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.

Mon 25 May 2020

(I decided to take Memorial Day off.)

9:03 – Tue 26 May 2020

Video Shows Georgia Cops Tried to Tase Ahmaud Arbery in 2017 While He Was Sitting in a Park from VICE

When Kanago tells him that there’s frequent gang activity in the park, Arbery asks, “Is my name tied up in any of that?” and Kanago responds that it isn’t.

It’s worth pointing out that the National Gang Center says that a “gang” is any group of young people who are identified (no mention of by whom) with a name, “are recognized by others as a gang,” has “some permanence,” and is involved in *an elevated level of criminal activity.” That definition would include—for example—a high school football team that let beer into a victory party one night. If they throw around a frisbee at the park on weekends, that’s “frequent gang activity.”

12:04 – Tue 26 May 2020

The world is so busy, too, that it cannot afford to study any man’s unfinished work; for the end may prove it a failure, and the world needs masterpieces.

Mary Antin

As mentioned last week, it feels like I’ve exhausted the probable in-the-public-domain quotes from Asian Americans, which was disappointing both in terms of being able to legitimately celebrate the month and in terms of how dismissive we’ve been of Asian immigrants that we didn’t bother preserving what they wrote or said.

However, May is also Jewish American Heritage Month, and I’m now also disappointed that I was not aware of this earlier, so this week (the first short week in a while, at that, which isn’t great) attempted to rectify that.

Mary Antin wrote about her experiences trying to assimilate into the culture of the United States after immigrating from Belarus and was later an aggressive pro-immigration activist.

9:05 – Wed 27 May 2020

Work stress may be killing you from Futurity

Managers should provide employees working in demanding jobs more control, and in jobs where it is unfeasible to do so, a commensurate reduction in demands.

12:03 – Wed 27 May 2020

He had striven, had done business, had bought love, had subjected other lives to his will, and here, all the time lay a grave, quietly waiting for him. And now, it seemed to him that he could understand why the life he had sought to rear had crumbled.

Sholem Asch

9:04 – Thu 28 May 2020

A Mysterious Ancient Galaxy Just Rewrote the Universe’s Timeline from VICE Motherboard

…most galaxies in the early universe “look like train wrecks” because they are constantly absorbing clouds of hot gas that destabilize the disk.

12:01 – Thu 28 May 2020

I think that I was born for a life of intellectual interest. I was certainly brought up for one. The day when that accident turned my mind from college to business seems to be the most unfortunate day in my life. I think that I should be much happier as a scientist or writer, perhaps.

Abraham Cahan

9:02 – Fri 29 May 2020

What happens when you give gig workers emergency cash? from Fast Company

The biggest emergency for which grants were requested was rent and utilities, with nearly 38% of funding requests.

Similarly, you can find hundreds of articles surprised that the majority of CARES Act stimulus payments to individuals were going to strange places like food, with almost as many articles recommending such spending, as if people generally just forget to get the things they need to survive.

12:02 – Fri 29 May 2020

After Puss in Boots had won wealth and a wife for his young master did not that gentleman often fume with chagrin because the neighbors, perhaps, refused to call on the lady of the former poor miller’s son?

Edna Ferber

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.

Trump Hails “Good Bloodlines” of Henry Ford, Whose Anti-Semitism Inspired Hitler from The Intercept

The New York Times reported in 1922 that Ford’s importance to Hitler was very obvious. “The wall beside his desk in Hitler’s private office is decorated with a large picture of Henry Ford,” the newspaper’s Berlin correspondent observed. “In the ante-chamber there is a large table covered with books, nearly all of which are a translation of a book written and published by Henry Ford.”

Ford is responsible for some good ideas that we still haven’t quite processed, like overpaying his employees and taking an interest in their health for business reasons. However, he also spread conspiracy theories that incited violence and tried to convince the United States government to enter World War II on the side of the Nazis. So, getting excited about his “bloodlines” makes a clear statement about which side of him is being praised.

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