Toots 🦣 from 09/25 to 09/29

As discussed previously, on Fridays, I present my weekly social media roundups. Note that toots 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, and I notice. Most have not, or I don’t notice. But I now add my commentary here, where I don’t feel restricted by message length.

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

9:04 – Mon 25 September 2023

Content Warning: Sexual Abuse

Image Not Shown: Publicity for Sound of Freedom

‘Sound of Freedom’ subject resigns, accused of multiple unwanted sexual advances from Daily Kos

According to multiple sources, Ballard’s M.O. included trying to “coerce those women into sharing a bed or showering together, claiming that it was necessary to fool traffickers.”

Hashtags: #SoundOfFreedom #Abuse #OUR #Trafficking

It seems so much less complicated to help people without further victimizing them. But I suppose that, when you set up a literal white savior narrative, everybody else in the story gets demoted to supporting cast or extras.

12:07 – Mon 25 September 2023

Quoted on Mastodon

I was not aware that it was my duty to resign after I had been elected, or I would have done so, in order to give the people of my county an opportunity to elect another in my place.

Francisco Perea

Hashtags: #Quotes #HispanicHeritage

9:01 – Tue 26 September 2023

Image Not Shown: A paper cutout of a person with a red fluid dripped around its lower half, situated between a Jamaican and Trinidad and Tobago on a light blue background

A look at period poverty experiences in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago from Global Voices

In cases where there is no access to water in any way, community members pool their money to buy water from water trucks.

Hashtags: #Trinidad #Poverty

…You should probably read this, if you haven’t already. Nothing I could say can give more insight into anything.

12:03 – Tue 26 September 2023

Quoted on Mastodon

There is…a singularly satisfying feeling that one gets when one has arrived at a particularly penetrating analysis and is able to convince both of one’s colleagues of its merit.

Sonia Sotomayor

Hashtags: #Quotes #HispanicHeritage

9:06 – Wed 27 September 2023

Chandrayaan-3 sits on the lunar surface, its robotic legs extended.
Image credit: Image belongs to the DOS/ISRO and the same may be reproduced free of charge in any format or media without requiring specific permission. This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context.

Chandrayaan-3’s measurements of sulfur open the doors for lunar science and exploration from The Conversation

Chandrayaan-3’s measurements of sulfur in soils are the first to occur on the Moon. The exact amount of sulfur cannot be determined until the data calibration is completed.

Hashtags: #Moon #Chandrayaan3 #Sulfur

To everybody who I’ve confidently told, over the years, that we haven’t gone back to the Moon because it has nothing interesting there for us to do…I suppose that I owe you an apology. I didn’t expect sulfur to show up anywhere in this context.

12:06 – Wed 27 September 2023

Quoted on Mastodon

Life on earth is a hand-to-hand mortal combat… between the law of love and the law of hate.

José Martí

Hashtags: #Quotes #HispanicHeritage

9:02 – Thu 28 September 2023

Image Not Shown: Portrait of a mom and daughter embracing at home

Racism adds to demands on Black mothers from Futurity

Brantley categorizes the ways racism affects Black motherhood into three areas: protective mothering, resistance mothering, and encumbered mothering.

Hashtags: #Parenting #Racism

File this under “we all probably knew this, but putting numbers and process to the intuition helps dramatically.”

12:04 – Thu 28 September 2023

Quoted on Mastodon

Philanthropy means to steal wholesale, and give away retail.

Paul Lafargue

Hashtags: #Quotes #HispanicHeritage

9:05 – Fri 29 September 2023

Content Warning: White Supremacy, "Active Clubs"

Image Not Shown: White nationalists clash with counter-demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12, 2017

Research Warns White Supremacists Are Building a Shadow Militia from Voice of America

Members are told to avoid any display of obvious Nazi or white supremacist symbols and imagery. They are also instructed not to talk about Jews or about history.

Hashtags: #WhiteSupremacy #ActiveClubs

Note the undercurrent, here, especially if you lean towards white supremacy and not away from it: These creeps prey on the insecurities of young men, making them feel like they can become strong, but with the explicit intent of sending them into danger as cannon fodder.

They’ve dropped the pretense of even talking about legitimate social issues—and ignoring the underlying reasons for those social issues—as the “bait” for young men. They’ve settled on body-shaming, like every other unimaginative bully, and would only prefer that their Nazi-worship to not feel so “obvious.”

12:02 – Fri 29 September 2023

Quoted on Mastodon

Brutes, inhuman monsters—you heartless brutes—you whom nature forms by molding you in it, deceive not yourselves by thinking that another John Brown will not arise.

Lucy Parsons

Hashtags: #Quotes #HispanicHeritage

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.

Image Not Shown: Screenshot from YouTube video, ’Zimbabweans Living in South Africa Protest Election Outcome‘ on VOA Africa

Zimbabwe election aftermath sees human rights defenders and opposition supporters under siege from Global Voices

However, just 72 hours following an underwhelming inauguration on September 4, attended by only a few heads of state, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission contentiously declared Mnangagwa the winner over Chamisa of the newly named Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC). Soon after, reports of violence against human rights defenders, lawyers, and opposition supporters began surfacing in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.

Good luck to the people of Zimbabwe.

On International Peace Day Women’s Critical Role Highlighted from Voice of America

In all fairness, I’d rather focus on society’s need to dump the peace-making roles on women, but I can settle for recognition.

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