I’ve run half-marathons before. I know the saying about elections (or whatever) is “it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” but I also know that right now, three and a half weeks before Election Day, I’m exhausted. My feet hurt in muscles I didn’t even know I had, my laces were too tight all along, I didn’t grab enough energy gels at the halfway-mark table and instead of running, I’m basically just hurling my thighs forward in the hopes that I won’t fall down. I’m so tired of this poisonous national tantrum.

• Exhibit A: My favorite under-discussed outrage of the second debate last weekend was Donald Trump’s obsession with name-dropping known Hebrews who are Bad Men. Good thing he’s not repurposing language from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion… oh, oh he is? That’s cool.
• Speaking of under-discussed outrages, has anyone else noticed that UNESCO just passed a resolution denying a Jewish connection to the Temple Mount? This happened the day after Judaism’s holiest day, regarding Judaism’s holiest site, by the way. Not that Jews don’t have their own internal discussions about the nature of their Judaism going on, but this seems fairly egregious. Who’s mad?
• Speaking of theology, remember that Wheaton College professor who wore hijab as an act of solidarity and everyone freaked out? The New York Times followed up with her, and produced a fascinating look at the subtleties of the professor’s worldview and arguments.
• What if we talked about something safe and uncontroversial? Like, oh, sex — and virginity, and women’s pleasure. Sara Petersen, writing for Bust, talks about “the other virginity,” and why it all matters. As long as we’re discussing rape culture as a nation, we ought to ensure that we’re promoting not just an absence of violence, but the presence of agency.
• Oh my goodness, I’m exhausted again. Joy is still possible in the world, right? It is, and we can have it. Take @EelectricMiguel, a Twitter account belonging to an electric eel at the Tennessee Aquarium — it tweets every time the eel zaps its tank. Or how about this dog? I’m literally looking at a cartoon. If that’s not doing the trick, meet Bullet: “House-trained bison with ‘great personality’ finds a new home.”

And of course, up top, “Bald Eagle Gets Trapped in Car, Becomes Perfect Symbol for America in 2016” (Gizmodo).