As discussed previously, this is my weekly Twitter roundup. Note that tweets of articles generally include header images from the articles, which are not included here unless they happen to be available under a free license. Most are not. But I now add most of my commentary here, where I’m not 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.

9:05 – Mon 29 June 2020

The Best Tiny DIY Pride Floats Made by Our Readers from VICE

…it is necessarily a plea for the acceptance, support, and protection of our trans brothers and sisters.

Pride Month is over, but the issues it exists to expose—like the vulnerability of transgender individuals—continue on. It’s always interesting to see which brands are all too happy to take down their rainbow decorations and go back to pretending that gender and sexual minorities aren’t relevant. But regardless, the story about the little quarantine-appropriate floats is worth the read, even if you’re a few days late. I may be old enough to think that the music played at Pride events is “just random noise,” but they deserve all the support we can muster.

12:04 – Mon 29 June 2020

I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.

Barney Frank

9:04 – Tue 30 June 2020

Pay Black employees based on their performance, not your bias from Fast Company

Black women earn just 61 cents for every dollar a white man earns. One key source of this inequity is something known as “manager discretion.”

There’s a reason that the United States is in that small group of national cultures where talking about money is a taboo. It’s not for the benefit of the workers.

12:05 – Tue 30 June 2020

I ended up taking the afternoon off and didn’t prepare anything in advance. No quote.

9:02 – Wed 01 July 2020

Trump Is Getting Absolutely Destroyed in the States That Matter Most from VICE

Biden leads Trump by nine points (47% to 36%) in Michigan, eleven points (49% to 38%) in Wisconsin, and ten points (50% to 40%) in Pennsylvania. He’s also leading by 49%-40% in North Carolina, 48% to 41% in Arizona and 47% to 41% in Florida.

Despite that being such a good lead that Republican Senators have (allegedly) been talking about ways they can distance themselves from Trump before he pulls them down—probably too late—it’s worth remembering that a poll is only as good as the voters it describes. If you’re not verifying your voter registration (or registering to vote) and making a plan for November to vote and—if you have the resources to do so—enable other people to vote (carpooling, ordering pizza for the overflowing polling places that will be open late, etc.), then that poll is worthless.

12:02 – Wed 01 July 2020

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Mark Twain

9:01 – Thu 02 July 2020

Defunding the Police Must Include Ending the Surveillance of Muslims from The Intercept

…focused on Somali boys between the ages of 13 and 17, claiming that their “risk for violent extremism” increases due to “unaccountable times and unobserved spaces,” and that “[t]hey are enticed by their capacity to carry weapons, their loyalty, and almost gang-like dress code.”

The Black Lives Matter protests have, of course, been focused on policing’s long history of violence against Black people, but yes, the decades since have added harassing all non-White populations about immigration status and following Muslims and other Americans of Arab descent like we’re hoping to catch them doing something wrong.

12:03 – Thu 02 July 2020

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

Blaise Pascal

9:03 – Fri 03 July 2020

Calling out white people for sexism can cut racism, too from Futurity

Participants who were confronted for using a negative stereotype about women used significantly fewer stereotypes about Blacks and Latinos…

I guess it’s hard work being a bigot.

12:01 – Fri 03 July 2020

I keep pointing at the child; they keep staring at my finger.

Maria Montessori

Bonus

Because it accidentally became a tradition early on in the life of the blog, here’s a sixth article that didn’t fit into the week, but too weird to not mention.

Scholar Robin D.G. Kelley on How Today’s Abolitionist Movement Can Fundamentally Change the Country from The Intercept

The tradition in this country has been to identify looting as criminal behavior. That is, to either treat it as an extension of protest strategy, but what it does is it creates a false equivalence between the state’s relentless use of lethal violence — as if that’s the least important thing — and the kind of episodic political violence by people who are trying to fight back, or people who are taking advantage of the crisis, of the lack of restraint, to try to get commodities.

It’s definitely worth considering that “riots” and “looting” rarely seem to extend outside of companies with a history of exploiting or abusing its minority populations, and only seem to occur when those populations are pushed too far.

Invading Cicadas May Turn Into Sex-Crazed Zombies This Summer from VICE

The fungus acts much like an STD, where spores scatter as cicadas wiggle their infected bodies during their sex rampage. One West Virginia University researcher describes them as “flying saltshakers of death.”

I can’t help but notice that the “we live in a simulation” crowd have been conspicuously quiet, this year. I assume they have finally realized that no computer could ever have come up with the endless parade of weird stories in 2020. We’re definitely the legendary man dreaming he’s a butterfly, and that man needs to wear a mask when he shops and watch out for sex-zombie cicadas, Karen.

Yes. The man’s name is Karen, here. If you’re more concerned about the perceived threat to his masculinity than the sex-zombie cicadas, that’s on you…

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