The whole situation, obviously, but also (and more particularly) this gentleman. I just feel like as a society, as a planet, we can step up our game.

Today is the final day for thousands of people with Haitian ancestry living in the Dominican Republic to prove they have a right to continue living there. From Here and Now: "The Dominican government says that after 7 p.m. tomorrow, anyone who can’t show papers proving they’re in the country legally will be subject to expulsion. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians and people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic have been scrambling to…

"His relatives recounted stories he’d told them about being starved and beaten by guards on Rikers. They spoke about his paranoia, about how he often suspected that the cops or some other authority figures were after him. His mother explained that the night before he told her, “Ma, I can’t take it anymore.” “Kalief, you’ve got a lot of people in your corner,” she told him.

"Rioting broke out on Monday in Baltimore—an angry response to the death of Freddie Gray, a death my native city seems powerless to explain. Gray did not die mysteriously in some back alley but in the custody of the city's publicly appointed guardians of order. And yet the mayor of that city and the commissioner of that city's police still have no idea what happened. I suspect this is not because the mayor and police…

This is, frankly, news that is going to profoundly interest a very specific subset of 1990s- and early 2000s-era evangelical Christian kids, and elicit the mildest of amusement from the rest of you, but: Prince is covering a Nichole Nordeman song. "THAT Nichole Nordeman, Mallory?" I hear you asking. YES, THAT NICHOLE NORDEMAN. "The same Nichole Nordeman who released "This Mystery" in 2000, a CD my older sister Laura played every morning as she got…

From Matt Pearce at the LA Times: "If you don't already have a copy, you can read the DOJ's Ferguson investigation here":

I mean:

There are (of course!) already a handful of articles about why this probably isn't a good idea, but I'm kind of loving this lame-duck President who's trying to stick it to as many for-profit colleges as possible before he heads out.

You may have already heard about this week's bomb attack on the Colorado Springs office of the NAACP - there's been a bit of local and national coverage, though it's paled in comparison to coverage of the attacks on France's Charlie Hebdo magazine. Here are a few places I've found that have covered America's latest terrorist attack (feel free to add to this in the comments if you know of anything I've missed).

Easily the best part of Christmas vacation is reading the paper at one of your relative's houses (because you can't afford a newspaper subscription; are you kidding me? Those things are like $300 a year!). It's particularly delightful this time of year because all of the journalists get to write at least one ridiculous "wacky holiday tradition" article stuffed to the eyebrows with wonderfully bad puns. This year, the LA Times chose rightly to…

"White people are often sincerely and greatly pained by racism, but rarely are they pained enough. That is not true because they are white, but because they are human..."

From the New York Times:
A Staten Island grand jury has voted not to bring criminal charges against the white New York City police officer at the center of the Eric Garner case, a person briefed on the matter said Wednesday

"Do you want to hear something funny?" someone asked me. "This is a joke," he told me, "with a punchline 100 days in the making."

A member of the St. Louis police force has been charged with excessive force.

I don't have anything in particular to add about the decision last night not to indict officer Darren Wilson. Here are a few other voices you should be listening to.

Here is your solitary, wild, honest and true Lone American Hero, my friends. Cast aside your Maine Hermits, your Thoreau acolytes, your friend who spends half the year in a cabin that used to belong to his grandfather, and cluster round Judi Feingold, who was betrayed by unworthy men (and another unworthy woman). It was clear to Judi Feingold what she should do after she and seven other people broke into an FBI office…