Week of April 27th

(Weekly Round-Up is a collection of articles, blog posts, podcasts, etc gathered from around the web.) 

It's Not Just Frozen: Most Disney Movies Are Pro-Gay. By preaching acceptance and questioning gender, the company's kids films offer a queer-studies crash course.

Why Affirmative Action No Longer Works: Though it was a noble idea for compensation in the 1960s, today's America is more divided by class and income difference than by race.

Why the LBJ of 1964 Wouldn't Succeed in the Washington of Today: Obama isn't stalled out because he can't lead like Johnson, Reagan, or Clinton—it's because the nature of the opposition party has changed.

How Going to Space Can Mess With the Astronaut Brain: A new study finds that deep-space travel could warp reaction time.

Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Secretary? A 1959 Quiz Question 1: Do you have "a natural flair for organizing the activities of others?"

A Song of America's Downtowns: A heartening surprise of our travel so far: the breadth, seriousness, and—in some places—success of the effort to revitalize small-town downtowns. Or, what 3 programmers from Uzbekistan taught us about America.

The Toxins That Threaten Our Brains: Leading scientists recently identified a dozen chemicals as being responsible for widespread behavioral and cognitive problems. But the scope of the chemical dangers in our environment is likely even greater. Why children and the poor are most susceptible to neurotoxic exposure that may be costing the U.S. billions of dollars and immeasurable peace of mind.

This Is Big: Scientists Just Found Earth's First Cousin: Meet Kepler-186f, the closest thing to our planet ever discovered—and maybe our best shot at locating life elsewhere in the universe.

George R.R. Martin responds to fan’s concern over Jaime and Cersei’s scene in “Breaker of Chains”

Why the “Game of Thrones” rape scene caused fans to respond in the worst possible way After a gruesome depiction of sexual assault, fans refused to acknowledge it even happened. Here's why

Jamaican, gay and Ayn Rand made it OK: My amazing “Atlas Shrugged” love story I was young, atheist and gay in a very homophobic country. I had no intellectual armor, until I discovered Ayn Rand

Why 1985 was a golden year for videogaming

Douglas Coupland: “Everything they’ve been saying about Generation X they’re now saying about millennials. Like, everything” The novelist who named Gen X on Nirvana, interviewing Morrissey, a "Law & Order" obsession and his wild new novel

Our godless brains: Emerging science reveals mind blowing alternatives to a higher power/

The rise and fall of America;s climate deniers