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.

9:01 – Mon 19 October 2020

Black officers face discipline more often than white police from Futurity

…Black police officers were disciplined at an even higher rate—132% more often than white officers.

Yep. There are bad police officers who aren’t White, of course, but the big difference is that the police departments take their offenses more than twice as seriously.

12:03 – Mon 19 October 2020

Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

Mark Twain

9:05 – Tue 20 October 2020

Proprietary Grapes Come With Draconian End User License Agreement from VICE Motherboard

…there are all sorts of other interesting wrinkles here, many of which have not been solved, legally speaking.

Yep. Some company thinks that it copyrighted grape seeds. I wish that I could say that it’s surprising.

12:04 – Tue 20 October 2020

The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.

Walt Whitman

9:03 – Wed 21 October 2020

Steve Bannon, Guccifer 2.0, Glenn Greenwald, and Me: How Glenn Greenwald Defends “Smear Artist & Cowards” from EmptyWheel

in the same breath where he claims each and every person complaining about her initial uncritical response is a “pro-Biden journalist.”

I wanted to make sure to post this because, while I post a lot of Intercept articles, when they’re useful, Greenwald—one of the founders—is one of the many “well, I don’t like the fascist, but all the people opposing the fascists are worse, because of these unsubstantiated rumors” types, and will loudly insist that most proven allegations against Trump are part of some bizarre conspiracy theory.

12:02 – Wed 21 October 2020

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s futures, and we are all mortal.

John F. Kennedy

9:04 – Thu 22 October 2020

5 Things to Do Right Now If You’re Anxious About the Election from VICE

…phonebank or textbank for a non-partisan organization to help mobilize people to show up prepared to vote in the first place.

I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again, but voting individually is fine. But especially if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t think that individual votes matter, vote as a team.

12:01 – Thu 22 October 2020

Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we think, to be loyal to a family and clan, whose blood is in your own veins.

Charles Eastman

9:02 – Fri 23 October 2020

A Desperate Trump Rallies in Iowa as He Cancels Ads, Loses Ground from The Intercept

…hints of waning support for the president as Trump slumps in the polls and local Republican proxies like Sen. Joni Ernst and Gov. Kim Reynolds see precipitous drops in their approval ratings.

I don’t enjoy being explicitly partisan, because parties always change over time, but there’s a reason that Republicans consistently advocate against letting people vote: Their positions are only beneficial to a tiny minority of people who are already well off and supported by other people who (openly—at this point, I don’t think I’m saying anything “mean”) want to see certain groups harmed more than them. So, when more people vote, they lose.

12:05 – Fri 23 October 2020

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Bonus

Because it accidentally became a tradition early on in the life of the blog, here’s a sixth and seventh article that didn’t fit into the week, but too relevant or weird to not mention.

Inside the Fall of the CDC from ProPublica

The next day, a furious call came from the office of the vice president: The White House suggestions were not optional.

Remember when I said that Republican positions weren’t helping people? Here’s one example.

QAnon Fans Try to Explain Why Trump Took a Drug Developed With Fetal Tissue from VICE News

More mainstream right-wing outlets are also attempting to “correct” the record on the antibody cocktail, mainly by baldly lying about it.

One of the most obnoxious aspects of the “pro-life” segment of the population is how quickly they turn a blind eye to the embryos they claim to cherish. They only rarely object to fertility clinics—which necessarily dispose of unused embryos—except for people considered “extremists,” such as Amy Coney Barrett. And in cases where drugs that they need (or might need) use fetal stem cells, they’re suddenly silent. What they care about (or what the people who have convinced them to take their position care about) is controlling women.

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