Quickies: A controversial moment, a vicious proposal, a ridiculous claim, and a potty mouth

Welcome to your Friday Quickies!

• Brandt Jean’s Act Of Grace Toward His Brother’s Killer Sparks A Debate Over Forgiving – NPR does a pretty good job of capturing a wide array of voices, specifically black voices, commenting on this controversial moment.
• You all heard how the Trump administration actually considered a gorram alligator-filled moat for a border wall, right? The two journalists who uncovered this story for their book reveal a lot more disturbing details in an interview on “Fresh Air.” I haven’t heard the whole episode yet, but the summary and excepts in the link above reveal a lot of awfulness.
• The company that writes the GRE (like the SAT but for grad school) claims that their test is the only true objective standard for graduate admissions. Despite. Evidence. To the contrary. Academic twitter promptly rips them a new one in the replies. This story brought to you by a successful physics professor who couldn’t even crack 30th percentile on her Physics GRE.
• I don’t typically like to take the political stances of actors too seriously, and it might just be because I was born and raised an Italian New Yorker, but I just love Robert De Niro saying “Fuck ’em” during a live CNN interview when asked about Fox News. But then I see he’s being sued by a former employee for gender-based harassment and remember that we’re just not allowed to have nice things.

But hey… it’s Cute Animal Friday!

• This week, the goose reigns supreme, at least as far as the gaming habits of virtually everyone I know are concerned. So here are a bunch of “Untitled Goose Game” memes.
• This study says that squirrels pick up on bird song as an environmental cue, but I just think they’re getting together to plot a rebellion against the humans. Via Muscadine.
• Usually when I see “scientists are stunned by X” headlines I grimace, but in this case, you can actually hear the fascination of several scientists watching a a rare jellyfish. FTA: “Half the time they’re discussing the biology of the creature, and the other half they’re just going whoooooah and oooooooooo and zooooommgg, so the whole event exists in the rapid quantum flipzone between ‘hardcore science’ and ‘baked dormroom conversation’.” These are definitely my people. Also via Muscadine!

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