil-A said it will work exclusively with organizations that focus on education, homelessness and hunger. Those are Junior Achievement USA, Covenant House International and donating $25,000 local food banks.” Now if we could just get Nestle to stop stealing and hoarding all the water, and using child labor to produce their chocolate.

5. 16 great documentaries from 2019 and how to watch them. In somewhat related news, 26 Disturbing Documentaries That’ll Make You Sleep With The Lights On.

6. The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years. “Slate’s books team selects the definitive works of reporting, memoir, and argument of the past quarter-century.”

7. Celebrating Native American Heritage Month: Dos and Don’ts. “In this op-ed, Ruth Hopkins, a Dakota/Lakota Sioux writer, biologist, attorney, and former tribal judge, offers advice on avoiding offensive stereotypes and being a better ally to Native nations.”

8. Why We Fell for Clean Eating. “The oh-so-Instagrammable food movement has been thoroughly debunked – but it shows no signs of going away. The real question is why we were so desperate to believe it.”

9. Here’s the Waiver Colin Kaepernick Was Asked to Sign to Get Back on the NFL’s Plantation.

10. Glazing roasted vegetables makes them even better.

11. 5 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’re The Child Of An Alcoholic.

12. Family to Get $10 Million After Death of Man Left in Jail Cell With a Broken Neck on The New York Times. “An Oklahoma county agreed to pay the estate of Elliott Williams, whose complaints were ignored by members of the detention and medical staff for five days.”

13. This Emotional Lesbian Car Commercial Will Completely Devastate You.

14. Thanksgiving Promotes Whitewashed History, So I Organized Truthsgiving Instead.

15. Apocalypse Got You Down? Maybe This Will Help on The New York Times. “Searching for a cure for my climate crisis grief.”

16. How Mary Lambert’s New Album Grief Creature Provided Her with ‘Healing’ and ‘Hope.’

17. We don’t want billionaires’ charity. We want them to pay their taxes.

18. Many Native Americans Can’t Get Clean Water, Report Finds.

19. Summer Walker Cancels 20 Tour Dates Due To Social Anxiety: ‘I Can’t Finish.’ In related news, “Please Respect My Space”: Summer Walker Will Not Be Hugging Fans Because Of The “Transference Of Energy” And We Actually Get It.

20. Help Decolonizing Fitness Get A Training Space. They are doing such good, important work.

21. ‘If You Work for ICE, Quit’: Never Again Launches Career Services Site for Agents Looking for Change.

22. Plastics: What’s recyclable, what becomes trash — and why.

23. Lena Waithe Reveals She Secretly Married Her Longtime Bae Alana Mayo.

24. She Visited Every Country On Earth. She Saw A World Overwhelmed By Plastic Trash.

25. Elaborate Chiaroscuro Tattoos by Makkala Rose Burst With Ripe Fruit and Blossoming Flowers.

26. Gay Teen Who Punched Classmate Opens Up About Bullying He Says Prompted Viral Incident. “Jordan Steffy of LaPorte, Indiana said the classroom fight was a breaking point. But he wants supporters to direct their anger elsewhere.”

27. 120,000 Ribbons Hover Near The Brandenburg Gate To Mark The 30-Year Anniversary Of Its Fall.

28. Denmark buys country’s last remaining circus elephants to let them retire.

29. This Tom Hanks Story Will Help You Feel Less Bad on The New York Times. “Hanks is playing Mister Rogers in a new movie and is just as nice as you think he is. Please read this article anyway.”

30. Ellie Goulding May Cancel NFL Show Over Salvation Army’s Homophobia. Maybe she could cancel the show because of the NFL’s history of protecting those who violate women, or the NFL’s racism?

31. Trans restaurant worker claims boss told her to ‘go home’ if she couldn’t handle death threats from customers. Which is why we need this: a beginner’s guide to being an ally to trans people.

31. Intimate Portraits of Tattooed Seniors Reveal How Ink Looks on Aging Bodies.

32. Another of Alberto Salazar’s Runners Says He Ridiculed Her Body for Years on The New York Times. “Amy Yoder Begley says she was criticized for being overweight, told her laugh was annoying and made to sign a contract promising not to become friends with her teammates.”

33. Actress Mo’Nique suing Netflix for race, gender discrimination.

34. The Atlanta Nap Ministry preaches the liberating power of rest. “We’re pushing back against these systems telling us we should feel guilty for laying down and taking a nap.”

