On the eve of his memoir’s publication, Barack Obama tweeted a playlist of “memorable songs from my administration” yesterday. “Hope you enjoy it.” The 44th president of the United States hopes you enjoy it. But no sooner did he publish his picks than millions of people got busy debating his list, checking it twice, criticizing his taste, praising his taste, and running a battery of political tests for partisan and bipartisan implications.

“Great list, but kinda mellow,” tweeted the novelist Stephen King. “I like your style, Mr. President, and I miss you and your family so much,” wrote a fan. “Wish you were still President,” beamed a music critic. “So the soundtrack for his 8 years in office is Starbucks elevator music. Haha,” hissed a scholar. “A real Hyde Parker wouldn’t have picked the second track off Kind of Blue because the first track was too obvious—they’d have picked the third track!” wrote a discerning investigative editor at a competing newsroom.

Obama has some good ones, but decide for yourselves: Aretha Franklin’s “The Weight,” BB King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” Beyoncé’s “Halo” and “At Last,” Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” Brooks and Dunn’s “Only in America,” Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising,” Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” Frank Sinatra’s “Luck Be a Lady,” Gloria Estefan’s “Always Tomorrow,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon,” Jay-Z’s “My 1st Song,” John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things,” Miles Davis’ “Freddie Freeloader,” Phillip Phillip’s “Home,” the Beatles’ “Michelle,” Sade’s “Cherish the Day,” Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” and “Sir Duke,” and U2’s “Beautiful Day.”

“Music has always played an important role in my life—and that was especially true during my presidency,” Obama tweeted. His new book, A Promised Land, is fast becoming one of the top-selling political memoirs in history.

“There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America. There’s the United States of America,” he said years earlier. Tell it to the raging chorus of music critics and polarizers on Twitter. At least he included the Beatles’ “Michelle.”

Listen to his playlist and weigh in on the former president’s picks at recharge@motherjones.com.

There are many dancers for whom dance is their profession and near-singular concentration, who train for hours every day to become world-class athletes, classical artists, or iconoclasts in renowned companies. But there are many more for whom dance is a private and personal form of expression, who will never desire the fame or attain the status of a New York City Ballet prima ballerina, but who find in dance an integral and special part of their lives. They dance for self-exploration and cultivation of local community. And they have unique insight into the cloistered world of professional dance, owing to their access to it.

I’m a dancer of the second kind, and though I’ve practiced jazz, modern, and many other styles, ballet makes my heart sing. Before the pandemic, I’d finish my day’s work at Mother Jones, change into my leotard, tights, and warmups, and hurriedly bike to the studio, arriving just in time for the first plié. I did this three or four times a week, staying for up to three hours each day. Dance was my all-in-one workout, church, therapy, art, and craft—in a different order each time.

My last class was March 13, two days after the pandemic was declared, at Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet Dance Center in San Francisco. I’m sure many dancers remember their last pre-quarantine class vividly, set in memory by the void that followed.

The Bay Area was quick to implement shelter-in-place and strict health protocols, and many studios closed, but they got creative: They tirelessly supported and received support from dancers by offering virtual classes for the first time, made recordings free to stream, held online events—whatever to stay afloat. Eight months later, studios that could survive financially are still adapting. Wherever you live, I guarantee your local studios and companies have found creative solutions.

Until recently, I lived in a tiny one-room apartment with no space to dance, let alone do anything requiring a more-than-2-foot radius. I supported dance studios by buying passes for future classes and found workarounds to compensate for the abrupt drop of my spiritual center. Many groups have pivoted to digital offerings—Alvin Ailey posts prerecorded performances—and for others, the stage itself has moved. It’s no longer confined to a theater, the locations are limitless, and everyone gets the best seat in the house.

Top companies are transcending traditional restraints, as in this San Francisco Ballet performance filmed at outdoor locations with more than 150 tracks recorded remotely by 60-plus musicians. Or in these five works by the New York City Ballet filmed throughout the city. One of them, Water Rite, turns the inside of the Hearst Plaza fountain into a stage. Or in this Paris Opera Ballet offering with a breathtaking view of the city.

If you’re new to ballet or prefer classical story ballets over contemporary works, the full-length recording of the Kirov Ballet’s Swan Lake is magical. It’s a 1990 production, but it doesn’t age (or it ages well) and the caliber of Russian companies is exquisite. Giselle, Don Quixote, and Romeo and Juliet are all online too. And if you love ballet through the music, my top pick is the Mariinsky Orchestra’s version of Swan Lake under the direction of Valery Gergiev—jump to track 13, “Song of the Swans,” or listen to the masterpiece in its entirety.

Beyond ballet, the range of contemporary and hip-hop offerings is expansive. A good place to start is Galen Hooks, who effortlessly plays with contemporary, lyrical, musical theater, and hip-hop themes to create a style of her own. Both Kida the Great and Robert Green are phenomenal (you’ll recognize them from So You Think You Can Dance), and Zoi Tatopoulos’ choreography is unclassifiable.

