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.

9:05 – Mon 22 February 2021

Out of the Ashes of Trump, Will the US Finally Bury Reaganism? from Common Dreams

Tens of millions are hurting. A record number of American children are impoverished, according to the most recent Census data.

The idea predates Reagan, of course, but the fact remains that we have had one political party whose position is to oppose and otherwise subvert the government, rather than to turn it to any useful end. Because that’s how they characterize themselves, we need to get them all out of office and cut off their funding.

If there are legitimate conservatives out there, they can put together a new party out of the pieces, with safeguards to keep these people out of power.

12:05 – Mon 22 February 2021

Who, pray, are benefiting by all this waste and confusion? The dew, a mere small percentage of the population of the world. All the remainder submit, because they think “it always has been so and it must always be so.”

Lucy Parsons

9:04 – Tue 23 February 2021

46,218 news transcripts show ideologically extreme politicians get more airtime from The Conversation

The tactics that make good television are very different from those for succeeding in the committee system.

This is in addition to conservatives constantly using their platforms to scream that they’re being silenced, in hopes of getting more favorable news coverage.

12:04 – Tue 23 February 2021

I feel for those in bondage—well may I feel for them. / I know how fiendish hearts can be that sell their fellow men.

Sojourner Truth

9:02 – Wed 24 February 2021

Expose the Insurrection Financiers from Other Words

…introduced the Insurrection Financing Transparency Act, which would give U.S. authorities immediate access to the identities of those who financed the Capitol assault.

This is critical. Congress is going to launch an investigative commission into the insurrection, and it will need that information to form anything like a complete picture. Likewise, the Fourteenth Amendment (Section 3) forbids any elected official who participates in or otherwise aided in an insurrection, meaning that the country can’t execute its laws without knowing who was involved at that level.

12:01 – Wed 24 February 2021

I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.

Harriet Tubman

9:03 – Thu 25 February 2021

Ceramic in meteorites upends theory of early solar system from Futurity

This picture indicates a young star that was flaring and fluctuating over a long time period, affecting everything around it.

I admit that I didn’t think I’d have a week when I would read about space-ceramics, but not only are we here, but it’s a pretty interesting detail.

12:02 – Thu 25 February 2021

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes

9:01 – Fri 26 February 2021

33 million Americans are still offline. It’s time to bridge the digital divide from Fast Company

84% of the offline population under 36 years old says the cost of an internet subscription is what prevents them from going online, compared to a 51% average globally.

I don’t believe there have been any formal studies done—largely because lobbyists have outlawed the practice that would need to be studied, in most of the country—but I do remember anecdotal evidence from years back, suggesting that municipal broadband Internet access increased tax revenue, mostly because citizens were starting and expanding businesses. So, even from a “run government like a business” perspective, getting as many people as possible online as cheaply (for them) as possible is a good idea.

12:03 – Fri 26 February 2021

I am here because I am opposing the Neo-Fascist cause, which I see arising here in these committees.

Paul Robeson

Bonus

Because it accidentally became a tradition early on in the life of the blog, here’s a bunch of articles that didn’t fit into the week, but too weird or important to not mention.

From Covid To Mass Power Outages, the Texas Republican Party Has Created a Failed State from Common Dreams

Indeed, the deregulation of the electricity grid may have encouraged companies not to weatherize.

I’ve made the point in the past, that whenever conservatives talk about creating their little corporate-owned and/or racist utopias, they never talk about moving to a deserted island or some unclaimed space like Bir Tawil. They always pitch it as moving somewhere that already has liberal governance and infrastructure, because they know their policies always require someone to bail them out.

Education Won’t Stop Conspiracy Theories from Other Words

Smart human beings, even highly educated ones, do things that don’t make logical sense all the time. People join cults, or stay with abusive partners.

The author seems to deliberately misinterpret “education” as “formal, accredited education”—then shows why that’s not a legitimate connection, by using Donald Trump’s falsified education as an example—but the overall point that these theories aren’t being spread in the absence of better information is still valid.

Trump has openly admitted that he spreads misinformation so that people won’t be sure who to trust, for example.

How a mass suicide by slaves caused the legend of the flying African to take off from The Conversation

When folklorists arrived in the 1930s, Igbo Landing and the story of the flying African assumed a mythological place in African American culture.

I’ve always loved this story, but couldn’t find a legitimate period source, so it was nice to spot this in my RSS feed, this week.

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