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Good Morning, Portland! Good morning, from the cold, majestic, and unforgiving OCEAN. CRASH! CAW! PLORP. GURBLE. The sea cares not for the pathetic problems of insignificant humans—though she would appreciate it if we stopped getting plastic everywhere. NOW, ONTO pathetic tiny human NEWS.

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Post-Thanksgiving shows feel a little mythical, but so necessary, if you can find a good one. Mercury music columnist Jenni Moore noted an irreverent, unmissable country show at Turn! Turn! Turn! in her round-up this week, and our calendar editor Audrey Vann highlighted an annual revue drag show and dance party, Bjork Friday.

• This holiday’s big story was undoubtably the News Seasons worker strike on Wednesday. On a spectrum of “do the workers seem to hate it here?” New Seasons still offers a better shopping experience than most grocery stores in town, so I was a little surprised to read that the union has been trying to establish a first contract with management—Good Food Holdings, which is ultimately owned by South Korea’s Emart, which is ultimately owned by a South Korean chaebol—for nearly TWO YEARS. WAT. Labor-fearing folks dropped plans Tuesday to get their shopping done early, and good on’m.

• GROCERY RANT: Personally,  New Seasons has become too basic bitch for my tastes, and haven’t been to one for anything other than a fresh apple in quite some time. Their grab-and-go section? STAID.  Their seasonal offerings? SAME SHIT AS LAST YEAR. The big shiny grocery shops do have first dibs on grade-a wholesale produce, so they do have the high-quality apples, quite frequently, but when it comes to the chocolate orange of my dreams, bulk spices and oats, and some new thing I haven’t heard about, I turn to Portland’s two remaining co-ops, the enduring oasis of World Foods, and my BFF with a robust meat counter Sheridan Fruit Company (established in 1918).

• BEANS RANT: While New Seasons’ staff has asked supporters to show solidarity by staying away from the stores for the rest of the holiday weekend, I am also partial to the compromises made to just get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour, so I won’t be judging anyone at the hot bar today. We’re all just doing our best here. But if you feel moved to start cooking at home more, Max Read shared a delightful bean tutorial this week, and this deep-cut Bon Appétit bean video. As a person whose diet was largely beans until our workplace unionized, and whose diet is still full of beans due to my personal preferences, I had already reached many of these conclusions on my own. But this is the good bean news, and could “up your bean game” in noticeable ways.

• Now back to the local grind with a Mercury food week reminder: Next week (Dec 2-Dec 8) fans of fancy dranks can sip upon specially crafted holiday themed cocktails at bars around town… and the fancy seasonal cocktails are only $8 each! Expect some hate in the comments from people who can’t stand how cheap that is, and tip your ‘tender for figuring out a way to serve one up in this economically—tis the season to treat yourself… to alcohol with whipped cream on top.

• And speaking of a whippin’, when is dinner time on Thanksgiving? 3 pm? Noon? Actual night?! Let us know which mom is right in this week’s Pop Quiz PDX.

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Nothing says pathetic and tiny news like a PUG winning Best in Show at the National Dog Show. Vito, a two-and-a-half-year-old dog from Chapel Hill, is the first pug breed winner of the competition ever, according to NPR.  Vibes award goes to the person in this clip who says, “yay! It’s over!” I am horrified to learn that human beings continue to make bad dog breeding decisions, and have made a doberman-colored corgi—the Lancaster Heeler—which debuted at the compeition this year. Throw us all into the ocean, seriously. One of only three major dog shows in the US, National Dog Show has always taken place around Thanksgiving, since it kicked off as a celebration of the national’s first centennial in 1876, but in 2002, NBC started televising the show for holiday ratings fodder, and got organizers to change the name of the event from Kennel Club of Philadelphia Dog Show. This move was, without exaggeration, inspired by Christopher Guest’s mockumentary Best in Show, and has apparently worked out for everyone… except for people who wish It’s A Wonderful Life was on. 

• All my complaining aside, it turns out that I do want to watch terriers promenade to Pharrell:

• Who’s violatin’ ceasefire during our eating holiday? It’s Israel! Associated Press reports that Israeli military warplanes fired on a rocket storage facility in Southern Lebanon, a SINGLE DAY after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. To quote my partner’s father: “I never even know there’s a ceasefire until they’ve already broken it.” Same, bestie, same.

• Australia has now passed a law to keep people younger than 16 years old off social media, but how does the country plan to enforce that? Uh. It doesn’t. The law isn’t aimed at children or their parents at all. It’s apparently aimed at social media companies— TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram, and X Twitter have been named—and instructs them to take “reasonable steps” to keep Australian youths from having accounts on their platforms or face “up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (about $32 million)” in fines. 

• Love how casually this article introduces a concern that I—a moderately anxious person— had not even considered: another country or “adventurous billionaires” trying to DIM. THE. FUCKING. SUN. AHHHHHH. AHHH. AHHHH. You’re welcome from these scientists with balloons, who are keeping an eye on it.

• Who’s the bitch being like —I’M back BITCH—when her scaffolding will probably stay in place for another three years? Of course it’s Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris—OF COURSE IT IS. The beloved church will reopen to the public after a December 7 ceremony and will resume holding mass on December 16. Check out this comparison lewks piece from AP.

• The impending US president, Donald Trump, has picked World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon for his Secretary of Education nominee, and SHOCKING NO ONE, she is also a current defendant in an ongoing lawsuit that accuses McMahon, her co-founder husband, and others of knowing about the abuse of children by WWE personnel and performers without intervening, and furthermore fostering a culture of sex abuse within the performative company. New York Times just being 100 percent that bitch with this headline: “Her Wrestling Empire Was Said to Harm Children. Trump Chose Her for Education.”

• This morning we are unable to read that Trump’s eldest son DTJr. is making a name for himself as his dad’s enforcer, without thinking of  Jia Tolentino’s 2017 “The Land of the Large Adult Son.” We are also reading it in the “Which One of My Garbage Sons Are You?” voice.

• OKAY, YOU WANTED IT, YOU GOT IT. This AI-created video is the new worst thing the internet has ever shown me. And I am EXCITED FOR THE STAGE PLAY WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY IS WRITING BASED ON THIS, AS WE SPEAK.

 

 
 

 
 

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