As discussed previously, this is my weekly Twitter roundup. Note that tweets of articles generally include header images from the articles, which I don’t include here unless their creators happen to have released them for use under a free license. Most have not. But I now add most of my commentary here, where I don’t feel restricted by the message length.

diagrams showing the division of the day and of the week

I also don’t generally attach pictures to posts with quotations.

9:02 – Mon 22 August 2022

GOP ‘message laundering’ turns violent, extremist reactions to search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago into acceptable political talking points from The Conversation

…message laundering presents dishonest and dangerous speech as credible, innocuous or persuasive.

Do I even need to comment on this, at this point? They will only get worse.

12:02 – Mon 22 August 2022

The man who listens not to the words of affectionate friends will give joy in the time of distress to his enemies.

Hitopadesa

9:01 – Tue 23 August 2022

Lead exposure, racial segregation combine to lower test scores from Futurity

Lastly, living near an airport can place children at higher risk for lead poisoning due to the leaded gas found in aviation fuel.

This fascinates me. For decades, we’ve seen people try to directly connect lead exposure to segregation, to justify ignoring one or the other, suggesting that solving either solves both. This exposes that as a lie: Even if you solve one problem, the other still exists, in terms of outcomes for students of different ethnicities.

12:01 – Tue 23 August 2022

Wickedness, by whomsoever committed, is odious, but most of all in men of learning; for learning is the weapon with which Satan is combated, and when a man is made captive with arms in his hand his shame is more excessive.

Sa’dī

9:04 – Wed 24 August 2022

Marjorie Taylor Greene Tells Republicans to Do a Little Bit of Voter Fraud from VICE News

While this all might be a laugh for Greene, people in several states have lost their freedom for trying to vote without being eligible.

Speaking of Republicans only getting worse…

12:04 – Wed 24 August 2022

To those who err in judgment, not in will, anger is gentle.

Sophocles

9:05 – Thu 25 August 2022

Biden’s Inflation Bill Is (Mostly) Good News for People and the Planet from OtherWords

For starters, the bill marks the largest investment in clean energy in the history of this country.

It amazes me that it took us nearly to the midterms for progressives to even grudgingly acknowledge that the Biden administration doesn’t have some nefarious agenda worse than whatever Trump planned.

12:05 – Thu 25 August 2022

Liberality consists less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.

Jean de La Bruyère

9:03 – Fri 26 August 2022

We must question colonialism in legal discourse, says Colombian lawyer from Global Voices

Sánchez Jaramillo strives for the judicial system in Colombia — and around the world — to break away from “Eurocentric” conceptions and open itself to other ways of looking at life and justice.

While I have concerns about “other ways of looking at justice,” since that opens a nightmarish can of worms about moral relativism. But analyzing for and removing colonial biases, I can get behind.

12:03 – Fri 26 August 2022

One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

William Wordsworth

Bonus

Because it accidentally became a tradition early on in the life of the blog, I drop any additional articles that didn’t fit into the one-article-per-day week, but too weird or important to not mention, here.

Janet Jackson had the power to crash laptop computers from The New Old Thing

Playing the music video on one laptop caused a laptop sitting nearby to crash, even though that other laptop wasn’t playing the video!

I…don’t even know what to say about this. It takes a lot to leave me without some quip, but crashing an unrelated laptop with music pretty much does it.

Death of ‘Somali Shakespeare’ Mourned Nationwide from Voice of America

Hirsi Dhuh Mohamed, head of the Somali Music Composers Council, said Warsame had been Somalia’s greatest living poet.

I hope that translations of his work become available soon. I’ve recently tried to expand my circle of “favorite” authors, after all, and while it’s gone well enough, people of some overseas importance would help.

Credits: Header image is Circular diagrams showing the division of the day and of the week from a manuscript drafted during the Carolingian Dynasty.