Toots 🦣 from 02/12 to 02/16

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.

Mon 12 February 2024

Events conspired to push me into skipping the day.

9:06 – Tue 13 February 2024

Image Not Shown: Man with hand on head lying in bed

Too much or too little sleep tied to risky changes in the brain from Futurity

The study highlights middle age as an important time to adjust our sleep habits in ways that may help protect our brain health.

Hashtags: #Health #Brain #Sleep

Personally, I rarely do well in the short term if I don’t sleep well—if I oversleep, it usually means that I’ve gotten sick and can expect worse symptoms—so this doesn’t surprise much, except for the magnitude of the problem.

12:02 – Tue 13 February 2024

Quoted on Mastodon

I do not feel capable of writing a single word of counsel to those dear young people, more than to say that my heart goes out to every one of them, regardless of the fact that I have never seen them and may never do so.

George Washington Carver

Hashtags: #Quotes #BlackHistory

9:03 – Wed 14 February 2024

An illustration of a black woman, with a viewpoint looking over her right shoulder. She is wearing a headscarf depicting family groups and in the background are representations of DNA strands and chromosomes.
Image credit: Licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International license

Equality in genetics from Wellcome Collection

…preventing, predicting and managing genetic conditions in a healthcare setting isn’t always fair. Not all communities access the benefits of genetic testing and genetic counseling in the same way.

Hashtags: #Equality #Science #Medicine

We definitely need more of this in the world.

12:06 – Wed 14 February 2024

Quoted on Mastodon

There have to be consequences for participating in an attempted violent overthrow of the government beyond sitting at home.

Tanya Chutkan

Hashtags: #Quotes #BlackHistory

9:02 – Thu 15 February 2024

Image Not Shown: Painting of balding man wearing a white shirt and a tie, sitting at a piano and writing on sheets of music.

George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is a story of jazz, race and the fraught notion of America’s melting pot from The Conversation

A century after it premiered, it remains a crowd favorite – and almost always guarantees a sold-out show. But more and more scholars are starting to see the work as a whitewashed version of Harlem’s vibrant Black music scene.

Hashtags: #Jazz #Race #Appropriation

I’ve always had similar concerns about the Gershwins’ work, certainly good and evocative of the intent, but so often convincing people to overlook the precursors to his work.

12:04 – Thu 15 February 2024

Quoted on Mastodon

We expect public servants to be guided in their actions by a strong moral compass.

Lloyd Austin

Hashtags: #Quotes #BlackHistory

9:05 – Fri 16 February 2024

Image Not Shown: An American flag overlaid on a circuit design

The CHIPS Act treats the symptoms, but not the causes from Pluralistic

When rich people get into debt, bankruptcy steps in to give them space to “restructure” according to their own plans. When poor people get into debt, bankruptcy strips them of nearly everything that might help them recover…

Hashtags: #Economy #USPol #CHIPS

This definitely seems like the wrong direction, but for predictable reasons in a world where we can’t talk about underlying causes.

12:07 – Fri 16 February 2024

Quoted on Mastodon

Politicians, religionists, colonizationists, and abolitionists, have each and all, at different times, presumed to think for, dictate to, and know better what suited colored people, than they knew for themselves.

Martin Delany

Hashtags: #Quotes #BlackHistory

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: White yak in Namtso lake, Tibet

Tibetan Plateau ‘social network’ goes back to the Bronze Age from Futurity

“This not only tells us that people were moving according to needs for farming and herding—which was largely influenced by environmental potential—but that mobility was key for building social relationships and the regional character of ancient communities on the Tibetan Plateau.”

This fascinates me to no end, even though it probably shouldn’t…

The new toolkit homepage
Image credit: by Mrb Rafi, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Five-Year Spell is Broken: Introducing the Feminism and Folklore toolkit from Wikimedia Diff

A dedicated team, consisting of people from both WLF and Project Korikath supports the toolkit, ensuring ongoing recruitment, future developments, and maintenance as needed. This approach aims to prevent the initiative from lacking proper attention and accumulating technical debt.

This looks like a great project, and I’ll need to dig deeper at some point.

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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.