Hello friends of 11&more!

The force is with us, and it’s inescapable. So much so, that Jia Jia had to take urgent measures to avoid hearing spoilers. Meanwhile, a schism has opened up in the group—between those who’ve seen The Force Awakens and those who’d kill them for spoiling it. We’re all dying to discuss whether our prayers to J.J. Abrams have been answered.

Back to today, in our galaxy, brows are furrowed over Earth’s own set of disturbances in the force. Amidst mulled wine and gingerbread cookies, holiday spirits are in full swing. But there is something uncanny about sitting beside my Christmas tree in my apartment in New York with windows wide open and a heater that hasn’t even been cranked on yet this season. I am dead scared of global warming and how my hypothetical child would be facing a dire reality. But by then, would people just be putting on their VR googles and pretend that everything is ponies and rainbows? (I was so bummed that I missed Verizon’s Star Wars themed Google Cardboards giveaway.)

With the birth of their newborn Max, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are also worried. On December 1, they announced that they will give 99% of their Facebook shares—currently about $45 billion—to philanthropy. Clean energy is one of the causes that they highlighted, among curing disease, reducing poverty, connecting people and the much debated personalizing learning pedagogy. Yet, this brought up a group discussion among us about other similar pledges. Does the rich get to decide what’s good for the public? Yet, isn’t that the role of government, but when the government isn’t being all that effective either… what now?! We leave you with this West Wing clip.

We also discussed that global warming is one of the potential factors for the rise of ISIS, as a stability of a society cannot be achieved without a stable food supply. Prince Charles chimes in that a five to six year drought could have led to the Syrian civil war. But complex problems like terrorism have many root causes. Thomas Picketty’s economics argument is inequality. There is also the hypocrisy of foreign policy, where the West touts that their involvement in the Middle East is to help “the people,” but in times of strife we end up accidentally blowing up the people we’re supposed to help.

What’s a better way to dive into the complexity of war than the comic Monstress? If you want a teaser, definitely check-out our write-up, which the author Marjorie Liu herself thought was “awesome.” The second issue also came out at the start of December, so join us in our mini book club! Issue #3 will be out on January 20, 2016. Until then, has anyone read Saga? We got a recommendation from Twitter. Yes, we’re on Twitter at @elevenandmore, where we often more cool things we see on the Internet, including these photographs of rows and rows of shoes, symbolic of the silent climate march in Paris that left me speechless.

Finally, we’re cooking up a conversation article thanks to the lively discussion on the myth of the Big Break; kudos to Helen for seeding the piece from Exeunt Magazine. And this is a perfect segue to congratulate our friend Nwando on her work as Lady Verendi–learn more from this interview–as well as our other artists in the group! We celebrate you all and your brilliant work.

Much love, happy holidays and until next time,
Serena on behalf of the editorial team

P.S. Are you on our newsletter? Sign up on the homepage to get goodies in your Inbox.