When the pandemic is over, and lockdowns are loosened, I hope (and plan) to continue watching, listening to, and supporting dance in each new way.

—Cathy Asmus is Mother Jones’ membership initiatives manager. Share your dance stories with her at recharge@motherjones.com.

Looming disaster and imminent peril get all the love, but there’s a stack of good news in today’s archives: It was Friday the 13th when Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins recorded “Friday the 13th” in 1953. An eerie start: Rollins was delayed by a car accident, and trumpeter Ray Copeland fell sick, so Julius Watkins filled in. The 10-minute jam was written on the spot, and it was one of Rollins’ most fulfilling collaborations. Full track here; Monk’s solo here.

It was Friday the 13th when Evelyn Brier became the first woman to receive an airplane instructor’s license. And Friday the 13th when President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order banning gender discrimination in federal employment.

And Friday the 13th when Super Mario Bros. entered the world, and Steve Buscemi entered the world. Beyond bloodbaths Fargo, Reservoir Dogs, and The Sopranos, Steve’s good! He was a firefighter in New York City in the ’80s. One day after 9/11, he volunteered with his old firehouse to work 12-hour shifts digging through rubble in search of missing firefighters. “Very few photographs and no interviews exist because he declined them. He wasn’t there for the publicity,” a firefighter community wrote in solidarity. Ten years later, he joined protests against firehouse closures under Mayor Bloomberg and has supported labor rights on a firefighters’ advisory board.

The first dinosaur eggs were discovered on Friday the 13th.

NASA announced water on the moon on Friday the 13th.

World Kindness Day was Friday the 13th last year.

Share a word about kindness shown to you or by you at recharge@motherjones.com. And if today bellies up and Steve Buscemi knocks at your door, there’s always Saturday the 14th, unless you answer that door.

The origin story of “happy hour” is contested and blurry, but most historians and etymologists circle 1599, when Shakespeare’s Henry V proclaims, “Omit no happy hour that may give furtherance to our expedition.” It wasn’t until the 1910s that the US Navy held Happy Hour Social three nights a week aboard the USS Arkansas, when, instead of drinks, it was boxing, dancing, singalongs, and picture shows. Today is National Happy Hour Day, and after a few drinks, the origin story is whatever you say it is. If you’re going by the archives, consider the 1959 Saturday Evening Post article that popularized the phrase. Shortly after, a 1961 Providence Journal article dove into detail.

The saying was heard in California cities near naval bases in the early ’50s, and the tradition began at least as early as Prohibition. But nothing prohibits remaking the hour in your vision, if you can. Here are some suggestions:

1. Spend an hour however you want or need (conditions permitting). You don’t even have to tell us what it is at recharge@motherjones.com.

2. Wave across the internet, or the room, to someone you’ve been meaning to. Don’t exceed 60 minutes of this.

3. In under an hour, read our Mother Jones column “What Are You Hoping For?”—with or without a beverage in hand—and let us know how you’re processing the election, the pandemic, the media’s coverage, and the personal and political roads ahead.

4. See number one: Do something you want or need.

I don’t want to hear from any horologist that “Hour Day” makes no sense. I’m far fussier than you could ever be about contradictions in terms, but this is fine. We can have an entire day for an hour. But only that. Happy NHHD.

Over the next few days, you will undoubtedly read about the Hindu festival of Diwali, which signifies the victory of good over evil, light over darkness, and knowledge over ignorance. The myth has different characters depending on where in India, or the world, you’re from: Rama, Sita, and Lakshman vs. the demon Ravana; Lord Krishna vs. the demon Narakasura; Lord Vishnu vs. the demon King Bali.

Democracy vs. Donald Trump and complicit members of the Republican Party. Admittedly, this battle is still being fought, and even if democracy wins this time, and light pushes out the darkness, battles for good are fought over and over again. In lore and in life, good edges out evil, and then evil edges out good. The lines get blurry. And the battle begins again.

We celebrate Diwali every year because there is no final triumph. Good cannot eliminate evil, only transform or temper it, because neither good nor evil—light nor darkness—exists without the other. Every year we’re reminded to use our most precious resources—time, energy, concentration, and love—to transform suffering in ourselves, our families, our communities, and our country.

We are, each of us, the light and the darkness, and our greatest battle is not with the demons outside but with the demons within. Much of Hindu mythology is about transforming our own ignorance. If we remake the Ravana within, we can shine more light for ourselves and even our political opponents. We do not need to demonize each other to fight demons.

We need a little Diwali year-round. There are daily decisions that can bring more light: showing gratitude and showering people with your own brand of blessings; bringing righteous anger and commitment to justice in a given moment (instead of impotent rage); making space for BIPOC voices in our lives and workplaces; supporting our country by supporting women of color. And dancing with joy—and laughing—even when you feel like lying down in silence.

The diyas that led the exiled son, Rama, to his rightful throne in Ayodhya stretched far from the city and could be seen from high above. Every flame upon a wick of cotton in an oil lamp helped pierce the darkness and allowed Rama to find his way home.

