From the things I have shouted, to the people I have envied, let's look back on another year of highlights and - most of all - lowlightsI feel a bit left out by the whole Spotify Wrapped thing, where the music streamer reveals what you have been listening to this year. I use my spouse's family" subscription - a (highly effective) bargaining chip to make our sons speak to us occasionally - so I don't get the personalised rundown. Mine would only be Peaceful Piano", a dirge-like playlist I use to drown out men on trains holding forth on how Dan handled the deck at the year-end steering committee.How revealing is our musical taste anyway? Mine says nothing - it's hardly news I prefer silence to any sound - so I have been wondering if there are other rankings that might prove more revealing about our year and our states of mind. Here are some more illuminating top fives. Continue reading...
A possible cause of the crash and the names of the deceased were not immediately releasedA small plane crashed into power lines in Oregon late Saturday afternoon and killed all three people on board, police said.Polk county emergency services received the report of the single engine plane crash in Independence around 4.55pm, the Independence police department said in a statement posted on social media. Continue reading...
by Sam Levin in San Quentin, California on (#6H6ZD)
Inside San Quentin, residents are drawing mainstream audiences and shifting narratives about life behind barsIn November, Juan Moreno Haines earned a coveted promotion. The California journalist was named editor-in-chief of Solitary Watch, a non-profit news organization reporting on conditions in US prisons.Haines helps 16 writers craft story ideas, fact-check, edit articles and navigate the many hurdles of reporting on neglect and abuse behind bars, all while dealing with a major obstacle no other media leader in America has to face: he is prohibited from directly communicating with his journalists, most of whom he has never met. Continue reading...
The $148.1m award to election workers for his lies is only a small measure of justice because damaged reputations can't be restoredAbout halfway down the main hallway in the federal courthouse in Washington DC are the names of every judge who has sat on the bench since the early 1800s. Printed in gold lettering, the names include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Antonin Scalia and Ketanji Brown Jackson, all of whom have gone on to the highest levels of public service.But this week, four floors above that hallway, in courtroom 26A, two little-known public servants mourned the moment they lost their own names. Continue reading...
The league announced it will send reserve teams to US soccer's longest running competition in 2024On Friday, Major League Soccer announced it will not enter its teams into the 2024 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. It is a move which means the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) sanctioned Division I soccer league will not compete in the country's national cup competition next season - think every team in La Liga refusing to compete in Spain's Copa del Rey, or all English Premier League teams deserting the FA Cup.Though soccer in the United States is often considered to lack the history, longevity and prestige of its European counterparts, the US Open Cup flies in the face of this perception and has a similar history to its equivalents elsewhere. The tournament's first matches were played in November 1913, more than 82 years before MLS's inaugural season and, unlike franchise-based, closed-shop sports leagues across the US, the Open Cup is, as its name boasts, open to all teams throughout the would-be American soccer pyramid. Continue reading...
The new book Practical Radicals takes inspiration from successful social movements to identify tactics that pay offIn their new book, Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World, Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce offer what they say are winning strategies, history and theory for a new generation of activists".Bhargava and Luce - professors at the City University of New York's School of Labor and Urban Studies - emphasize that strategies can be taught to build successful movements. In their book, they detail seven tactics that have been successfully used to change the world: base-building, disruptive movements, narrative shift, electoral changes, inside-outside campaigns, momentum, and collective care. Continue reading...
The ex-congresswoman is unapologetically conservative, but her decision to put democracy before party has made her an unlikely heroineIt was a moment that a visitor from the year 2010 might have found impossible to comprehend. As Liz Cheney, arch-conservative and daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, walked on stage in deeply liberal Washington, the audience applauded and cheered for a full 45 seconds.They're standing, Liz, wow!" exclaimed moderator Mark Leibovich, a journalist and author. You could probably be elected to Congress from the District of Columbia if they had representation." Continue reading...
Wall Street is enjoying a reignited economy, and America's Main Street will follow. In the UK, Labour must stick to its plan for public investmentNow here's a thing. American unemployment is at a 50-year low. Confidence is growing that the US may have dodged a bullet - there is not going to be the much-touted recession next year. The American stock market is breaking all-time highs after seven weeks of near continuous gains. It is an economy in rude health - with nearly every dial on the economic dashboard flashing green.Yet at the same time US consumers are suffused with gloom. The president's low approval ratings do not budge. He is so disliked he is advised never to use the word Bidenomics" to describe the policies responsible for this economic success. Donald Trump has close to an unassailable lead in the Republican primaries, and is ahead of Biden in the opinion polls for the presidency. What works economically is not working politically. Continue reading...
