Wednesday, November 26th, 2014

1

You Really Don’t Get Me

Times have changed. Technologies have advanced. But as Michael Wines explains in the NYT, when it comes to the way whites and blacks view cases like the one that unfolded in Ferguson: Much has changed, and nothing has changed. In polls, people of different races still have wildly different views on racism. (Something tells me black people might have a bit more insight on the issue.)

+ One hoped that social media would have benefited those with different views by enabling them to get some additional perspective. But when it comes to divisive issues, we tend to either shout each other down or ignore each other. That's true in real life, and it's true on Twitter.

+ Last night, Ferguson-related protests took place in more than 170 U.S. cities. There's a big difference between protesting and rioting. There's also a big difference in how we describe rioting, depending on who's doing it and why.

+ This week's New Yorker cover seems to sum things up.

2

Patient Ruth

After experiencing discomfort during exercise, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was taken to the hospital where she had a stent placed in her right coronary artery. She's expected to spend a couple more days in the hospital. You can count on Justice Ginsberg being in court on Monday. She has survived cancer, and suffered broken ribs, and never missed a day due to illness.

3

The Mouse that Roared

"If I only knew then what I know now ... I would have smothered your ass with a pillow. Dumped your body in the back seat. Dropped you off in Toad Creek and made it look like a rape and murder." The person who made those comments online insists that they were never intended to be taken seriously, and that for him, such diatribes are therapeutic. Next week, the Supreme Court will consider where we draw the line when it comes to digital discourse. From NYT Magazine's Emily Bazelon: Do Online Death Threats Count as Free Speech?

4

(Don’t) Put Me in Coach

You've got the weather. You've got the impending gathering with relatives. You've got the holiday weekend. This has to be the worst day to be getting on an airplane, right? Not even close. (Well, I guess that sort of depends on who your relatives are...)

+ How airlines engineered planes to turn flying coach into the new hell.

+ CityLab: When people looked forward to eating airport food.

+ You're travel weekend might be a bit hectic, but be thankful if you don't have to get out and push the plane.

5

It’s For Your Own Good

NY Mag provides a handy list of five reasons giving thanks can improve your life. And there's no better reason to show gratitude than to enhance your own personal well-being. (All kidding aside, this Thanksgiving I want to thank you for reading NextDraft, and thank the fine folks at Wordpress dot com for their generous support, and the designers and engineers who take this thing seriously, and my friend Rob who kindly reads just about every blurb before everyone else, and my wife for encouraging me to follow my news addiction, and to my mom who, as she says, "actually reads all these articles and finds many of them quite interesting," and my kids for honing their offline marketing strategy of kicking someone in the shins until they sign up.)

6

The Cleaner

"I was surprised to learn from the brochure that the police do not do trauma clean-up. Neither do firefighters or ambulance crews or emergency services." Narratively's Sarah Krasnostein on the secret life of a crime scene cleaner.

7

Shacking Up

"RadioShack is a rotten place to work, generally not a very good place to shop, and an untenable business to run. Everyone involved loses." And yes, they'll be open on Thanksgiving day. From SB Nation: A eulogy for RadioShack, the panicked and half-dead retail empire. (Seriously, there is no better way to signal your hatred for family and friends than to split early from a Thanksgiving dinner because you want to get a deal at Radio Shack.)

+ Related: Why your family drives you crazy.

8

I Will Follow

Mikael Lindnord made friends with a dog by sharing a meatball with him. Then the dog started to follow him. And kept following him during a 430-mile endurance race through the Amazonian rain forest. Must have been a hell of a meatball.

9

Spin Cycle

Syndicated from Kottke: "He lay her down, got hold of her ankles, lifted her up and began, in a lunatic fashion, to swing her around his head." A letter to the editor in The Times today details an unusual lifesaving technique from a quick-thinking shepherd.

10

The Bottom of the News

They toss them. They slide them. They bowl them. From Modern Farmer, here are seven of the strangest things done to turkeys around Thanksgiving. After years clicking through the Internet, I'm pretty confident these are nowhere near the weirdest things done to poultry.

+ Understand your turkey with the help of these charts.

+ Why do Turkey the country and turkey the bird have the same name? And why do the Cowboys and the Lions always play on Thanksgiving?

+ And if you're up for a TV binge this weekend, here are a couple of suggestions. Olive Kitteridge is an HBO miniseries that features incredible performances from Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins. And Amazon's Transparent could be the perfect viewing choice for a Thanksgiving weekend. Have a great one. Back on Monday.