It’s Friday! The fifth Friday in August. Wow!

I was very tempted, since this is a fifth Friday, to do five sets of five types of stories. Except that the last several weeks I’ve been doing between two and four sets of five links, which is really stretching the concept. It’s also anti-thetical to the reason I switched from calling my weekly round up “Friday Links” and starting calling it “Friday Five.” Yes, I have bookmarked a bunch of news stories this week, but making myself narrow it down to only five stories and five videos means I spend a lot less time prepping this post than I used to.

Which brings us to the Friday Five: the top five (IMHO) stories of the week, the top five videos, notable obituaries (plus my blog posts).

Stories of the Week:

Medieval gaming board clue to lost monastery.

The Alternative Nobel Prize in Literature Shortlist Is Here.

The desert snail at once awoke and found himself famous.

DNA Tests Quietly Reinforce Terrible and Scientifically Inaccurate Concepts of “Ethnicity”.

Queens has more languages than anywhere in the world — here’s where they’re found.

In Memoriam:

Miriam Nelson, 98, Golden Age Dancer and Choreographer, Dies.

Fredd Wayne, Who Played Benjamin Franklin on ‘Bewitched,’ Dies at 93.

In Memoriam Dieter Thomas Heck.

Neil Simon, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, dies at 91.

Things I wrote:

A great man died this weekend… farewell, Neil Simon.

Videos!

Red-Caped Catholic Loons Protest Library Hosting “Satanic” Drag Queen Story Hour [VIDEO]:

I’m not going to embed the video from this hateful liars, but I’ll link to the news story that contains it…

(Click here.)

1985 // Official Theatrical Trailer:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Man Meadow – Play It Loud 2018:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

IF YOU EVER GOT IMPEACHED – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Panic! At The Disco: High Hopes [OFFICIAL VIDEO]:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

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ETA: The original post included an image (with credit to the cartoonist), that had been shared elsewhere with credit. I didn’t research closely enough to realize that the people who have been sharing the cartoon had altered the text. So I changed the image accompanying this post.