Celebrities pay well to outsource childbirth, but given the exploitation and health risks can it ever be enough?Considering how quickly too posh to push" once took off as a way of rebuking mothers who planned to cheat nature with a C-section, current reporting about affluent women who, for reasons seemingly unconnected to fertility, outsource entire pregnancies to poorer women is distinguished by a touching delicacy.So much so that a whole new vocabulary - welcomed", surrogacy journey", gestational carrier" - is now helping normalise these womb-saving conveniences. You would hardly know from the tributes to celebrity hirers of surrogates, customarily accompanied by zero interest in the labouring women's journeys, that commercial surrogacy is banned in most of the world, and only occurs within the UK in its expenses-only form. And some will certainly take it as a sign of progress that, even as studies expose the long-term health problems associated with childbirth, no reason now seems too trivial to justify paying a less fortunate woman to risk these complications. Continue reading...
After all the reputational damage the prince has suffered - yes, some of it self-inflicted - this was a courageous standWhatever else might be said about Prince Harry, he got to pull the sword from the stone. He got his day in court, his longed-for legal vindication, winning phone hacking rulings against the Mirror group. The hacked-off royal even got to witness arch-enemy Piers Morgan's head roll into the executioner's basket (though, characteristically, the former Daily Mirror editor failed to go quietly, accusing Harry and wife Meghan of scheming to bring down the monarchy).For Harry, there must also be the sense of ethical, almost biblical, restoration, not least of his reputation. You felt it thrumming behind the statement read out by his lawyer outside court, hailing the ruling as a great day for truth". He's been awarded 140,600 in damages. Scotland Yard hasn't ruled out a criminal inquiry. So, what now for Harry, self-styled dragon slayer" and would-be reformer of the British media?Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
In New Hampshire former president doubles down on phrase widely condemned for echoing white supremacist rhetoricDonald Trump, just weeks after using the fascist terminology vermin" to describe sections of American society he dislikes, again declared at a New Hampshire rally that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country".Condemned for his previous remarks at the last rally he held in New Hampshire - where he threatened to root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections" - Trump appeared to double down in Durham on Saturday. Continue reading...
Video surfaced in which Aidan Maese-Czeropski was allegedly having sex in the judiciary hearing roomA Senate staffer accused of filming himself having sex in a congressional hearing room is threatening legal action after getting fired.The explicit footage, published by the Daily Caller on Friday, shows two men having sex in what appears to be Hart 216, the judiciary room. Aidan Maese-Czeropski, a legislative aide for Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, was widely named on social media as one of the men in the footage. Continue reading...
President of the largest human resources organization in country says national shift following George Floyd's 2020 murder is fadingDiversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies within US companies will come under full-out attack in 2024", the president of the largest US human resources organization in the US has said.It's going to become a hot-button issue this year," Johnny C Taylor Jr, president and chief executive of the Society of Human Resource Management, told reporters. The national shift to be more inclusive that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020, and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed, is already fading, he said. We're already seeing companies go away from it." Continue reading...
Families of the slain schoolchildren had earlier proposed an $85m settlement for the Infowars host's lies about the 2012 massacreThe conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has proposed to pay $55m over 10 years to the Sandy Hook families who sued him for spreading lies that the 2012 school massacre in Connecticut, one of the worst in American history, was a hoax.The offer came after a Texas judge ruled that Jones, the host of Infowars, could not use bankruptcy protection to dodge the nearly $1.5bn he was ordered to pay to the victims' families, who suffered abuse and threats from believers of Jones's lies. Continue reading...
Going from being unable to sponsor the Women's World Cup to hosting it in just a couple of years would be a huge boon to the kingdom's imageSaudi Arabia scored a major PR victory earlier this year when it became the only bidder for the 2034 men's World Cup, all but guaranteeing it will host the event. Not content with one World Cup, it also seems to have its eye on hosting the women's event in 2035. The Saudi Arabia Football Federation vice-president, Lamia Bahaian, recently told Sky Sports that everyone would be welcome" if the country did host the tournament, and people should put aside their concerns about playing there. Continue reading...
