Greetings Webtaculators! Well, it looks like we go a small reprieve from mass shootings, so I guess a steep selloff in stocks, a fascist white pride rally in Portland, and docking workers pay for not attending a Trump rally are marginally good things?  It’s really easy to shift the Overton Window to make degrees of awfulness seem relatively OK.  To make myself feel better about all of this, I volunteered at the Kid’s Gran Fondo, a children’s bike race that raises money for local kids with life threatening illnesses (ignore the fact that we live in a place where there needs to be fundraisers for children with health issues, but that’s another rant for another day).  Kids had fun, the weather wasn’t too hot, and I got to feel good about doing something to help make the world a little better.  All in all, a good day. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: The Edge Of Freedom
Why: Because the Protests in Hong Kong continued this week, and are continuing to prove that it is hard to maintain democratic principles in a heavily controlled society.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: What Is An Inverted Yield Curve And Why It Is Scary
Why: Because long term investments should generally have a greater rate of return than short term investments. That was not the case this past week.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (3-5 min. reads)
What: Things That Make America Actually Great
Why: Because the Trump administration plans to weaken environmental protections and LGBT protections for government contractors. In regards to the latter, it looks as though Log Cabin Republicans have no idea what the hell they are talking about.

HISTORY THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: 400 Years Of American Slavery
Why: Because the first African slaves arrived to America 400 years ago.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: More Like Jay-Why???
Why: Because there are mixed reactions after news released that Jay-Z might become a partial owner of an NFL.  This might be one of those situations where getting a seat at the table just isn’t worth it, at least morally speaking.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: 6th Grade Going On 40
Why: Because raunchy coming of age stories keep on skewing younger.  Next will probably be a movie about preschoolers who swear while talking about tampons or something.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: Sleater-Kinney In A Changing World 
Why: Because one of the preeminent women rock bands is going through some changes itself. Also, Pitchfork dove off of the deep end and decided to review a bunch of older Taylor Swift albums, probably in preparation for the new one. Pitchfork gave a Taylor Swift album a 9.0. Do what you will with that information.

COMIC BOOK THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Marvel Doesn’t Understand Its Own History
Why: Because Art Spiegelman, creator of the wonderful graphic novel Maus, had an opening essay (read essay here) pulled from a new history of Marvel Comics for political content.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (2 min. read)
What: A Literate President Strikes Again
Why: Because Obama released his latest reading list.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Jack Gray; A Nicer Way Of Saying People Are Too Stupid For Satire, but then again, Trump Is Trying To Buy Greenland; How To Pop A Balloon
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Greenland
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

Webtacularly yours,
Brian
Managing Editor, Webtacular World
The Internet You Didn’t Know You Needed™