You may not have a throne, and you may not run a city, state, or country, but you may run something—like the Recharge column at Mother Jones, and like my colleague who does, you are going to fight to protect that diya and illuminate the path forward no matter what comes. And you do. And the transformation toward good continues. Thank you, Daniel King.

Happy Diwali to you all. May you find the light in your lives, and may you be a source of light to others.

—Venu Gupta is Mother Jones’ Midwest regional development director. Share your stories of Diwali with her at recharge@motherjones.com.

In the far periphery of presidential politics and the surging pandemic, there’s a small, simple story that caught my attention from New York City. On a street corner in Brooklyn, a teacher named Brandon Woolf set up a folding chair and a typewriter alongside a mailbox and a handwritten sign offering “Free Letters for Friends Feeling Blue.”

It’s a familiar sight in some cities. His instrument is analog. And there’s nothing particularly new about consolation letters. But as isolation stretches on, the sheer tactility of letter-writing takes on heightened potential for healing for passers-by who pulled up. For hours on end, Woolf would type for anyone who asked, with masks, hand sanitizer, and distance in place. “Whatever type of experience you would like to have, I’m happy to provide letters, envelopes, stamps,” he told reporter Anna Quinn. “What’s a better experience than getting a piece of mail…from somebody you didn’t expect to hear from?”

Hard to disagree. With credit to Woolf and anyone who’s done it before, here’s an idea (what would Recharge be if not an amplifier?): For any reader who’d like a handwritten letter from our international Recharge desk, request away at recharge@motherjones.com. It won’t be typed, won’t be lengthy, and won’t be poetic; it’ll just be a postcard with a short message, and it won’t mention the 45th president of the United States.

Eruptions of joy continued into the afternoon as sprawling street parties picked up from Brooklyn’s Fort Greene to Oakland’s Lakeshore, filmed by @ghostlychloe and shared by my colleague Jayo Miko Macasaquit, and another in Fairfax, California, posted by @sherlavars and shared by my colleague Steve Katz.

From Oakland:

In Fairfax:

Fairfax CA Biden celebration pic.twitter.com/Y9vI49s0aK

— Sherry LaVars (@sherlavars) November 7, 2020

Steve, with Rachelle Averbach, describes “a beautiful fall morning” and “no surprise that downtown Fairfax was filled with mountain and road bikers” (Fairfax is the birthplace of mountain biking) plus “coffee-slugging brunch mavens…About 50 of us locals headed downtown to catch Biden’s and Harris’ victory party. It was an unexpectedly emotional moment for so many people—a release, a relief, even though we know how hard the time ahead will be.”

In Brooklyn, my colleague Molly Schwartz synthesized the clanging pans, honking horns, and shouts of catharsis as “ambient jubilance [that] erupted into a full-fledged open-air dance party”:

best day of this kids life pic.twitter.com/nudYA3lCVM

— Molly Schwartz (@mollyfication) November 7, 2020

Outdoors and indoors, it all continues; if you have Recharges and videos of your own, share them at recharge@motherjones.com.

It’s not every day, or year, or four years, that I’m booting a president from our newsroom’s style guide. On Saturday, after multiple news organizations declared Biden-Harris the winning ticket of the presidential election, what choice did I have but to open our style guide, click “edit,” and enshrine the people’s will?

Before:

Capitalize formal titles only when they precede a person’s name: President Trump, Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Lowercase informal titles (e.g., special counsel Robert Mueller).

After:

Capitalize formal titles only when they precede a person’s name: President-elect Biden, Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Lowercase informal titles (e.g., special counsel Robert Mueller).

Before:

airstrike
a.m., p.m.
American Dream
“Amtrak Joe” Biden
antifa
Arafat, Yasser
archaeologist

After:

airstrike
a.m., p.m.
American Dream
“Amtrak Joe” Biden, President-elect Biden
antifa
Arafat, Yasser
archaeologist

Plus:

• President-elect Biden (lowercase “elect”) in running copy; President-Elect Biden in headlines
• Vice President–elect Harris (en dash, option+hyphen); Vice President–Elect Harris in headlines
• Lowercase titles when not preceding names: The president-elect tweeted. If a spoken quote has “Madam Vice President,” Madam not Madame.

Had to be done. Trump is still president for the next 10 weeks, so bear in mind that “lame-duck” gets hyphenated as an adjective, and stays open as a noun. And these things matter, like when Fox News told its anchors not to call Biden “president-elect” when it called the race, according to two internal memos, before the network changed its tune in the face of overwhelming facts. Read our style guide, and send suggestions, here.

“The Bush legacy—where to begin?” this magazine’s staff wondered in our 2008 September+October issue. It was hard to sum up the unrelenting damage done by the “Worst. Administration. Ever.” The obvious place to start was the horror of the Iraq War, which we’d reported on extensively, including a timeline of lie after lie that led to it. But there was more, much more to how Bush tore the government apart.