Four men face a life sentence after packaging up to $160m worth of illegal substances to export to Australia and New ZealandFour California men were charged on Thursday after the conclusion of a multi-agency investigation that uncovered how a transnational drug trafficking organization hid up to $160m worth of drugs in everything from car parts to instant noodles for export to Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.Roughly 755kgs (1,664lbs) of methamphetamine and more than 100kgs of cocaine were discovered tucked within emergency kits, instant noodle packets, car parts and subwoofers, according to the US Department of Justice, which released details about the arrests on Friday. Continue reading...
Florence Hackman of Ohio will celebrate her birthday with her beloved Bengals, Fireball whiskey - and men in uniformDrinking whiskey and watching nail-biting games of football aren't necessarily associated with long lives, but a woman celebrating her 105th birthday plans to mark the milestone by engaging in both activities.Florence Hackman, a resident of Deerfield Township in south-west Ohio, will be turning 105 on Saturday, WXIX reported. Continue reading...
The veteran Democratic strategist discusses the hypocrisy' of his fellow Louisianan and the solace found in his own Catholic faithAs hard-right movements rattle or control European governments, the words of George Steiner animate James Carville.Nationalism is the venom of our age," Steiner wrote in his 1965 essay on the Holocaust, A Kind of Survivor. It has brought Europe to the edge of ruin." Continue reading...
From emissions to road deaths, the trend for ever-bigger SUVs is a disaster. We need regulation to turn the car industry back to smaller vehiclesThe United States is in the midst of a full-blown size crisis. No, I'm not talking about the mad rush for Wegovy, which is selling so swiftly that Denmark has to remove data relating to manufacturers Novo Nordisk to measure (the rest of) its economy properly. And no, I'm not talking about ... something else. I'm talking about the enormous monstrosities filling up its roads. (Yeah, I see you on the streets of downtown Cleveland alone in your $85,000, 7,000lb Dodge Ram and I can tell you're not a farmer ... maybe that actually says something about the something else".)There are lots of trends, ideas, music and films that cross the Atlantic. Some of them are good. This is not one of them. Neither are the 500 Krispy Kreme points of access" the American chain is planning to open across France over the next year. (One, OK, fine, for the novelty, but 500 in the next year? In a country that exists in a completely different universe when it comes to pastries?)Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...
The Trump ally and former New York mayor has been ordered to pay $148.1m to two election workers he circulated lies aboutA jury has ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay former election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss $148.1m after he spread lies about them following the 2020 election.The verdict, after a four-day trial in Washington, came after Moss and Freeman testified in court that they feared for their lives when Giuliani falsely claimed they had tampered with votes.The $148.1m damages award for to two Atlanta election workers is one of the most significant verdicts to date seeking accountability for those who attempted to overturn the 2020 election.Freeman and Moss testified about the effects of lies spread by Giuliani and others who put them at the center of an election conspiracy theory. They shared examples of the racist, harassing, threatening messages they received after being publicly named by election deniers.Freeman testified about her experiences following Giuliani's defamatory comments, in which he accused her of committing election fraud. Sometimes I don't know who I am," said Freeman.Lawyers for Freeman and Moss played audio and displayed several of the racist messages they received in court. It included one of a person saying a racial slur over and over again. Another was a picture of what Freeman described as a kind of monkey beast" and had writing on it that said Ruby Freeman's father".Freeman said she had to leave her home for safety reasons. She hired a lawyer to help keep her name off any home-related documents for her new place. She said she felt like she has lost who she is, and her good name.Moss detailed how she became anxious to even leave the house, and that the false claims caused her son to be harassed, eventually failing his classes. She said she still does not really go out.Giuliani was initially expected to testify. But after two separate incidents of him doubling down, his team did not put him on the stand. His lawyer said the women had been through enough, but also pointed to Gateway Pundit, the rightwing media outlet, as more culpable for the harassment.Speaking outside court on Friday, Freeman said: Today's a good day. A jury stood witness to what Rudy Giuliani did to me and my daughter and held him accountable, and for that I'm thankful.Today is not the end of the road, we still have work to do. Rudy Giuliani was not the only one who spread lies about us, and others must be held accountable too. But that is tomorrow's work."Her daughter Shaye Moss also gave a statement, saying: The flame that Giuliani lit with those lies and passed to so many others to keep that flame blazing changed every aspect of our lives - our homes, our family, our work, our sense of safety, our mental health. And we're still working to rebuild.Giuliani himself dismissed the verdict and told reporters outside Washington's federal courthouse that he will appeal, saying the absurdity of the number merely underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding". It will be reversed so quickly it will make your head spin, and the absurd number that just came in will help that actually," he said.Ashlee Humphreys, a professor from Northwestern University and an expert witness of Freeman and Moss, walked through the significant reputational damage done to them, showing how their names are now associated with election fraud.Freeman and Moss's lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, said they hope the case sends a clear message to people launching smear campaigns not to do it.The jury began deliberations on Thursday and returned their verdict on Friday afternoon. Continue reading...
