Your weekly dose of recommendations from the staff of OTM.  Give us some of your own down in the comments section and enjoy!

Sarah Abdurrahman: I heard this on my Pandora stream today and just had to pick it.  Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness.” Classic.

Brooke Gladstone: This is a TV pick for those of you who prefer to consume your series all in one gulp, via DVD or on-demand. I’m talking about one of this year’s great suspense fests (based on an Israeli drama) – Homeland.

Is the returning hero, who spent eight years as a prisoner of Al Qaeda, now a covert terrorist operative? Is the CIA agenct who suspects him delusional (she takes psych-meds) or right on the money? There is plenty of existential drama here, spiced with humor and pathos stirred into an irresistibly compelling stew. How they managed to pull off terrorism-based escapism I’ll never understand

Alex Goldman: My staff pick for this week is the 2009 British film In the Loop. The movie is a farcical, fictionalized version of the events surrounding Britain’s involvement in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Apparently, it’s based on a BBC Television series called The Thick of It, which I plan on seeing as soon as possible. The trailer doesn’t do it much justice, because the movie is absolutely rife with hilarious profanity, but I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Chris Neary: My staff pick this week is a piece about racial disparities in presidential pardons. The piece is co-published by the Washington Post and ProPublica. Here’s the lede:

White criminals seeking presidential pardons over the past decade have been nearly four times as likely to succeed as minorities, a ProPublica examination has found.

Blacks have had the poorest chance of receiving the president's ultimate act of mercy, according to an analysis of previously unreleased records and related data.

Another surprising (to me) fact from the piece – there’s a pardons office at the DOJ. That place is crying out to have a documentary made about it – must be a fascinating place.

PJ Vogt: Herman Cain has put his campaign on At The Drive In-style indefinite hiatus. In commemoration, I think it’s worth looking back at this funny video someone made about him. They took a bunch of campaign-video style footage and re-dubbed it. It’s just really funny.

Katya Rogers: My staff pick is a the Gerard Richter exhibition at the Tate Modern that I went to when I was in London last week.

It was pretty good, but not as good as the restaurant and museum shop at the Tate. I had a delicious lunch and did all my Christmas shopping. Done and done.

Jamie York: 3 quick picks:

1. Breaking Bad:  Yeah, yeah, I’m apparently years late to this phenomenon. But whatever.  Being able to watch three seasons streaming on Netflix meant that I’ve lost some significant portion of these last months.  Really a worthy trade-off.

2. There were two fascinating pieces this weekend about microbes in The New York Times and nothing takes your mind off your troubles and provides a stronger dose of perspective then a good microbe story.  The days are getting shorter.  Please, please keep ‘em coming.

3.  And finally, David Berman is a masterful artist and a real mensch who recently started blogging. Last week he pointed something out that, once described, was so obvious that not only do I hear and see it everywhere but I do it and I had no idea.