A great deal of what happened has been flushed out of collective memory—or at least less likely to be mentioned—with the more robustly obvious incivility (if no less evil) ascendent in the tea party and in turn President Trump. Yet disconnecting those strains of Republicanism and teasing out any real change on the right is a bit harder to see when you look back to 2008. At the very least, it’s not worth pretending Bush didn’t set up Trump, and it is harder to pretend Trump is a complete aberration.

Go check out our timeline of Bush’s “reign of error.” Look back at what David Cole said in 2008, with grave concern over the powers of an unchecked executive. And, of course, the lack of calling out a president’s blustering lying surely didn’t help us deal with Trump. All the seeds are there. Comparisons of “who caused this” or “who is worse” likely miss the point—Bush set up Trump more than we’ve probably talked about. In 2008, we wrote a whole issue grappling with how to fix the Bush era. I’m rereading to see what we still have left to do.

Eighty-nine years ago today, Louis Armstrong recorded “Georgia on My Mind.” Counting in Georgia continues as I write this, and a listener asks, “What date did Louis record ‘I’ve Got My Fingers Crossed’?” Answer: November 21, two weeks from now. I heard last night on the radio a back-to-back set of “Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe” by Ella Fitzgerald, “Good for Nothin’ Joe” by Lena Horn, and “Hold ’Em Joe” by Harry Belafonte. “Hey Joe” by Jimi Hendrix was missing. I don’t endorse candidates or radio stations, but I endorse music and justice; while we wait, Armstrong is here, Fitzgerald here, Horn here, Belafonte here, Hendrix here, and good news here:

Earth’s people. Nevada voted to require half of all energy to come from renewable sources in 10 years. The state is also the first to repeal a same-sex marriage ban in its constitution.

Path to power. Ohio welcomes its first woman and LGBTQ person as sheriff in the history of Hamilton County. “My role,” Charmaine McGuffey said, “is to be an example of what you can accomplish as an LGBT person because there’s a lot of discrimination out there.” 28-year-old Adrian Tam becomes Hawaii’s only declared LGBTQ elected official in the statehouse, beating a leader of the Proud Boys, the violent far-right group that includes white supremacists. And in Oklahoma, 27-year-old Mauree Turner becomes the country’s highest-ranking nonbinary lawmaker.

Naming rights. Rhode Island has removed the word “Plantations” from its official name. Rhode Island and Providence Plantations is now just Rhode Island. When the name was adopted in the 17th century, the word didn’t refer specifically to a place where people were enslaved locally, but 53 percent of voters approved the switch, recognizing the role the state played in the transatlantic trade.

Moons ago. If the planet is wearing you down, remember that NASA announced last week the discovery of water on the moon’s sunlit surface. When safe travel returns, Recharge party on the moon, your treat. Mother Jones is reader-supported; if you can, support us and I’ll look into a 2021 moon Recharge. Until then, keep Georgia on your mind, and keep ideas coming at recharge@motherjones.com.

Whatever happens tomorrow, these day-after boosts are right here:

Florida gets a raise. The Sunshine State became the first in the South to pass a $15 minimum wage, nearly doubling its current minimum in a milestone for the livable-wage movement supported by labor groups like Fight for 15. My colleague Hannah Levintova contextualizes it. 

Medicine that works. Five states have made safe medicine more available—Arizona, Montana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and South Dakota—in cannabis changes that our science reporter Jackie Flynn Mogensen rolls right up for you.

Bag it. New Jersey is the latest state to reduce its reliance on single-use plastic, seeing the stakes (and acting on them) as a climate imperative.

Native voices. Six Native Americans are heading to Congress in a historic wave that gives the House a record number of Native members. Indian Country Today reporter Dalton Walker has more.

Rising representation. New Mexico is the first state to elect all women of color to a House delegation: Deb Haaland was already one of the first Native women in Congress, and she’s joined by Teresa Leger Fernandez and Yvette Herrell, a member of the Cherokee Nation.

A hot dog is not a sandwich. As I write this, 128 of you voted “no” and 117 “yes” in yesterday’s Mother Jones poll asking, “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” Look, it’s not my fault that National Sandwich Day lands on the last day of presidential voting any more than it’s your fault. Team No is pulling ahead; polls are still open, but I’m projecting a winner.

Try not to nail-bite. A lot of “nail-biter” uses in headlines this morning. New York Times: “nail-biter.” CNN: “nail-biter.” NBC: “nail-biter.” Politico: “nail-biter.” CNBC: “nail-biter.” FiveThirtyEight: “nail-biter.” Chicago Tribune: “nail-biter.” Talking Points Memo: “nail-biter.” Mail Tribune: “nail-biter.” CNN again: “nail-biter.” Times again: “nail-biter.” I don’t endorse nail-biting but I endorse the phrase for drawing attention to behavior that needs consideration. Nails get bitten and chewed and gnawed and spit out like day-old pizza crust and unpaid interns at oppressive offices that exploit free labor. But the phrase is good. Think about it: all this free publicity about the health of your nails, smuggled through metaphor. “Learn to resist the urge” to bite, says Tara S. Peris, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, in a piece titled “How to Stop Biting Your Nails.” In high-stress times, it’s understandable. Biting should be taken seriously as a sometimes compulsive or impulsive expression. Take Peris’ advice, if you can, to limit it. And take my advice, if you can, to keep using the phrase.