Ida Reams served as mayor of Osceola Mills from 2013 to 2021 and was intoxicated when she confronted the two menThe former two-term mayor of a Pennsylvania town has been ordered to serve up to a year in jail for shooting a gun at - and threatening to kill - two players of the popular mobile game Pokemon Go.Ida Reams, who served as mayor of Osceola Mills from 2013 to 2021, was intoxicated when she confronted the two male players of the augmented reality game in the parking lot of a food bank in the town in March last year. Continue reading...
CNN and New York Times report disappearance of 2,700 pages of classified material that caused alarm in US intelligence circlesA 10in-thick binder containing nearly 3,000 pages of highly classified material related to the investigation of Russian election interference as well as links between Moscow and Donald Trump went missing in the final days of his presidency, CNN and the New York Times reported.CNN said the disappearance raised alarms in the American intelligence community because some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed". Continue reading...
The 26-year-old left back is flying the American flag higher than anyone else at Craven Cottage - and possibly higher than anyone else in European soccer tooOthers might appear on the Mount Rushmore of current US men's national team icons before Antonee Robinson. Indeed, Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna, Weston McKennie and Yunus Musah might all get a mention for their European exploits ahead of Robinson, but the Fulham left back is out-performing them all right now.Mohamed Salah knows how well Robinson is currently playing. Callum Hudson-Odoi and Jarrod Bowen too. They have all come up against the American for a resurgent Fulham team recently and struggled to make an impact. Robinson - nicknamed Jedi' from childhood - stopped them. The force is strong with him at this moment in time. Continue reading...
Court expresses doubt ex-White House chief of staff was acting as a federal official in trying to reverse Trump's 2020 defeatA federal appeals court on Friday appeared skeptical of former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows' attempt to transfer his 2020 election interference case in Georgia to federal court, expressing doubt that he was acting as a federal official in trying to reverse Donald Trump's defeat.The court also questioned, in a particularly ominous development for Meadows, whether he was even entitled to remove his case from state to federal court given he was no longer a federal official. Continue reading...
West, running for president as an independent, predicts Biden will do as Johnson did in 1968 and decide against White House runJoe Biden will have an LBJ moment" and decide not to run for re-election next year, the leftwing academic and independent presidential candidate Cornel West has predicted.I'm not even sure whether I'll be running against Biden," West told Politico. Biden - I think he's going to have an LBJ moment [and] pull back." Continue reading...
National Archives directed to collect reports but measure gives government departments broad authority to keep them secretIf the truth about UFOs is out there, the American government doesn't want you to see it yet.Just months after US space agency Nasa appointed a research director of unidentified anomalous phenomena, and promised more transparency about what it knows, the US Congress has acted to throttle the flow of information that ultimately reaches the public. Continue reading...
