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, occasionally, profound. Views expressed in the Wednesday Walk do not necessarily reflect those of anyone but the writer. Do you have a link you want to see featured in next week’s Walk? Comment on the Walk post at the Place to Be Nation Facebook page, or find Glenn on the social media platform of your choice!
- Last Wednesday, on the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht, vandals spraypainted swastikas on windows in Philadelphia in honor of the president-elect. More swastikas have popped up in Boston and a host of other places. Pride flags are being set on fire — while still attached to their owners’ houses. (Autoplay video warning for that last one.) A wave of hate speech and hate crimes similar to that seen in the UK immediately after the Brexit vote is underway, including in my backyard, as the electoral result emboldens and reinforces the very worst people, including the neo-Nazi who looks to be the new chief strategist. Holy fuck.
- I mean, look. I can and will keep passive-aggressively putting these links in here, but more than anything else I’m afraid. I’m afraid for my boyfriend, my friends, people I know and love, people I don’t. I’m afraid for anyone without all of the intersecting levers of privilege I wound up with, anyone put in an even more vulnerable position now that the KKK–endorsed presidential candidate pulled out a win. I’m not a protester or an activist as much as I am a person who uselessly tosses good thoughts their way; I don’t know what to do other than crawl into a hole. So that’s where I am. We’ll still have the requisite pretty photos and science notes and such in this space, because self-care is important. (Alternatively, because denial is a skill like any other; take your pick.)
- Saturn’s north pole changed colors. Alert signals are going up everywhere.
- Readers who’ve gone through labor: think you would’ve liked some laughing gas? I’ve only had it once, when a couple of wisdom teeth displeased me and had to be taught a lesson, but good gravy was that the good stuff.
- This Week in High-Speed Photography: hummingbird tongues! With their forks and tendrils and sweet sweet nectar.
- This Week in Home Tips: if only I’d known the way to hang a frame the last time I was moving artwork around.
- Having an autoplay video slapped onto your article about how to stop autoplay videos is, you might say, a bad look.
- A dead astronaut’s corpse could sustain bacterial life for a very long time, but jumpstarting life on another planet seems unlikely. So don’t go jettisoning any astronauts, come ON.
- It took 200000 years for the human population to reach 1 billion — and only 200 years to reach 7 billion.
- Last week in Massachusetts, voters approved a measure to treat pot like alcohol, which is certainly progress (despite the fact that pot is in no way as harmful as booze, but at this point, y’know, whatever). It might be worth remembering, for those interested, that among those standing in the way of that progress were the Catholic archdiocese and the Knights of Columbus.
- Shaq is dancing the hora. Your argument is invalid.
- That old thought experiment about twins born across the Daylight Savings divide is the story of someone’s life now. Well, two someones, I guess.
- Via PTB’s very own Jason Greenhouse: it’s amazing how you can remove one letter from each NFL team’s name and suddenly none of them is racist.
- How in the world did Doctor Strange’s time-travel love triangle with Benjamin Franklin not make it into the movie? Come ON, Feige, throw us a bone here! This is the one hetero MMF love triangle I think I could actually tolerate.
- Some people spend years in law school and years more building a practice because they really want to make a difference.
- RIP Gwen Ifill, right along with a host of other people taken from us this year.
- We have a lot of devices that talk to us now — they tell us the weather forecast, they control our thermostats, they give us directions and take dictation for our messaging (so you don’t have to text and drive, you maniacs). Time was, though, that they spoke to us as the voice of fun and kitsch. Well, friendo, put your hands together.
- This Week in Calming Animal Photos: Sometimes a stag just wants to be a pretty pretty forest fairy princess.
- I need another hit; let’s make it a big one. This Week in Animal Friends: an orangutan fosters tiger cubs after seeing handlers feeding them. You’re welcome.
- One more. This Week in Sloths: Disney Princess Edition.