As the race tightened into the night and early morning, sources of good news began to emerge beyond the results themselves. Among them is the story of 39-year-old LaToya Moreland, a mother of four, and her rocky journey to her first time voting in 12 years. The Florida resident overcame obstacle after obstacle on her way to the polls. Read her incredible story in her own words, and take your recharge where you can. We’ll be back with more good news after some short rest.

They say that every year, but this year it’s true. As you squint at the election results, and the ticktock wears on, bear in mind the day’s dual significance. While gambling hundreds of years ago, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, ordered a slab of animal between two slices of bread for ease of consumption. The origin story is murkier than the naming, but what’s clear is that the ensuing dustup over what constitutes a sandwich, who gets to adjudicate it, and what mechanisms exist for redressing grievances over authoritarian claims on “sandwich” status continues.

In 2017, University of Oregon sandwich scholar Nicole Gonzalez stirred debate when she asked her students a seemingly simple question: Is a hot dog a sandwich? Merriam-Webster has weighed in and votes yes, but how do you? Cast your ballot:

From 6 feet away, take your hoagie, hero, grinder, subway, sammy, or sammich and watch the presidential results roll in at MotherJones.com. Lettuce meat out some justice in this down-ballot race too, unless you’re chik’n. Have your vote counted on National Sandwich Day. Results will be shared in our daily newsletter. Sign up at motherjones.com/newsletters.

There’s enough tension and anticipation to edge out of view the countless stories of strength and stamina (and some justice) today, but whatever happens, each will be here long after the results. Here are 30 boosts to cross the finish line. Thanks to many readers who sent tips:

1. A California man donated 25,000 baseball cards to a 9-year-old who’d lost her collection in a wildfire. Kevin Ashford had planned to sell online but donated after news of her loss. “It’s just one thing after another during 2020,” he said. “I just want to make it a little easier for these kids.”

2. Winners of the 2020 disability-reporting awards will be celebrated tonight. Watch live, and congratulations to Lakeidra Chavis, Jodi S. Cohen, and Jennifer Smith Richards for scoring top honors from the National Center on Disability and Journalism.

3. When a DC gym found out that a 90-year-old woman was watching classes from her window all day, the gym staff painted her a mural. She’s a former dancer who’d performed 70 years ago with a renowned dance company.

4. Someone give 7-year-old Cavanaugh Bell anything he wants. He’s been donating trucks full of pandemic supplies to a South Dakota reservation, the most poverty-stricken in the country, through his nonprofit, Cool & Dope, which aims to reduce bullying across the map.

5. A 12-year-old discovered the bones of a 69-million-year-old dinosaur. Let me repeat that: A 12-year-old discovered the bones of a 69-million-year-old dinosaur. What have you found? I discovered old unsweetened almond milk in my fridge.

6. In memory of her 13-year-old son, who was hit by a car in 2011 while he was trick-or-treating, Crystal Conover’s neighbors banded together this Halloween to decorate her lawn on Jayden’s favorite holiday, after her exhaustion had set in. She welcomed the support.

7. Hikaru Nakamura raised almost $10,000 for Doctors Without Borders by playing 77 charity chess matches simultaneously. He’s the US champion and the world’s fastest. I could take him.

8. All ages welcome to the Sesame Street jam session at Jazz at Lincoln Center with Big Bird, Elmo, all the jazz greats. Preview here, full show here.

9. She the People, a voter-turnout group, has ramped up efforts in battleground states to mobilize more voters, with strong results.

10. A painting, missing for decades, by Jacob Lawrence, part of his renowned Struggle series, has been discovered and given a prominent spot in public view. It was last seen in 1960.

11. Sarah Haider—an engine of brilliance in media criticism, moral philosophy, secular humanism, and human rights—has launched a newsletter. She’s an outstanding writer who shreds fallacies, improves public dialogue, and does it rigorously and constructively, without any of the venom and vilification so encouraged on social media. Hat-tip to Haider. She threads a crucial needle, focusing on hard, necessary criticism of ideas and institutions wherever her interests take us. Intro here, subscribe here, Twitter here.

12. Jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant landed a MacArthur Foundation fellowship. She’s the only musician in this year’s group of “genius grant” winners.

13. One of the most inventive and thrilling pianists on earth, Vijay Iyer, has shared a playlist of most of his albums of the past 25 years: “Listen on shuffle if you feel like it. It’s only 17 1/2 hours long.”

14. Saxophonist David S. Ware’s birthday would have been this Saturday. Revisit my 2003 interview in his New Jersey home (and meet his pups Bibi and Mikuro).

15. The New York band Stern has a new pandemic song, his third quarantine blues, as original and transporting as his first. “It’s an angular little ditty about the unstable world we live in and the insistence on recalling more pleasant memories in the face of depression, encroaching fascism, plague, and poverty,” he tells me. You’ll drift into it—a surreal soundscape of impending armageddon or absolute glory—or run screaming for the hills.

