Welcome to the Wednesday Walk Around the Web, where we weave & wind through weblinks weekly. Hopefully you will find the links on offer amusing, interesting, or informative.
- After two months of lockdown and a drastic reduction in COVID-related deaths, Italy is beginning to incrementally ease restrictions. Notably, the first phase of the relaxed measures in Italy is still far more restricted than preventive measures in many other places, while the UK is flailing and the US is potentially looking at thousands of daily deaths in the coming months as a small rump faction agitates for impossibly irresponsible reopenings, with the backing of segments of the federal government.
- Much of the world is either on lockdown or otherwise severly curtailed, and as a result carbon emissions have decreased by about five and a half percent in a stark illustration of how much of the problem is driven by large-scale industry, the systemic dynamics that keep them churning, and the people who turn those dynamics to their advantage at the cost of…[gestures vaguely at everything].
- Of course, as visible objects are made up of subatomic particles, large-scale systemic changes are made up of individual decisions by individual people. The precautions we take when we have to go out in public gain power the more people who participate. Having everyone wear masks eventually benefits everyone collectively, and something as simple as a folded-up cotton T-shirt can be remarkably effective for the purposes of most people not working in healthcare or otherwise on the proverbial front lines.
- We’re all having to keep ourselves entertained a lot. If you, like me, quickly tire of scrolling through Netflix quickly enough to avoid the accursed autoplay nonsense and give up entirely, you may be driven to more esoteric means of occupying yourself, such as cheese-based recreations of prehistoric megaliths, which are educational and tasty, or you might put a lot of effort, time, and rubber bands into seeing how many you can wrap around a watermelon before it implodes all over you and your apartment. (Seriously though, maybe save your elastic for homemade masks.)
- We must keep ourselves spiritually uplifted during difficult times as well, to which end I can only recommend this Irish priest’s method of conducting a mobile rave through the streets of Belfast. I eagerly await video evidence of PTBN resident holy man Jordan Duncan similarly uplifting his flock.
- If you’ve ever wondered how well movies and other media depict the real and disorienting experience of actual factual cults, a former cult member is here to tell you.
- This Week in Things I Learned: HOOOOOOONK, it’s time to learn about car horns and klaxons!
- There are more takes on the Marvel film series than one could possibly shake a stick at, but not everyone can sum up each movie with true eloquence and clear vision.
- Anyone who made a mixtape for their crush back in The Long Ago must bow down in recognition and respect for the teenager who combined a He-Man/She-Ra storytime cassette with meticulously-chosen rock songs to create The Secret of the Sword: The Rock Opera. The effort is monumental, but a part of me can’t escape some disappointment that it’s not a She-Ra-ck Opera. (Yes, friends, of course you can listen to the mixtape yourself. I can imagine no better use of our time today.)
