It's Monday And I Can't Come Up With A Charming Subject Line. So Go Grab A Coffee, Gonna Be A Long Short Week.

Poppets! It’s the last week of work in ’21 for me, which means three days of tying up loose ends, putting together plans for ’22, and emotionally preparing to sit around in jammies reading books (or watching TikToks, let’s be honest) whilst my California dog sprints about in the snow. I hope you’re getting ready to take a break of whatever length you can, and are ready to decompress for a bit, because 2021 has been a doozy. 

A wee note: The Missive will be in hibernation from Dec 23 - Jan 3, so that I may (hopefully) step back from the computer for a bit and re-set my brain. 

TO THE INTERNET

• I’m not a teacher, so I’m not going to pretend I know how to teach elementary-aged children. But I also studied European History from 1933-1945 in college and… methinks this isn’t how you gets kids to learn it: D.C. third-graders were made to reenact episodes from the Holocaust (The Washington Post) Missive readers who are educators, please tell me if I am wrong.

• Don’t mind me, just screaming into a pillow as a senator from West Virginia throws the Build Back Better act off a bridge: Joe Manchin Privately Told Colleagues Parents Use Child Tax Credit Money On Drugs (HuffPost) 

• So ‘scuze me while I distract myself from our political SNAFU with gadgets: Eeeeeeeee new awesome electric car, yay!! Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 delivers on its EV-of-the-future promise (Engadget) 

• Woof: “For NYU’s graduate students, the university’s advanced degrees often don’t pay off. In 40 out of 49 programs, NYU graduate students who took out federal loans borrowed more than they earned two years out of school.” NYU Is Top-Ranked—In Loans That Alumni and Parents Struggle to Repay (The Wall Street Journal) The lede of this story breaks my heart - having your eggs harvested is a physically and emotionally demanding process, and the fact that someone has had to do it five times to sell them to help pay off student loans? Absolutely dystopian.

• And finally, in hypocrisy guaranteed to make you howl at the moon, Anti-Vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s House Party Guests Told to Get Vaccinated Before Coming (The Daily Beast). And you KNOW this jerk has been vaccinated AND boosted.

That’s it, that’s all! Please be kind to yourself: stay safe, drink water… and get yourself boosted just to spite RFK Jr.

xoxo Amy