Good luck trying to bag a Santa this year

The nationwide worker shortage has stricken an array of industries, as varied as fast food, textile mills and long-haul trucking. The crisis, as news outlets have been chronicling with increasing worry, extends all the way up to the North Pole.

Leonard Pitts Jr.: ‘True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar’

Giving is good, and every person who is able to do so, should. But it would be even better to restructure the edifice that produces a need for giving — to realize, as author Celine-Marie Pascale puts it, that what America really needs is not a “seasonal moment of generosity” but “a reckoning for justice.”

Editorial cartoon for Sunday, Nov. 28

Editorial cartoon for Saturday, Nov. 27

Bob Neal: The Countryman: Inflation of two kinds, or three

Each buyer has an equilibrium point for each purchase. Some willingly pay more, some don’t. At the $5 a pound I paid for my Thanksgiving bird, I was at my equilibrium point. But $5 was way too far to the right of equilibrium for the vast majority of turkey eaters.

Editorial cartoon for Friday, Nov. 26

Editorial cartoon for Wednesday, Nov. 24

Leo Goddard: Trapped in a pandemic: How the incarcerated population is directly affected by COVID-19

These people are already doing time for their crimes. Do they really deserve to have their lives put at risk by a preventable illness? 

Whitney Durgin: American definitions of freedom are being manipulated by the media we consume

It is important to take a look at how the media has the disturbing power to impact the livelihood of an entire country just by abusing the meaning of one word. Freedom has been turned into a weapon for selfishness and division instead of a call for unity and equality. This should not be ignored as we continue to march toward an irreversible rift in this country. 

Milly Mpundu: Abusive practices by the U.S Immigration and Customs must stop

It is impossible for an individual to feel welcomed and safe in a new society knowing that some people in the position of protecting them are actually against their well-being. There has to be a way to treat those who flee from persecution and unsafe situations, rather than to send them back to what they initially escaped.