(CNN)I witnessed a rush of collective pleasure online when the news came, on November 7, that Joe Biden had won the presidential race. Not just because of Biden, but also because of Major and Champ, the new first dogs of the United States.

The excitement was palpable because, among other reasons, these German shepherds serve as a stand-in for our national sentiment -- for the optimism we're feeling as we prepare to embark on a new chapter under a new presidential administration.

For the last four years the White House has not had the slobbery, shedding, panting presence of a dog that it so often has. Until the Trump administration, the last time the White House didn't have a resident dog was during William McKinley's presidency from 1897 to 1901. And despite the fact that keeping dogs didn't start to become a true national pastime until 100 years after the beginning of the republic, two-thirds of all presidents have shared the storied hallways with a recent descendant of the gray wolf. And nearly every president since George Washington has had a presidential pet of some sort -- including a ram, a cow, a badger, raccoons, and a couple parakeets.

Most recently, though, dogs have been used by President Donald Trump not as pets but as a linguistic cudgel. He famously called Omarosa Manigault Newman "that dog", and it was not intended as a compliment about her fidelity and comeliness. He has regularly wielded the simile "like a dog" to emphatically degrade people he dislikes, tweeting that Brent Bozell of the National Review "came to my office begging for money like a dog,"and that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was "sweating like a dog." (Of course, this makes no sense. Dogs, who sweat only through their paws, don't get all sweaty like we do, and if they beg for anything, it's treats and tickles, not money.) Trump's intent seems to have been to equate his enemies with the lowest, most disrespectable of animals -- a status quite at odds with that of the contemporary American dog, some tens of millions of whom joined their people on the couch or bed watching late-night election results start to trickle in on TV on November 3.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/22/opinions/biden-dogs-white-house-horowitz/index.html

On the first evening of July, I learned that my only brother had killed himself. Three weeks later I turned the age my mother was when she died. She has been gone for 20 years, and I have dreaded this benchmark for every one of them.

This is not an essay about that grief or even that anxiety.

This is a story about what came next.

I spent the summer alternating between mourning and guilt, framed by surges of disbelief. This is common after the suicide of a loved one, I have learned. Twice, 20 years apart, we had intervened in time to rescue our brother. The third time, we were too late. What could I have done differently? How had I missed this? Would I ever be able to think of him without feeling the weight of how he died?

Then the leaves started to change. On the first evening in September, I said to my husband over dinner, “We need to come home to signs of hope.” Sherrod is a U.S. senator in the Trump era. He did not need to be convinced. He had no idea what I had in mind, but he was heartened, I later found out, to see his wife smiling again for the first time in weeks.

https://www.glamour.com/story/in-a-season-of-grief-i-turned-to-home-improvement

https://twitter.com/SunsetSoFresh/status/1330336116378116107

(CNN)"The Baby Whisperer," "ICU Grandpa" and, sometimes, just "Grandpa David."

These were the nicknames that David Deutchman earned by volunteering for 14 years at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Deutchman would head to the hospital to comfort and care for sick and premature babies.

On November 14, Deutchman died at the age of 86, just 17 days after being diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer, his family said.

...

Once Deutchman's diagnosis became known, the staff at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and his "kids" began to show their "ICU Grandpa" how much he meant to them

Slade and the staff at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta organized a drive-by parade in front of his home that featured a NICU transport truck and cars decorated with balloons, hearts and well wishes.

https://twitter.com/childrensatl/status/1325962334758711297

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/21/us/iyw-icu-grandpa-dies-trnd/index.html

MyPillow CEO, Ricky Schroder Helped Pay Kyle Rittenhouse's $2M Bond: Attorney

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/mypillow-ceo-mike-lindell-actor-ricky-schroder-helped-pay-kyle-rittenhouses-2m-bond-attorney/2377413/