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 10 May 2021

We Found the Textbooks of Senators Who Oppose The 1619 Project and Suddenly Everything Makes Sense from The Root

During Reconstruction, Oliphant praised the Klan for keeping justice alive.

As with a lot of issues, the last few years have exposed deep problems in our systems. But it’s a mistake to imagine that they’re recent. For well over a century, a third of the country’s population has been indoctrinated with a fictional, white supremacist version of American history.

Harriot also calls Tom Cotton “the person you have to fight when you defeat all the other slave masters,” so there’s that.

12:04 – Mon 10 May 2021

In, my, undream, of, death,

I, unspoke, the, Word.

Since, nobody, had, dared,

With, my, own, breath,

I, broke, the, cord!

José García Villa

9:05 – Tue 11 May 2021

Poverty and Wealth Clash in the Hamptons from OtherWords

To lift their own economy, the tribe intends to build a modest, tribal-run casino on their reservation.

As a Long Islander, I have taken occasional day trips to the Hamptons area, especially off-season. It’s nice, but difficult to get around during the summer, due to the rich people bringing their traffic. I would be worried that a casino would overtax the infrastructure year-round, personally, but that infrastructure should’ve been upgraded decades before I was born. And driving out the summer-only population might be a good start.

12:01 – Tue 11 May 2021

With perpetually muddy hands, I had forsaken the 2500-year-old Confucian ideal of the scholar who studied to avoid getting his hands dirty.

Jade Snow Wong

9:02 – Wed 12 May 2021

Air pollution exposure as a kid may up risk of mental illness later from Futurity

…of equal strength to other neurotoxicants known to harm mental health, particularly childhood exposure to lead.

Especially when we consider which areas are more prone to air pollution, it’s clear that we compound the problems of the disadvantaged, in order to protect the wealthy. That’s not a story that ends well.

12:05 – Wed 12 May 2021

He brought me a present of a brace of ducks, and said that he was sent by his Prince to ask me to visit him in his capital of Saga.

Joseph Heco

9:03 – Thu 13 May 2021

$152 Trillion. That’s How Much Wealthy Countries ‘Drained’ From the Global South Since 1960 from Common Dreams

…rich economies of Europe appropriate $2.2 trillion worth of resources and labor…per year from developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

When we hear people talk about countries that are “developed” or “undeveloped,” it’s worth remembering that the terms are almost always imprecise euphemisms for “exploiter” and “exploited.”

12:02 – Thu 13 May 2021

So long as you remain slaves to that old-fashioned idea [of wealthy people not doing manual labor], you are not true reformers yet.

Soh Jaipil

9:04 – Fri 14 May 2021

The PRO Act and worker misclassification from Pluralistic

Corporations understand that the market allows companies to claim an ever-larger share of the proceeds of workers’ labor…

I recently had a conversation with someone, and a part of me wants to write a full post, about how I was told, growing up, that automation was going to eliminate almost all jobs and eliminate the need for work, by driving down prices. However, because nobody put in the effort to change how we regulate the economy—in fact, we deregulated the economy on every front—prices are still artificially high to maintain profits, and so people are forced into menial jobs with companies that don’t value their labor.

How do we know that the companies don’t value labor? They’ve been pushing to stop unemployment benefits to the employees that they fired (which is why they’re on unemployment) during the pandemic—after getting paycheck-protection loans—because the measly unemployment payments are more than what they’re willing to pay. They find it more reasonable to force people to work for them on their terms than compete for employees.

12:03 – Fri 14 May 2021

My interest is to create among the readers a lust for the knowledge of science, which destroys superstition and all kind of false assumption and raises the power of the human brain.

Gobind Behari Lal

Bonus

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

Inside Myanmar: Testimonies of survival and resistance from Global Voices

The resistance movement emerged since the first day of the coup and it continues to gather support across the country…

Activity in Myanmar hasn’t gotten nearly the news coverage that it should.

Bishops’ move to press Biden not to take Communion reflects power struggle in split Catholic Church from The Conversation

The bishops argue that being pro-choice, Democrats like Joe Biden have made themselves unsuitable to take Communion.

Generally speaking, I ignore when the Catholic Church makes stupid reactionary moves, because they’re usually losing followers regardless of what they do, and it’s obvious that they risk more when they’re progressive than when they’re reactionary. That is, people who are part of gender and sexual minorities are probably going to leave the church eventually, on average, so alienating them isn’t something that church leaders are likely to worry about.

However, even among Catholics, outright rejection of abortion as health care is low. So in taking a stand like this, they’re alienating the majority of their own membership, which is going to backfire. They’re also probably undermining their tax-exempt status in the United States, by framing this as an issue of partisan politics.

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