16. Congratulations to Geeta Anand on becoming dean of UC-Berkeley’s journalism school: “I am thrilled to be the first woman of color—indeed, the first woman—to serve as dean of Berkeley Journalism.” Read her full letter.

17. California beaches offer wheelchairs with enhanced wheels that roll over sand. “[My mother] will turn 91 in September. She has Alzheimer’s and is in hospice,” wrote a beachgoer. “She asked to go close to the water…We saw dolphins and all sorts of birds, and enjoyed a beautiful sunny day. The beach wheelchair made getting around very easy and it was comfortable for her. Thank you!” Reserve here.

18. The newly launched Black Music Library has digital books, articles, documentaries, and podcasts, created by Jenzia Burgos: “I’ve been working on this project for the last few months and it’s finally ready to share!”

19. In response to Dan Rather’s tweet “I just want to live in an America where I can give my grandson a hug,” a reader replied, “I have a neuromuscular disability and it hasn’t been safe for me to venture out in public since February. I just wish people would value my life as much as they value their own.” Dear ElizabetteUnplugged: I read your note. Your writing is good. People should read more of it. Say hello at recharge@motherjones.com.

20. The World Food Program scored the Nobel Peace Prize for hunger-relief efforts during the pandemic, focusing on countries torn by war.

21. 2020 is for the birds: A bunch of birds have been crashing into skyscrapers, but New Yorkers are rescuing them in record numbers. NatGeo’s Natasha Daly has the inspiring story, with Jeffery Jones’ moving photos and David Beard’s newsletter lift.

22. The Robert E. Lee High School in Fairfax, Virginia, has been renamed the John R. Lewis High School after the civil rights leader, who eked out Barack Obama and Cesar Chavez for naming honors. 

23. There’s a ton of goodness coming from reporter Julia Métreaux, who writes movingly and expertly on pop culture, activism, chronic illness, disability, and so much more, including today’s powerful piece on Troy Kotsur, the Deaf actor who helped create Tusken Sign Language in The Mandalorian. Follow Métreaux wherever her writing and interests take us.

24. Nursing-home isolation is one of the (un)hidden perils of the pandemic, but a class of elementary students found a workaround, holding a Halloween party and waving through windows. “The residents are so excited,” said the center’s director. “They love to see the children in costumes and their smiling faces, and they’ve been talking about it for the better part of a week now.”

25. Recharge readers know that I never resort to animal videos. Here’s a shameless animal video.

26. Happy birthday today to a human: this writer’s father. Zoom party coming up.

27. Reader John Jeffrey Linderman of Michigan writes, “Yes, I have hope. In spite of the daily evidence of dysfunction in the US, I still believe that the majority of Americans are good, decent, and thoughtful. Yes, we have many bad actors…My dreams of healing would include surviving the election with a minimum of violence throughout the nation. We must be laser-focused on providing assistance to individuals suffering—first responders, health care workers, families, small businesses enduring devastation. Recovering from misery takes a long time and much courage. Our first priority must be addressing the pandemic, but just as importantly, many of our relationships, including longtime friendships, need healing…In spite of my deep fears about the state of our nation, I’m confident we will not only survive but become stronger.”

28. Vote.

29. Spin the full Recharge blog anytime.

30. Open call: recharge@motherjones.com.

It’s hard to believe that Clifford Brown lived just 25 years. In his short run, he remade American music more times, and more lastingly, than almost all trumpeters of any genre or generation, and he made possible the hard-bop legacies of Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard. Before his fatal car crash in 1956, Brown was in another car accident that sidelined him for a year, injuring his shoulder but not dampening his music. Dizzy Gillespie visited him in the hospital to encourage his recovery. “He had it all,” Sonny Rollins said.

Today would’ve been Brown’s 90th birthday. The Clifford Brown Jazz Festival is expanding online from his birthplace of Delaware. His only known footage is a two-song appearance on a variety show hosted by Soupy Sales. Brown blazed the registers with ripping speed, textural bite, and arpeggiated flourishes, but he never felt the need to substitute virtuosity for voice. He could say more in three notes than many could in 30. His quintet with Max Roach ended with the highway crash that killed Brown, pianist Richie Powell, and Powell’s wife, Nancy, who lost control of the wheel while they slept between gigs. Hours earlier, Brown had played his final note at a Philadelphia jam session.

“There may be no sadder tale in modern music than that of Clifford Brown,” the Washington Post lamented, but alongside his loss runs a story of growth and recovery. By 1955 he’d become the most celebrated young player in jazz, equaling or topping Miles Davis. “When he was killed, there was an uncommon rush of sentiment in the jazz world,” Whitney Balliett wrote. “The tenor saxophonist and composer Benny Golson wrote a resonant dirge-ballad called ‘I Remember Clifford.’”

Today is the Friday before Election Day. It’s also Halloween eve. The world is madness. Take three songs and call me in the morning at recharge@motherjones.com: “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You,” “Joy Spring,” and “Daahoud,” lined up here.

