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Healthy Gift Guide — 17 ideas for giving “the gift of health”

Harvard T. H. Chan Nutrition Source Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Instead of gifting sugar-laden sweets, try giving more nutritious snacks. Here are some fun ideas that serve as enjoyable and thoughtful gifts, and which can be motivational nudges toward living a healthier lifestyle.

President Rodrigo Duterte's Killing Fields and People's War in the Philippines

E. San Juan, Jr. interviewed by Andy Piascik Znet
While the U.S. set up the electoral system in the Philippines, the feudal/comprador classes manipulate it so that personalities, not ideology, and bribery determine the outcome. Democracy in the Philippines is actually the rule of the privileged minority of landlords, bureaucrat capitalists, and business partners of foreign mega-corporations (called compradors) over the majority. All presidential candidates promise change for the better.

Teacher Shortages Are Looming, but It Doesn't Need to Be This Way

Eleanor J. Bader Truthout
About 8% of teachers leave the field each year, due to long workdays, low salaries and challenging conditions. Some predict a gap of 112,000 teachers by 2018. Some states are lowering the bar for teaching jobs. But there are plenty of good ideas about how to support teachers and improve the jobs in order to lower turnover and improve morale.

Amazon Drivers Say They Are Pushed to the Limit

Natalie Kitroeff Los Angeles Times
Amazon subcontracts to local courier companies that use drivers who are considered independence contractors. These companies are less expensive than Fedex or UPS and they are not unionized. Amazon provides them with phones that track their packages and delivery progress, and workers need to average a delivery every 2 minutes in order to meet demand.

Scientists Against Science Denialism and Pseudoscience

Orac Respectful Insolence
It’s not enough to know the science (or history). You have to know the pseudoscience (or pseudohistory) inside and out. You have to know how science has been twisted, the studies that pseudoscientists will reference, and how they will misrepresent them. It takes a special skill set to combat pseudoscience and science denialism, and few academics have it.

The Making of a Black President

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jackie Lay The Atlantic
Ta-Nehisi Coates explores President Barack Obama’s journey to the White House

Demographics Are Not Destiny

Barry Eidlin Jacobin
Democrats were wrong to think that shifting demographics alone would hand them victory. What then determines whether workers respond to economic grievances with nativism or solidarity? In a word, organization.