Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, there’s no denying you like cats.

Unless you dislike them, in which case…there’s cats here. Be careful.

This year, the North Shore Animal League,one of the largest no-kill rescue shelters, has found a new way to advertise to potential cat lovers: 

A cheerful Grandma sits around knitting and sending shout outs to viewers as a roomful of cats frolics around her. Livestreamed for 8 straight hours everyday. With Christmas music. If you ask us, we can’t think of any better way to take a break from studying. If you get tired of just watching…let’s remember that these cats -and many others- are up for adoption… 

There’s cats like James who, after knocking down a mirror and gnawing on the Christmas Tree, just wants to watch the world burn. (Did we mention that he’s extremely playful and cute?)

Buster, who has found his true home on grandma’s lap.

And Jade…currently undergoing a (loving!) turf war with another cat.

Although euthanization rates for undomesticated cats and dogs have gone down dramatically over the past 40 years, there’s still a lot of ground to cover. Here at USDemocrazy, we encourage everyone to adopt from local shelters rather than buying from specific breeders. As we finish up with our studies, and join our families for the Holidays, let’s just keep in mind what’s important this season: Generosity and Cats. 

But mostly the cats, so go watch some of those!

Learn about the campaign to get students involved in a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anyone can learn the basics of programming. Visit code.org or attend a special Hour of Code workshop at any U.S. Apple Retail Store on December 11, 5 p.m.

The world is mourning the death of a legendary statesman and hero of the struggle for human rights.

Nelson Mandela died in his Johannesburg home on Thursday. He was 95 years old.

Mandela was greatly admired across the globe for his role in the collapse of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, where racial segregation and political and economic repression of blacks was enforced by law for decades.

After Mandela became a leader of first peaceful and then militant resistance to the government with the African National Congress, he was sentenced to life in prison and spent the next twenty-seven years locked away, doing hard labor and sleeping in a six-foot-wide cell.

With mounting international and internal pressure, Mandela was released in 1990. He then led negotiations with the government that ended Apartheid policies and scheduled the first free elections.

In 1994, Mandela was elected president of South Africa. During his one term of office, he oversaw the reconciliation of a deeply divided nation and sought to eradicate economic inequalities that persist in South Africa today.

After retiring, Mandela began his own foundation and worked for many years to combat the spread of HIV and to alleviate poverty in South Africa. Illness struck him in the final months of his life, which he spent in peace with his family.

Check out the reactions of President Obama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela had inspiring words to say about human nature that we at USDemocrazy would like to share with you:

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

He will be truly missed.

Due to inclement weather, shuttle service will be suspended after 1:30p Sunday December 8.

Safe travels!

 The lights drop and a single spotlight shines on a synthesizer set, covered by a large mosquito net.

As a small man wearing sunglasses and a grey hoodie walks out on stage, the audience cheers and claps their hands in anticipation for the beginning of a great show.

Brian De Graw or “bEEdEEgEE,” the drummer for the experimental group Gang Gang Dance, sits down beneath the mosquito net and plays this.

A quarter of the crowd loved it and began “jammin’ out.”

Another quarter was intrigued and slowly moved their head to the beat. But to the ordinary concert-goer who was excited for the main performer, Animal Collective, bEEdEEgEE was a strange collection of rattling rhythms, syncopated electronic beeps and an occasional dolphin noise. 

The indie music news blog Stereogum recently chose bEEdEEgEE’s new album SUM/ONE as their album of the week.

The article notes that DeGraw ”put together SUM/ONE alone, in his home studio in upstate New York, doing the whole thing as an experiment in planned-out music.” According to the music bloggers,

…when he’s recording on his own, there’s a sparse cleanliness to the way DeGraw uses these sounds; it’s almost like they’ve been graphed out. SUM/ONE is also very much a dance music album that thinks of itself as a dance music album.

Another writer applauds DeGraw  for inviting Lizzi Bougatsos of Gang Gang Dance to be featured on a song, but he is disappointed when Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip makes another track sound like his own than of bEEdEEgEE’s.

Between the half-dozen articles written about SUM/ONE, the following words are used to describe the album:

• windblown, propulsive house-music thump
• disco muscle
• oceanic swirl
• barefoot shamanic dancing
• deep R&B piano lines meeting trap beats meeting straight-ahead electro-pop meeting hazy ambience
• feel-good balearic house
• slippery rhythmic constructions of grime and bashment
• an orchestral sex jam periodically swarmed by a cloud of angry cyborg cicadas

Music has vastly changed in the past ten years with the indie revolution, and once lesser-known bands such as Vampire Weekend and Two Door Cinema Club have hit the radio waves (it was an irregularity for tenth graders in Frederick County, MD to listen to them in 2010).

But there is a whole new layer of underground electronic music to be peeled away and explored, like sound designer Yosi Horikawa or recording engineer Rashad Becker.

But now we ask you, readers: what do you think of bEEdEEgEE? Is this experimental music or organized sound?

We have long prided ourselves on being the greatest nation in the world.

We possess the strongest military, a culturally diverse population, and a government that guarantees freedom for all. 

But how are we doing in education?

Not so hot, apparently. 

Its been evident for years that the U.S. needs to improve their education system; however, the problem has worsened. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) just released a report indicating that the U.S. has slipped in global rankings. Globally, we rank 17th in reading, 21st in science, and 26th in math, all of these being lower than its previous rankings.

This is troubling considering the U.S. spends more per student than any other developed nation. 

The OECD survey affirms that money is not a predictor of performance. Neither is immigration or childhood poverty considering that the East Asian countries at the top of the list have levels comparable to those of the U.S. 

As our global market becomes increasingly dependent on technology, it becomes essential that our students acquire a solid math and science background. 

Will the U.S. prevail and rise out of this educational rut, and if so, how?