Almost a year ago, before the pandemic, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf wrote a letter to a law student and women’s rights activist, Mmonbeydo Nadine Joah, in the collection “Letters to Young People Who Inspire Us,” also headlined “What Prominent Leaders Want Youth Activists to Know.” The former Liberian president, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and first woman elected head of state of an African country turns 82 today. Her letter appeared in Time magazine alongside ones from Winnie Byanyima, the aeronautical engineer and executive director of the UN’s HIV/AIDS program, and several other leaders.

Read it in full, with special attention to the letter’s echoes across moments of national reckonings. Johnson Sirleaf led reconciliation and recovery after the civil war and did what she could to build anti-corruption coalitions. Criticism and controversies haven’t spared her, but her pathbreaking work, historic gains, and countless accomplishments are no less resonant in her letter than in her life:

Dear Mmonbeydo,

I write to you not only as your former President, but as a grandmother and a fellow Liberian woman.

Your passion to fight for women’s rights, your desire to stand up for others, and your determination to become a lawyer are qualities that I admire.

The world may seem a dark and challenging place. Every day we hear stories from our women and women across the world of rape, abuse, discrimination. We fear the climate crisis and see its destructive reality across the globe. We see the rule of law under attack from those meant to uphold it.

But there is so much to be hopeful about and young women like you give me hope. When I was your age, it was uncommon for a woman to be a lawyer let alone a President. I remember how proud I felt when Angie Brooks became the first female lawyer in Liberia in 1953 and then later the first female judge to be admitted to the Supreme Court.

We need more women in the justice sector. Not only as lawyers and judges but as police officers, prison staff, and as paralegals. Justice is the thread that binds all of the Sustainable Development Goals and we will not be able to achieve our goals for gender equality, education, or health without it.

We need to mentor and support girls and to listen to their voices and dreams. Our women’s movements must not only represent the interests and views of the elite. We need to make sure all women are included, especially those on the margins such as women with disabilities or women from rural areas. We need to stop working in silos and come together…I hope that young women like you can draw strength and solidarity from the spirit of that declaration and continue the fight for justice.

It may seem like a time of push back for women’s rights. A time when we need to make sure the rights women won over many generations are not diluted or destroyed. But it is also a time when our collective voice is strong—just look at the #WeAreUnprotected campaign in Liberia and global movements such as #MeToo #Nopiwouma and #NiUnaMenos. It is a time when fearless young women such as Malala, Greta, and yourself speak truth to power and shame leaders for their inaction.

Do not feel weak or discouraged when opposition comes. Don’t be afraid to dream boldly. To dream what seems impossible. As the feminist writer Audre Lorde reminds us, “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

Let us know how you view her legacy, and her birthday, at recharge@motherjones.com.

Years from now (this Tuesday), after the polls close, things not named Donald Trump, Joe Biden, the Supreme Court, and human despair will begin to peek through the cracks of perpetual horror we’ve been treated to this year. In that periphery is World Kindness Day, on November 13. What a concept. If you haven’t looked it up lately, I did so you don’t have to: “Kindness” is defined, at least by the language lobby behind dictionaries, as “the quality or state of being kind” or “a kind deed.”

Some help. If you write a dictionary, don’t use the word in its own definition. The root “kind” means “of a sympathetic or helpful nature.” The earliest “kindness” in newspapers I’ve found is a 1724 use (“abundant kindness”), but it dates further to 1300, even though, like all archives, those of the news are constrained by the exclusionary practices and blind spots of the drafters of history. There’s a kindness book called The Kindness Book. It’s a children’s one. I haven’t read past page 2 because the free preview won’t let me, but pages 1 and 2 are good. I’m going to be kind to myself and lift a finger to borrow it from the library, and if I like it, buy it. There’s also a heavier lift called On Kindness, a philosophical and literary look. 

Don’t worry, kindness is not niceness. Critically skewering villains and false allies is a kindness in the public interest, and is not nice. Not-nice kindness is essential. Conversely, compliments can be misplaced and not kind, and not-kind niceness isn’t what’s meant by World Kindness Day. Sooner or later we’ll have World Contempt Day, World Grudge Day, and World Demonizing Day, and those can feel like every day. For now, mark November 13.

Share a word about kindness shown to you or by you at recharge@motherjones.com.

A lot can happen in seven days. Fortify now:

1. Kristi Yamaguchi’s childhood literacy nonprofit is meeting the moment. The figure skater’s Always Dream Foundation has improved reading time for kids in need by 20 percent during the pandemic, sending digital devices loaded up with books and data plans. Learn more about her advocacy and keep pretending you too can nail salchows, lutzes, toe loops, spins, and spirals.

2. Yesterday’s Notes 4 Votes livestream brought in Cornel West, Vijay Iyer, Terence Blanchard, Carla Bley, William Parker, Matthew Shipp, and many others for the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance’s get-out-the-vote party. “Nothing, nothing, nothing is more important than getting your vote in and on time,” said Arturo O’Farrill. Catch the replay.

