Toots 🦣 from 04/15 to 04/19

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.

9:06 – Mon 15 April 2024

Image Not Shown: woman with bored expression holds left fingers to her left temple while staring down at her desk, which has a computer, coffee and a lamp on it

How to battle boredom at work from The Conversation

…a more effective approach is to alternate boring tasks with meaningful ones. This helps prevent the effects of boredom from spilling over into subsequent tasks.

Hashtags: #Work #Boredom

Mind you, this method assumes that you have enough meaning in your job to alternate, and I know from personal and shared experience that not everyone has that luxury…

12:06 – Mon 15 April 2024

Quoted on Mastodon

…we have talked about all we have done for the OPEC countries with regard to the Gulf War, but let’s talk about the fact that we are sending literally tens of billions of dollars into Russia according to the Congressional Research Service.

Pat Danner

Hashtags: #Quotes #ArabAmericanHeritage

9:07 – Tue 16 April 2024

Image Not Shown: An ancient warrior with the Earth in a sling, standing in front of the giant, monocle'd head of a presumed business tycoon

The unexpected upside of global monopoly capitalism from Pluralistic

The UAW has lodged a complaint with the NLRB, naturally. But the UAW has also filed a complaint with BAFA, the German regulator in charge of the Supply Chain Act, seeking penalties against Mercedes-Benz Group AG.

Hashtags: #Labor #Capitalism

I find it interesting that this premise only really cuts in one direction. When businesses organize internationally, is leaves them vulnerable. When workers organize internationally, it also makes the businesses, rather than the workers, vulnerable. Without governments going to bat for companies internationally—in the form of myopic trade-partner treaties—corporate money doesn’t really buy them much. Boohoo, right…?

12:07 – Tue 16 April 2024

Quoted on Mastodon

…there is no such thing as a conflict that can’t be ended. Conflicts are created, conducted and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings.

George J. Mitchell

Hashtags: #Quotes #ArabAmericanHeritage

9:04 – Wed 17 April 2024

Image Not Shown: A piece of paper with the word ANGRY written on it, in four frames, crumpled up and thrown in the trash

Paper-Crumpling Study About the Nature of Anger Is the Best Thing from 404 Media

The researchers found what they described as a significant reduction in participants’ “anger experience” when they disposed of the feelings paper.

Hashtags: #Emotions #Health

I’ve actually tried things like this, over the years, and at least in my not-at-all rigorous experience, the disposal doesn’t necessarily help—assuming that you have the process in mind—as long as you believe that you’ve had your say. In other words, journaling probably works about as well, provided that you don’t constantly go back to ruminate on your anger.

12:03 – Wed 17 April 2024

Quoted on Mastodon

Whether they work or not, [women] really know the community, and the kids, and so forth, a little more than sometimes the men do, not that the men don’t.

Mary Rose Oakar

Hashtags: #Quotes #ArabAmericanHeritage

9:02 – Thu 18 April 2024

Image Not Shown: A demonstrator holds up a "tax the rich" sign

Billionaires Are Bad for Democracy. Taxing Them Is Good for It from OtherWords

A modest 5 percent tax on all wealth above $1 billion would raise more than $244 billion this year alone. And that’s likely an underestimate, since some billionaires keep their wealth concealed from Forbes.

Hashtags: #Billionaires #Taxes #Inequality

We, as a society, don’t talk about the well-documented correlation between economic equality and political stability nearly enough.

12:04 – Thu 18 April 2024

Quoted on Mastodon

A resilient people cherishing liberty and equality and the rule of law will endure.

Nick Rahall

Hashtags: #Quotes #ArabAmericanHeritage

9:01 – Fri 19 April 2024

Image Not Shown: Doctor walking with a bag along a corridor in a medical clinic

Why are nurses quitting health care? from Futurity

Nurses are not principally leaving for personal reasons, like going back to school or because they lack resilience. They are working in chronically poorly staffed conditions which is an ongoing problem that predates the pandemic.

Hashtags: #HealthCare #Stress

Funny how we treat certain people—especially in professions with a traditional gender bias—terribly, as capital disassembles their entire industry, and then we wonder why they switch careers…

12:02 – Fri 19 April 2024

Quoted on Mastodon

In every community, whether large or small, there are people who lead in their community in easy and difficult times.

Donna Shalala

Hashtags: #Quotes #ArabAmericanHeritage

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 collage for the February 2024 issue of ‘Don’t Blink.’
Image credit: Image by the Wikimedia Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Don’t Blink: Protecting the Wikimedia model, its people, and its values in February 2024 from Wikimedia Diff

The Supreme Court held a hearing to consider the constitutionality of laws passed by Texas and Florida in 2022. The Court is presently deciding whether the laws in question infringe on First Amendment rights by prohibiting website operators from banning users or removing content based on the political viewpoints of these users—in other words, by compelling website operators to host online speech and content.

It amazes me how much work Wikimedia does to keep the Internet working as expected, while the Internet Archive gets all the press for mostly only arguing against copyright.

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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.