35. Researchers say there’s a simple way to reduce suicides: Increase the minimum wage.

36. Humble Man Walks Almost Entire Perimeter of Mexico Saving Hundreds of Sick and Injured Dogs.

37. PS22 Chorus performs with Leslie Odom Jr., on his new song, “Under Pressure.” (video)

38. Megan Rapinoe won a Woman of the Year award. She thanked Colin Kaepernick. “While I’m enjoying all of this unprecedented — and, frankly, a little bit uncomfortable — attention and personal success, in large part due to my activism off the field, Colin Kaepernick is still effectively banned from the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem in protest of known and systematic police brutality against people of color, known and systematic racial injustice, and known and systematic white supremacy.” Known and systematic.

39. Black Facebook Workers Write Open Letter to Company: We Are Treated Every Day ‘As If We Do Not Belong Here.’

40. Recipes I want to try: Best Chocolate Cake Recipe and drop cornbread biscuits.

41. Minnesota school threw out hot meals of students with over $15 lunch debt, then apologized. What to do instead (besides just feed the damn kids!): School Turns Leftover Cafeteria Food Into Frozen, Take-Home Meals To Give To Students In Need.

42. Jenny Slate’s “Stage Fright” Gives New Meaning to the Phrase “Standing up to Fear.” This was part stand up, part documentary, and I really liked it.

43. Peek inside Colorado’s new butterfly house as Gardens on Spring Creek opening nears. Can’t wait!

44. When I Speak Out Against Fat-Shaming, I’m Told to ‘Just Lose Weight.’ “Weight loss isn’t a solution to pervasive social bias. So why do we insist it is?”

45. The Same Artist Who Made People Cry With Her Comic ‘Good Boy’ Just Shared A New One With A Black Cat. *sob*

46. “SNL” Just Released Every “Stefon” Sketch, So Here Are The Funniest Ones.

47. 15 woodpiles that have been stacked into gorgeous works of art.

48. For the Birds, By the People: The Artist Building Human-Sized Nests on Great Big Story.

49. Lil Buck with Icons Of Modern Art. (video) “To mark the current exhibition at Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Icons Of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection, London-based director Andrew Margetson follows Memphis-born jookin’ dancer Lil Buck as he twists and turns past masterpieces by the likes of Picasso and Matisse.”

50. Wolfenoot, a 7-year-old’s made-up holiday, goes viral, launches movement to benefit dogs and wolves.

51. Laurie Wagner on The Creativity Habit podcast.

Today is Veteran’s Day. I’m grateful for all the veterans. Those who served, the ones who left their family and friends and homes and put themselves at risk in order to keep us safe. Those who never came home. Those who came home broken. Those we have forgotten. Those we have failed.

1. Love is a verb, a recent newsletter from Abigail Rose Clarke.

2. Your other account balance, this week’s Sunday Dispatch from Paul Jarvis, in which he says, “Work is one way I deal with stress. And not just stress about work itself, but any kind of stress in my life. If I’m focused on work, I can’t be as stressed out or unhappy. The problem, and it’s obvious, is that whatever sucks that I’m running away from will be there once I stop working.” Oh, snap. This describes me exactly, and why now that I’m no longer working, I had to get a new therapist to deal with all the “whatever sucks that I’m running away from.”

3. 4 Questions to Kick-Start a Stalled Life.

4. The World According to Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

5. 5-Hour Workdays? 4-Day Workweeks? Yes, Please an opinion piece on The New York Times.

6. I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike on The New York Times. “Mary Cain’s male coaches were convinced she had to get ‘thinner, and thinner, and thinner.’ Then her body started breaking down.”

7. Experts Worry Active Shooter Drills In Schools Could Be Traumatic For Students.

8. Being Surrounded By Chronic Complainers Could Be Damaging Your Health.

9. How to cut a pomegranate. (video)

10. I Went to Mexico to Meet Asylum-Seekers Trapped at the Border. This Is What I Saw.

11. The Billionaires Are Getting Nervous an opinion piece on The New York Times. “Bill Gates and others warn that higher taxes would lead to lower growth. They have their facts backward.” In related news, The worship of billionaires has become our shittiest religion, and Ok Billionaire: Why Do the Opinions of 600 Americans Get So Much Airtime?, and Think billionaires are just super-rich people? Big mistake.

12. How to Be a Writer: 10 Tips from Rebecca Solnit.

13. Is modern mindfulness a corporate scam? This management professor thinks so. “There’s a lot of money to be made by telling people that they’re responsible for their own problems.”

14. Latest gender reveal disaster causes plane crash in Texas. Just stop it.

15. This dad follows his kid’s PB&J sandwich instructions very literally. (video)

16. 27 Sturdy Chairs for Fat People (Up to and Beyond 500lbs!)