The Israeli leader opposes the viable way forward and now acts only for himself. The US president must save Israel from its PMJoe Biden's bond with Israel and the Jewish people runs so deep he is said to feel it in his kishkes (that's guts", for the non-Yiddish speakers among you). Biden demonstrated that early in the current crisis by visiting Israel within days of the 7 October massacre, which saw 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, killed, many tortured and mutilated. He demonstrated it again, just as swiftly, with the dispatch of two US aircraft carriers to the region, aimed at deterring Hezbollah and its Iranian backers from attacking Israel from the north - his one-word message: Don't." And he showed it once more just last week, wielding the US veto at the United Nations - making Washington all but a lone voice against the global chorus demanding that Israel end its offensive in Gaza, which has left so many thousands dead.But there is one last act of service Biden needs to perform for the sake of the Israel he has stood with so long, a task he is uniquely able to execute. He must push Benjamin Netanyahu from power - and do all he can to ensure he does not return. Right now, the focus of US-Israeli relations is on the clock, on how long Washington will give its ally -which it arms - to pursue its stated goal of defeating Hamas, even at the cost of terrible death and destruction in Gaza. Hints that Biden's patience is wearing thin are getting louder. This week he warned that Israel is starting to lose [international] support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place". The signals are that Israel has until the middle or end of January to keep up what the White House calls high-intensity military operations". After that, it will have to move to a different phase" - one that consists of focused, targeted raids on Hamas strongholds, with fewer civilian casualties.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington on (#6H5YF)
Senator proposes resolution to investigate humanitarian cataclysm ... being done with American bombs and money'The US's support for Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza is facing new scrutiny in Washington following a proposed resolution by the independent senator Bernie Sanders that could ultimately be used to curtail military assistance.It is far from clear whether Sanders has the support to pass the resolution, but its introduction in the Senate this week - by an important progressive ally of the US president, Joe Biden - highlights mounting human rights and political concerns by Democrats on Capitol Hill. Continue reading...
Michael Cassidy arrested over tearing down of satanic altar - symbol of humanism and anti-authoritarianism - at Iowa capitolThe leader of an organization whose satanic altar at Iowa's state capitol was torn down by a Christian military veteran on Thursday has dismissed the vandalism as a real act of cowardice".There's a certain point at which we need some adults in the room to tell people what ... liberal, democratic values are; what their value is; why we uphold them; what they're good for; and they need to stand up for these values or we are going to further degenerate in our polarism towards autocracy," the co-founder of the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, told CNN's NewsNight on Thursday. Continue reading...
We in Ukraine always knew this would be a long war. To sustain the fight, Zelenskiy must find a way to give those on the frontline a breakIvan has been give the name Decent Man by his fellow soldiers, for being a decent man. As a 40-year-old teacher from central Ukraine and the father of three children, he would have been exempt from fighting at the beginning of the war. But he wanted to fight for his country. He has now spent 18 months on the battlefield and desperately misses his family. He might dream of returning home, but so far doesn't consider being discharged an option. The country has already spent money and resources on me. How can I leave?" he asks. Another soldier, who used to be a construction worker in a village in eastern Ukraine, speaks about his motivation to continue serving: I've learned how to become a better and more helpful soldier for my colleagues."I spoke to troops from this squadron, which belongs to one of the most famous Ukrainian combat brigades, earlier this month. I wanted to understand the mood among soldiers on the eastern front, to find out what the troops care most about and also to discover whether political disputes reach the frontline.Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist, and co-founder of the Reckoning Project
January's Globes ceremony menu goes big on sushi, which is neither in the shape of the awards, nor likely to soak up the booze. It's going to be carnageAlthough at this point in December next year still feels a million miles away, it is time to start paying attention to 2024. For example, the Golden Globes are on 7 January and an army of people are beavering away to make the event happen.This week, an announcement was made detailing what the Golden Globes guests would be eating. This one-of-a-kind culinary experience that redefines the traditional award show menu" turns out to be sushi. Nice sushi, admittedly, since the ceremony has roped in Nobu to make dishes such as sashimi salad and assorted nigiri. But, barring plates of black cod miso, it's still just sushi. Continue reading...
Charles McGonigal, one of the highest-ranking FBI officials to ever be convicted of a crime, was sentenced to 50 months in prisonA former FBI special agent who led a counterintelligence division was sentenced to more than four years in prison on Thursday for providing information to a Russian oligarch, in violation of US sanctions.Charles McGonigal, 55, is one of the highest-ranking FBI officials to ever be convicted of a crime. He spent 22 years at the FBI before retiring in September 2018, leading investigations into the 2010 release of state department classified cables by WikiLeaks, and a hunt for a suspected Chinese spy working as a mole in the CIA. Continue reading...
