43 oxford school shooting, mayday

the weekly rundown

listen, we know supermarkets are crazy these days because of all your last-minute christmas shopping, but seriously - there should be a minimum age required to use self-checkout lanes. we love the idea of not having to interact with another human being to purchase items, especially when those items happen to be six pints of ice cream and a single spoon, we just can’t stand waiting for the otherwise nice 60-year-old grandma in front of us figure out how to use a barcode scanner.

big idea: oxford school shooting

1. a school shooting just a few miles away from where we live took place earlier this week, ending with four dead children and a teenage suspect being charged with murder and terrorism as an adult. it’s surreal driving around town with christmas parades cancelled and flags lowered, but also, unfortunately, a normal occurrence here in ‘murica. if it seems a bit more traumatic than usual, it’s because it’s the deadliest school shooting since 2018, and the deadliest ever in michigan.
2. while some of the injured are still in the hospital, families are already beginning to question who’s at fault here, other than the terrorist himself. the school itself had safety concerns about the boy, and repeatedly assured parents that oxford high was safe for their children to attend. the suspect’s parents were arrested and are being charged with involuntary manslaughter for purchasing the gun used in the massacre for their son, and apparently resisting the school’s attempts to get psychiatric help for him. the suspect’s parents fled oxford for detroit, where they were arrested while hiding in a warehouse. oh, the irony of reverse white flight...
3. in any case, the true responsible parties here are politicians who stand in the way of common sense gun control, most of whom these days are republican. the last time any new gun control laws were passed nationally were in the 1990’s, when the brady bill mandated background checks and waiting periods for gun purchases. now, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t point out that while an even-then-somehow-ancient Joe Biden shepherded the bill through his committee, a young whippersnapper named Bernie Sanders voted against that common sense gun control measure...

this week’s image: mayday, mayday

• (AFP) some old guy just casually saunters past a sinking ship off the coast of istanbul. ahh, what it would be like to be this jaded by life...

this week’s number: 210k jobs added in november

1. the november jobs report was released this week, and man are we (and economists) a little weirded out. on the one hand, half the number of new jobs were created compared to what was expected - 210,000 versus the projected 550,000. on the other hand, the unemployment rate still dropped to 4.2%, and the percentage of americans actively working or looking for work also increased.
2. it’s that last finding which economists are especially excited about. as we talked about in issue 36, many are concerned that the country’s workforce participation rate will never reach pre-pandemic highs due to deaths, early retirements, and more self-employed people. if fewer americans work, that means slower economic growth. while we may never see pre-pandemic workforce participation rates again, at least we’re making some progress.

what we’re watching: “Foundation”

1. “Foundation”, a dramatic and world-bending scifi TV series by Apple+, wrapped up its first season a couple weeks ago - and we’re here to tell you it’s well worth the watch time. the series was greenlit for a second season after just two episodes, which tells you how much money it’s making for Apple, but audiences must be happy too. while the show does get off to an extremely slow start, and exposition does tend to drag on throughout the series, the plot twists and cinematography will have us keep coming back.
2. based on the book series by Isaac Asimov the show is set tens of thousands of years into the future, when the galaxy is ruled by a dynasty of cloned emperors and mathematicians can predict the future. featuring a remarkably diverse cast alongside the wonderful Jared Harris, we cannot wait for season two to drop sometime in the future.

and, in case you missed it:

• the incidence of israeli colonists settlers committing violent hate crimes against palestinians in the west bank has skyrocketed by 150% over the past two years
• Amazon will overtake UPS, USPS, and FedEx to become the largest american shipper by the end of the year
• Disney+ censored a Simpsons episode referencing the tiananmen square massacre in hong kong
• Apple has decided it is a better parent than you, and will not notify parents if their children view or receive nude photos by text
• after a foot of snow fell in denmark, 25 Ikea shoppers and employees spent the night in-store, really seeing if those mattresses would be comfortable to sleep on

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal, and Ahmed. learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!