17. Liz Phair’s “Horror Stories” chronicles the real ghosts that haunt us. “In her new memoir, the legendary indie rocker shares tales of the shame, fear, and violence of ordinary life.”

18. White Supremacy Is America’s Original Pyramid Scheme. “Ijeoma Oluo on the roots of police brutality, the model minority myth, and the school-to-prison pipeline.”

19. The Thanksgiving Tale We Tell Is a Harmful Lie. As a Native American, I’ve Found a Better Way to Celebrate the Holiday. “The thing is, we do not need the poisonous ‘pilgrims and Indians’ narrative. We do not need that illusion of past unity to actually unite people today. Instead, we can focus simply on values that apply to everybody: togetherness, generosity and gratitude. And we can make the day about what everybody wants to talk and think about anyway: the food.” In related news, Sean Sherman’s 10 Essential Native American Recipes. “The founder of The Sioux Chef, a company devoted to Indigenous foods, created recipes to showcase tribal diversity across the lower 48 states.”

20. I Draw Comics To Explain What It’s Like Living With Depression And Anxiety.

21. Lindy West Explains How South Park Paved the Way For the Alt-Right. “Talking with the author of The Witches Are Coming about memes, media, and how not to become an American sucker.”

22. Vaping Illnesses Are Linked to Vitamin E Acetate, C.D.C. Says. “Samples of lung fluid from patients with the mysterious illness led to a breakthrough in finding a possible cause. More than 2,000 people have been sickened, many from illicit marijuana-based products.”

23. What to Read When You Are Ready to Be Done Crying.

24. To Heal From Trauma, You Have to Feel Your Feelings.

25. Yoga Is Finally Facing Consent and Unwanted Touch on The New York Times. “Yoga students and studios are grappling with inappropriate, manipulative and exploitative teachers and teachings.”

26. The NYPD Bragged About a Big Pot Bust. Turns Out It Seized 106 Pounds of Legal Hemp.

27. “Happy Ball Want Outside:” Dog Learns To Talk Using A Word Machine, Already Knows 29 Words. It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog regularly that I’m now following Stella and her human on Instagram.

28. Rachel Cargle Insists Rest Is the Real Revolution for Black Women.

29. 12 Native American Authors to Read During Native American Heritage Month.

30. The Obamas keep attacking “cancel culture” because they are scared of being held accountable.

31. Trump rallies aren’t a sideshow — they’re his entire campaign.

32. Keystone pipeline shut after spilling 1.4 million litres of oil in North Dakota.

33. There’s Nothing Virtuous About Finding Common Ground.

34. 7 Reasons the Internet is Loud and Wrong about ‘Harriet’.

35. Mary Lambert: Leaving Record Label Was “Important For My Mental Health”.

36. When Being an Opponent of White Supremacy Means Being Not Nice.

37. Nigeria’s First Oscars Submission Disqualified For Having Too Much English, Which Is the Country’s Official Language.

38. Louis C.K. Doubles Down on the Value of Saying the Wrong Thing on The New York Times. “On his first tour since admitting misconduct, the comedian’s theme was the cathartic release of transgression as he delivered bits about his mother’s death and religion.”

39. Presidential Proclamation on National American History and Founders Month, 2019. November IS Native American History Month. This is some white supremacist bullshit. In related news, Trump Gives National American Indian Heritage Month an All Lives Matter Makeover That Nobody Is Here For, and Trump Says Native American Heritage Month Is Also for the White Men Who Stole Their Land.

40. Why did no one warn the housekeepers about the Getty fire?

41. ‘Untold human suffering’: 11,000 scientists from across world unite to declare global climate emergency.

42. Lauren Bowman’s poetry on Instagram. “I want to be so wrecked by this world that there will be little pieces of me everywhere.” *sigh*

43. Three FREE classes being offered by the amazing Alexandra Franzen.

44. What Happens To The American Dream When America Wakes Up?

45. Whodunit in the Library: Someone Keeps Hiding the Anti-Trump Books on The New York Times. “A public library in northern Idaho says its books about gun rights and President Trump keep wandering far from their correct spots on the shelves.”

46. ‘It Felt Like a Betrayal’: Researchers Won a $2-Million Prize. The University Wants to Take It.

47. Student’s clothing line designed to Indigenize popular fashion.

48. What Are the Three Poisons? from Lion’s Roar. “The three poisons are the energy of ego’s three basic attitudes — for me, against me, and don’t care.”

49. 15 Things to Stop Telling Yourself Right Now.

50. Be the Priority of Your Own Life (starting now) on Be More With Less.

51. These Dog Playing Cards Have The Most Brilliant Illustrations.