If you’ve visited Wikipedia today (or the Google homepage, or xkcd, or Wired, or WordPress) you’ll notice that they’re censoring their own sites to raise awareness for the SOPA and PIPA legislation.  From Wikipedia:

Wikipedia is protesting against SOPA and PIPA by blacking out the English Wikipedia for 24 hours, beginning at midnight January 18, Eastern Time. Readers who come to English Wikipedia during the blackout will not be able to read the encyclopedia. Instead, you will see messages intended to raise awareness about SOPA and PIPA, encouraging you to share your views with your representatives, and with each other on social media.

(Wikipedia has made available a page detailing why PIPA and SOPA are bad news).

xkcd.com also has a list of resources for some good (and easily digestible) information.

These are important pieces of legislation, and definitely merit contacting your representatives.  However (after you’ve educated yourself and done your part), if you’re in a pinch today and you absolutely need to read a Wikipedia article to understand Batesian mimicry or the etymology of goulash, there is a very easy workaround.  When you go to the article you want, you’ll notice it appear in your browser before Wikipedia’s SOPA/PIPA awareness page pops up.  Simply click the “stop” button in your browser after the article loads but before the awareness page pops up.  That’s it.