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 14 September 2020

I decided to stay off of Twitter on another Monday morning…

12:05 – Mon 14 September 2020

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

William Butler Yeats

9:01 – Tue 15 September 2020

Teen Candidate Who Blackmailed a Girl for Nudes Admits He Abused His Ex-Girlfriend from VICE News

In texts published by the Intercept, Passow and Coleman texted about what had happened a few days later.

It’s hard to find a pull quote in this one that isn’t potentially traumatizing to someone who has gone through any abuse. You have a selection of choking, threats of sexual violence, suggestion of suicide, and gaslighting. And it’s not that long an article. But the central point is that it’s all documented, but he’s trying to find some middle ground between admitting it and denying it.

12:04 – Tue 15 September 2020

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

This quote marks the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month. At the end of the first week, what I think that I’ve discovered is that the Latinx American community has historically…not been chronicled, possibly ignored more than any other group I’ve looked at. So, if you catch me trying to find something useful said by Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, that’s why. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but keeping to public domain sources and an ethnicity Americans traditionally don’t care about is going to make for a rough month.

You know, for those of you who enjoy an occasional peek behind the blog’s (and the Twitter feed’s) curtain.

9:03 – Wed 16 September 2020

Researchers Find Racial Disparities Across Court System from Latino Rebels

…Black and Latino defendants at risk of harsher punishments and can influence their decisions in plea negotiations…

Everybody probably already understands this, but the data makes it much easier to argue for better policy.

12:01 – Wed 16 September 2020

When the Statue of Liberty emerged from the mists I gazed at it with an awe close to the sublime.

Antonio Moreno

9:04 – Thu 17 September 2020

BlueLeaks Documents Bolster Whistleblower Account of Intelligence Tampering at Homeland Security from The Intercept

…inflating the number of known or suspected terrorists crossing the border, to the suppression of intelligence on right-wing terrorists, to the stifling of reports on Russian interference in the coming election.

In other words, the administration’s policy is to turn a blind eye to people causing harm when they’re sympathetic to Trump and inventing enemies where they don’t exist. Many people suspected that, but the confirmation is still valuable.

12:02 – Thu 17 September 2020

Public education must be not only encouraged, but compelled, if we would have this magnificent government to survive…

Octaviano Ambrosio

9:05 – Fri 18 September 2020

New Age communities are driving QAnon conspiracies in Brazil from Global Voices

In June, Cesa began offering live broadcasts to give his viewers updates on QAnon-related theories, supported by PowerPoint slides with information allegedly received from “privileged sources.”

I’ve noted for a while how the New Age community I saw in the 1990s might have easily been a recruiting conduit for the far-right. The fixation on UFOs connects both, of course, but a lot of UFO lore is racialized—both in the specifics (the heroic aliens are “Nordics,” giant blonde men) and generalities (essentialism)—most of the ideas are appropriated from other cultures while non-White people are ignored, conspiracy theories abound, and a frequent legal disclaimer that everything is “for entertainment purposes” to skirt regulations. So, this isn’t as strange a shift as it might sound.

12:03 – Fri 18 September 2020

While the politicians espouse their rhetoric designed to preserve their reputations and their political power, our soldiers die.

Ricardo Sanchez

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.

Tracking your eyes could fight fake news from Futurity

…people gave fake news headlines a little less visual attention, despite their being unaware that the headlines were fake.

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