Friday. We all made it to the weekend, almost.
And while it may not have been a perfect week by any stretch, it could have been worse. For example, are you on track to end the week with the same number of appendages with which you started it? Well, there you go.
At least one of our colorful characters this week didn't fare so well.
On Thursday, the state of Florida (and really the nation) fell victim to another resurfacing of George Zimmerman, who is most famous for shooting dead an unarmed black teenager in 2012, and being acquitted for doing so. Since then he's been arrested on various assault charges, making racist art, etc. This time around he bumbled back into the public sphere by trying to auction off the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin. When one auction site refused, he moved the offer to a second site, where the auction has been hijacked by trolls. As of Friday morning, according to ABC News, "bidding surpassed $65 million with the leading bidder using the screen name 'Racist McShootFace." It's rare that I say this, but thank you, Internet.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal complaint against the Marion County School Board, which last week passed a measure targeting transgender students' use of bathrooms corresponding to their gender, reports the News Service of Florida. The complaint, which the ACLU filed with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, says the rule "violates federal anti-discrimination laws." What homophobic/racist/otherwise bigoted measure is next for this county? Changing the name of the Rainbow River to something like the Straight-White River? Nothing would surprise us at this point.
And, finally, a 21-year-old Lakeland man on Wednesday had part of his left arm bitten off by an alligator while running (and at one point swimming) from the cops in the midst of an apparent psychological episode. The obvious message here is to seek help before it's too late (and you lose an arm, or worse). The perhaps less apparent lesson is that when you see a sign warning that large carnivores may be nearby, it's usually best to heed it.
Image via Wikimedia Commons.
