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.

9:04 – Mon 22 June 2020

What if the federal deficit didn’t actually matter? Modern Monetary Theory explained from Fast Company

…argues that there are some constraints that should curb government spending, the unfounded fear of a deficit—that the government should be run like a business—should not be one.

The “run government like a business” mantra had already exposed its lack of grounding in its refusal to run government like a thriving business that invests in improving itself. However, the reaction to the pandemic has also made it clear that all those changes that society “can’t afford” are, in fact, fairly straightforward, when the people demand it.

12:01 – Mon 22 June 2020

It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette

9:05 – Tue 23 June 2020

Masks prevented 66K COVID-19 infections in 1 month in NYC from Futurity

…also crucial for these uninfected persons to avoid breathing the minute atmospheric particles (aerosols) that infected people emit when talking…

As much as certain people want to insist that scientists keep “changing the story,” nothing has changed. If you’re close enough to smell someone, you’re close enough to breathe what they’re exhaling (and they you), so either stay out of people’s way or wear a mask. If you’re concerned about people needing to see your face—if you deal with people who are hard of hearing or you don’t enunciate well—use a plastic face shield. That’s it.

12:04 – Tue 23 June 2020

I am the means and not the end. I am the food and not the life.

E.M. Forster

9:01 – Wed 24 June 2020

Federal Judge Lambasts Amendment to Rename Confederate Bases as “Madness,” Gets Thoroughly Bodied by Clerk from The Intercept

…the foundation of his fight was a decision that he agreed more with the ideals of the Confederacy, than he did with those of the Union.

There’s are two easy ways to tell whether Confederate statues are to celebrate history or instruments to intimidate minorities. First and most obviously, there’s balance. There were many more slave revolts than Civil War battles, so if you don’t have more statues of the likes of Nat Turner, Josiah Henson, and Madison Washington than Robert E. Lee, it’s certainly not for history. Second, if the statue in question was erected after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, it’s there to tell Black people that they’re not welcome. See? Easy.

Also, nobody takes their class down to the old statue for an education. Any teacher who did so would be fired.

12:03 – Wed 24 June 2020

In secret we met

In silence I grieve,

That thy heart could forget,

Thy spirit deceive.

Lord Byron

9:03 – Thu 25 June 2020

The EPA Redacted Its Discussions About Trump’s Toilet Obsession from VICE Motherboard

“Ten times, right, ten times,” Trump said, referring to the number of flushes it takes to discharge the load in an “environmentally friendly” toilet. “Not me, of course not me. But you.”

Is it petty to bring this up? Yes. Is it petty for the President of the United States to argue with the EPA, because he wants to insist that somebody else’s load (not his, of course; a friend, I guess, with whom he has these sorts of conversations…) is the biggest and most beautiful that his friend can’t flush it? Also yes.

12:05 – Thu 25 June 2020

Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic, but we’ll hope for the best.

E.F. Benson

9:02 – Fri 26 June 2020

In 20 big cities, police rules fall short of human rights law from Futurity

…the United States remains largely alone among its peers in failing to comply with those standards.

This kind of says it all.

12:02 – Fri 26 June 2020

A cloud was in the blue expanse,

A shadow on my horologe.

I watched the sleepy waves awake,

I watched the darkly gathering blast.

And knew, too well, its wrath would break

Upon my helpless head at last.

Estelle Anna Robinson Lewis

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.

Unicode got a proposal for a kneeling-in-protest emoji two years ago. So where is it? from Fast Company

While the graphic in the proposal showed the emoji on one knee, the text didn’t specify that the “person kneeling” emoji should be on one knee instead of two.

This 🧎 is the character, in case you want to look at it on the different platforms. Google is, indeed, the only group I can find that got the message, and the rest almost look silly and contrived, in comparison. Even in the assumption, the artists seem to have not been able to figure out how to create a pose that would cover the subtle differences between different kinds of kneeling and instead created an unsatisfying geometric average.

Here’s What Juneteenth Looked Like in New York City from VICE

Of the 484 people arraigned on what the office called “protest and ‘looting’ related cases” between May 28 and June 4, 343—or 71%—were Black. Another 99 people were “Black-Hispanic” or “White-Hispanic,” according to the office.

Of course that’s what happened on a day celebrating the freedom of the final emancipation in the United States. Obviously…


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