Friday Odds & Sods is Too Cool For School

Or for most any other activity this week.  Although the promised Snowpocalypse or Snowmageddon or Snow-Letter-to-the-Ephesians turned out to be a bit of a bust, at least in the Metropolis, your Humble Scribe was unfortunately taken ill much of the week and could not enjoy a Snow Day along with the rest of the city.  But never fret, Dear Reader.  Not even being stretched out on my sickbed will keep me from delivering your weekly Odds & Sods!

• An article in the New Yorker about the evolution of the first gay rights movement in Wilhelmine Germany, especially interesting as a counterexample to the usual interpretation of German history as being an autobahn direct to the Third Reich
• In honor of the upcoming Sunday's festivities, a look at the very bad year of Roger Goodell 
• From the Lion in Winter files, two stories: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes a novel and David Simon goes from Baltimore to Yonkers
• Finally, a song about medicine that will speed up any convalesence