Aderrien Murry, who is Black, was wounded by police after calling 911, and authorities declined to charge the officer involvedThe family of an 11-year-old boy who was shot by police after he called 911 and asked for their help have vowed to continue to fight for justice after authorities declined to charge the officer involved.Aderrien Murry, who is Black, was seriously wounded by police after his mother asked him to call the police when the father of one of his half-siblings became angry. They were at their home in Indianola, Mississippi. Continue reading...
More than 150,000 Republicans among 1.3m signatures collected for plan to put constitutional amendment to voters next yearPro-choice activists in Florida, where nearly all abortions are banned after the 15th week of pregnancy, want voters to enshrine the right to a termination in the state constitution via a referendum on next year's election ballot.More than 150,000 registered Republican voters in Florida have now signed a petition calling for a constitutional amendment that would guarantee a woman's right to an abortion up to the point of a fetus's viability, which is generally considered to be around the 24th week of pregnancy. Continue reading...
Joe Biden left in a bind as Israel tells US it needs months' to defeat Hamas. Plus, Ukraine stung after Hungary's Viktor Orban blocks EU war fundingGood morning.Israeli tanks and planes on Friday intensified their bombardment of northern Gaza as well as Khan Younis and Rafah in the territory's south - with four people including two children killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Khan Younis early on Friday, Palestinian health officials said.What is the humanitarian death toll of Israel's offensive so far? At least 18,787 Palestinians have been killed and 50,897 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Thursday. The strikes followed Hamas's attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, with more than 200 others taken hostage.What do Israelis think of Netanyahu's actions? A poll of Israelis revealed widespread dissatisfaction with Netanyahu's handling of US-Israel relations during the war. About 43% disapproved of Netanyahu's treatment of Biden with 36% supporting, according to a Maariv/Jerusalem Post poll conducted this week.How are diplomatic efforts playing out? France's foreign minister will travel to Lebanon on Saturday as part of diplomatic efforts by Emmanuel Macron's government to help contain the Middle East conflict. Fears of a widening war have been growing, with Iran-backed groups targeting US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria, and daily exchanges of fire along Israel's border with Lebanon.What is Adnoc is planning to invest? $150bn over seven years in oil and gas, which Al Jaber said would maintain current production levels rather than increase output. He said Adnoc was forgoing much of its potential extraction.What was the significance of the Cop deal? It marked the first time in 30 years of climate talks that a global resolution had been made addressing the future of all fossil fuels.What have critics of the Cop deal said? Indigenous people, frontline communities and climate justice groups rebuked the deal as unfair, inequitable and business as usual. Continue reading...
So much of the festive season is built around children. Amid the celebrations, it's OK to give yourself space to grieveHave you seen those baubles - Baby's First Christmas? If my first pregnancy hadn't ended in miscarriage, last year would have seen our tree adorned with those, but instead it marked yet another year filled with loss." Sophie Flynn is telling me about navigating the festive season when you desperately want to be a parent. So much of Christmas is framed around children that it can feel like an emotional obstacle course for those who have experienced baby loss, miscarriage, or biological or social infertility. Everywhere you turn, there are reminders of what others have.Christmas becomes something you count as another year that didn't turn out as you hoped," she says. Add into it the messaging that it's all for the kids, as if your celebrations are frivolous without them, and the season can become something to endure." It's all very well having a happily childfree, adult Christmas of oysters and champagne and movie marathons and naps, but when your childless status is a source of pain, it's a different matter altogether.Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
As a teen, I dreaded the annual update on my gawky progress. But the letters have become a glorious archive of the mundaneThe round robin is very, very dead. Even Debrett's thinks they're tedious and unnecessary, and keeping tedious and unnecessary stuff going is Debrett's whole thing. The idea of an end-of-year roundup shoved into a Christmas card has been dead for so long that even the whole tranche of comedy built on mimicking the smuggest, most thunderingly boring retellings of the year's exploits - incredible trips abroad, professional triumphs, angelic and gifted children - is gone too.The reasons are fairly obvious. If I want to know what your kids are up to and where you went on holiday, Instagram will tell me. If I want your take on the state of the nation, I'll check which James O'Brien clips you've retweeted. If I ever want to know how your career's going, I'll snoop on your LinkedIn. And generally, I don't want any of these things anyway.Tom Nicholson is a freelance writer Continue reading...
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