3. Netflix announced its first all-Native animated preschool series, Spirit Rangers, created by Karissa Valencia. “As a Native storyteller, I’ve rarely come across the opportunity to tell my own story. I can’t wait for everyone to meet our funny modern Native family in Spirit Rangers,” Valencia said.

4. NBC is developing the first Native drama for network TV, Ava DuVernay’s Sovereign, about the lives and loyalties of an Indigenous family wrestling with challenges (external and internal) to self-determination.

5. Today marks the 65th anniversary of Louis Armstrong’s West Berlin show. Rare photos, newspaper clippings, and a ticket stub are on display by the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

6. Today is also the 116th birthday of the New York City subway. The mayor took the controls for the inaugural run at 2:35 p.m. that day in 1904, and it became the largest US system. Despite the many critics (this one included) who see it as an avatar of humanity’s descent into subterranean madness and hell, it’s actually okay.

7. An invitation: Let us know at recharge@motherjones.com what forms of justice, joy, hope, and strength you find in the coming days—or if each is in short supply—and if you want your name included in a future newsletter.

Just eight days out. Incumbent Donald Trump wants reelection. He’s the one who a quarter-century ago reportedly posed as his own publicist (a fictional person) to brag about himself on a call with a magazine interviewer, masquerading like one does. This is gonna be a wild week, so let’s do eight Recharges today, clear the mind. Starting with a war dance:

1. Behold a dancer who embodies the power, poise, balance, and beauty to show that swords can be mightier than the pen (artistically). Ava DuVernay applauds her mesmerizing moves: “Wish I had a movie with some sword-fighting in it, I’d cast @TheSamurider in a heartbeat.”

2. Congratulations to Irina Krush, who, after recovering from COVID-19, won the US women’s chess championship last week for the eighth time. We toasted her recovery from the virus in the spring. Let the celebration continue.

3. Hip Hop for Change is a grassroots group that educates students in Oakland and nationwide about music as a mobilizing force. Khafre Jay and his staff are on a hot streak, pulling in the 2020 Zellerbach Award for Social Justice and the Ellen Magnin Newman Award for Outstanding Arts Organization from the San Francisco Symphony. Check out our first salute, and if any other symphonies show this level of funding and love to hip-hop for coalition-building across genres and communities, let us know.

4. Also on the dance-and-music front, a drum line of voters marching in formation to the polls in Texas, and why it resonates historically.

5. Peaceful Cuisine is the soul-soothing channel of the minimalistic, mood-lifting Ryoya Takashima, a Kyoto-based chef who builds his own furniture, wastes next to nothing, spares animals, pounds mochi blissfully, and, in camerawork alone, is instantly rejuvenating.

6. Happy birthday to Mahalia Jackson, “gospel queen” of New Orleans, who today would turn 109.

7. There’s the high road and then there’s the occasional (worthy) low road that serves up a Recharge just fine. Here’s that video, thanks to a reader’s tip, dipping into the mudslinging magic of campaign combat.

8. Who knows what suspended hyphenation is and why it matters factually and grammatically? Many do. Nice correction, Guardian copy team.

In 2001, Ian Frazier wrote delightfully for this magazine about a small, seemingly manageable problem that blighted his and our world.

“Let us turn, for a moment,” he said, “to the problem of plastic bags stuck in trees.”

I will not ruin the tale. You should read it.

But it is surprising to see what begins as a fascination—I believed this would turn into a ruminative essay very much of the internet era on the beauty of trees, or how we need to reconnect in some way or, I don’t know, childhood—actually contain such oomph as “…and a movie called Blue in the Face, a paean to Brooklyn starring Harvey Keitel and Roseanne Barr, featured a brief appearance by me talking about how much I don’t like bags in trees.”

The part that got me, I suppose, about this whole essay was the friendship. Frazier writes about how gathering plastic bags, taking them down from trees, has become a method more pleasant “than golf” for seeing acquaintances.

“We’re planning road trips to other cities—there are tons of bags in trees, I noticed, in downtown Baltimore—and next spring we’ll be traveling to Los Angeles to provide bag-snagging support to the Friends of the Los Angeles River when they have their annual river cleanup day,” he writes.

I found myself surprised to be jealous. Did I want to become a “bagger” too? Criss-crossing the country with a metal pole, taking down plastic bags, for some reason appeals at the moment—maybe it is only the fall, in which trees feel especially radiant and recklessly underappreciated. But I suspect it is more the casual nature of the whole interaction; the hopefulness of believing in solvable problems and friendly service.

One time, an older man—the kind who believes in justice and peace in the world through action—told me that, when disheartened, you can always pick up trash off the ground. If you pick one piece of trash, you have done something. And this will make you, he said, feel a bit better.

It is, on a good day, good advice, and on a bad day (perhaps in a world so decidedly evil, of late), the kind of advice that makes your eyes roll. If it’s the former day, you might enjoy Frazier’s strolling essay. If it’s not, here is some analysis of last night’s debate.