1. It's BRENDAN KILEY's turn to attempt to stir up controversy in exchange for pageviews this week, with an overlong story about the "controversial" casting of the lead role in a local production of Othello. Apparently—and this is classic Seattle—only one African American actor showed up for the Othello casting call, and now white people are up in arms over the theater's decision to go with a different, albeit also non-white actor. In the spaces provided below, please list three constructive things you could do with your time that would be better than adding to this nonissue with a click or a comment:

a. ___________________________

b. ___________________________

c. ___________________________

2. In case the above "scandal" isn't prickly enough for you, SEAN NELSON contributes a piece about male body anxiety, which is sure to start a flame war in comment threads. Nelson is at pains, however, to inform "comment thread trolls"—whom he refers to as "worthless dicks"—that "[he] won't be reading" the comments. Couldn't Nelson's refusal to contribute to the talkback on the article be construed as a summary dismissal of his readership? Shouldn't writers today be obligated to contribute to online discussion of their work, where the digital-savvy audience interprets a written piece as a conversation rather than a monologue?

3. ANNA MINARD and ELI SANDERS write—again—about the already passed $15-an-hour minimum wage, this time pointing out allegedly unscrupulous methods utilized by signature gatherers seeking to overturn it. As you yawn and turn the page without reading this most unnecessary of "news" stories, consider the fact that medical science still does not know what purpose yawns serve. Some say it's to provide brains with oxygen, others suggest it's an internal-cooling mechanism, and still other biologists claim to have no idea at all. Having just yawned to the point of nearly dislocating your jaw, do you have any insight to offer on the purpose of yawns?

4. In the music section, CHARLES MUDEDE opens his discussion of New Order with a lyric from the Eagles' song "Hotel California." His formula seems to be showing: Open a review by talking about some other random element, then, once you've wasted 300 words on whatever the unrelated topic is, you only have 400 words or so in which to avoid writing about your subject, which you have undoubtedly failed to research. Do you believe Mudede prepares for the writing of his pieces by plucking a piece of paper from a hat filed with disparate subjects, or does he just hit the "random article" button on the Wikipedia home page? recommended