So Thanksgiving lurks just a few days from now, bringing with it, as always, these perennial questions: How should I prepare the turkey this year? How long should we wait to pull the Christmas CDs out from under the bed? (Yes, I still have CDs, and I make no apology.) What kind of Christmas card strategy should I try this year? (Every year, I vow to do better at mailing those cards in a timely fashion, and every year I fail, because — if I may quote our president here — “things happen.”)

Speaking of things happening, I searched all over for a piece that could summarize President Donald Trump’s week — and the truly alarming way he’s turning up the heat against journalists (particularly female journalists), I found two Atlantic stories that kind of complement each other: A story by Sophie Gilbert that traces Trump’s unchecked misogyny and points out that it’s spreading beyond the White House, and Tom Nichols’ examination of the president’s overheated reaction to that Democratic video about how members of the armed forces don’t have to follow illegal orders.

In a somewhat related story: What are we to make of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s sudden decision to retire from Congress next year? David Frum, writing in The Atlantic, has an explanation, and it’s not pretty.

Meanwhile, an open secret in Washington is that Paramount Skydance — the new owners of CBS News — is the White House’s preferred bidder in the race to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN. The Guardian reported this week that billionaire Larry Ellison, who’s bankrolling the effort, is discussing with White House officials which CNN hosts should be fired in the event Paramount prevails. Joshua Benton at Nieman Lab had a pointed reaction to the Guardian’s story.

More than a third of Oregon students were chronically absent during the last school year — meaning that they missed more than three weeks out of the state’s already shortest-in-the-nation school year. The bad news is that the state has not made much progress in improving that number. The good news from a new batch of state data is that 87% of ninth-graders are on track to graduate in four years, a record. But still: more than 10% of Oregon students are at risk of not graduating high school in time? It seems to me that neither of these marks calls for any kind of celebration. The Oregon Capital Chronicle had a statewide story on the numbers. In Benton County’s two biggest school districts, Corvallis and Philomath, the attendance numbers are a little better than the statewide average, the Gazette-Times reported.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s health secretary, says he’s following the so-called “gold standard” of science when he says things like vaccines cannot be ruled out as a cause of autism. Spoiler alert: He’s not. The Associated Press has produced this useful story about what “gold standard” science really means.

In completely unrelated news, Grok, Elon Musk’s chatbot, has reported that Musk “edges out” Jesus Christ as a role model for society. We laugh … now.

Do you live in Corvallis? Then you’re likely to be paying another $250 or so each year to help pay for a variety of city services, including water, wastewater and stormwater, along with maintenance fees for streets and sidewalks, urban forest management and police and fire services. I do understand that cities like Corvallis are really struggling to balance their budgets, but there’s a disconnect here when we make it more expensive to live in Corvallis and then turn around and wonder why enrollment in our schools has dropped to the point where we need to close two of them. And, yes, I also understand that complaining about this brings me one step closer to being one of those guys who yells at those meddling kids to get off the lawn.

Although the nation remains deeply divided, I suspect we can all agree that it’s a bad day when you have to call 911 to report that a bald eagle has just dropped a cat through your windshield. I think we also can sympathize with the 911 dispatcher who at first seemed skeptical of the call. It speaks well of the free press in the United States that The Associated Press was all over this story.

One of the sadder stories of the week was about the juvenile humpback whale that stranded itself on the beach near Yachats last weekend and had to be euthanized. But a surprising postscript takes away a bit of the sting: For the first time in generations, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians got the opportunity to harvest the whale. It’s still not clear what the tribes intend to do with the harvested material, but this was a considerably better idea than, say, blowing up the carcass with dynamite. (Am I alone in thinking that Oregon should declare Exploding Whale Day, Nov. 12, a state holiday?)

And speaking of sad stories, here’s one that made me sadder than it probably should have: For the first time in its history, The Jim Henson Co. is auctioning off more than 400 items from its archives, including props, puppets, posters and shirts that Henson himself used to wear. (The latter does feel a little odd.) The company isn’t closing — it has projects in the works, including a “Fraggle Rock” reboot for Apple — but this doesn’t feel like a good thing for those of us who have long loved the Muppets.

That’s it for this weekend. I need to find my DVD copies of “The Muppet Show” (yes, I still have DVDs) and give them a spin. You know, it’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights. It’s time to … start thawing the turkey. See you next weekend.