Short (Month) and Tweet

Oh, groan, I know. But it's February and winter is never going to end, so that's what I've got. There's only a smattering of Olympics tweets here, but more on racial and economic justice.

Why do we sometimes call New Jersey "Jersey" but never call New York "York"?
By Josh Greenman

Government charging for #publictransit is like a department store charging people to use the escalator. It's rationing, not revenue.
By Free Public Transit

Obama to black boys: You're subject to poverty, discrimination, and mass incarceration because you didn't do your homework.
By Nikhil Goyal

"Who is the covetous man? One for whom plenty is not enough. Who is the defrauder? One who takes away what belongs to everyone."
By Matt Bruenig

This is the 2012 Electoral College map if only white men and white women could vote:


By Matthew Drake

It's a bit odd that when you ask certain conservatives to Love Thy Neighbor they feel their religious freedom is at risk.
By Frank Conniff

Many are favorited. Few are retweeted. -Jesus
By Chris Steller

Spoiler: libertarian arguments against democracy assume their preferred economic institutions are the default ones that happen ex nihilo.
By Matt Bruenig

If Shakespeare had lived today, the line would have been "kill all the SEO firms."
By Les Lim

Conjecture: In print, "Millenials" generally means young whites from the top third of families.
By Matt Bruenig

And for the third time in middle school, my kid learned what an idiom is...cuz that's really important.
By mpljr (Sisyphus38)

Capitalism squandered fossil fuels, and took credit for efficiency.
By Free Public Transit

The average Canadian is now richer (for the first time in history) than the average American.
By Men's Facts

In Democratic Republic of Congo, 6 births/woman, population 2012 = 65 million. 2041 = 130 millions. Today 25% of women want but do not have access to contraceptives.
By Hans Rosling

School is easy. Just suppress everything you want to do and focus on doing everything they tell you to do. Guaranteed "A" student.
By mpljr (Sisyphus38)

#DearHumanity Your achievements are nothing compared to what a wise civilization could have accomplished with half the resources. #PeakOil
By The Universe

Bear with a pacifier holding lightsabers:


By Halloween Costumes

How about “reduce inequality so more people can enjoy the benefits of survivable failure.”
By mattyglesias

Weight Watchers ad: "When you were a girl, 'anything is possible' meant 'you can be an astronaut'! NOW it means you can lose weight!"
By Margaret H. Willison

Weight Watchers, THIS MESSAGE IS NOT ENCOURAGING ME TO LOSE WEIGHT. IT IS ENCOURAGING ME TO DESTOOOOOYYYYY YOUUUUUUU.
By Margaret H. Willison

It's weird how views held for no reason -- i.e. "faith" -- get extra deference instead of reduced deference.
By Josh Barro

Worldwide, more than 270,000 pedestrians are killed by drivers every year -- more than malnutrition or violence in war.
By AlexSteffen

RT @anghelides: This documentation would benefit from end-user testing:


By Rob England

Think of the first computer you ever used, and how basic and primitive it would seem now. That's how a toddler will remember an iPad.
By Benedict Evans

It's unrealistic to blame people for not studying what's in demand when there's only a handful of jobs actually in demand.
By Sarcastica McSmarty

Humans must decarbonize at 5.1% for next 39 consecutive years to make 2°C target.
By Free Public Transit

I like people who read books.
By Nikhil Goyal

The most important prerequisite to winning international support for your revolution is hiring good photographers.
By Murtaza Hussain

Buses work 18 hours a day -- about the same amount of time cars sit idle.
By Free Public Transit

Wow. RT @iseff This is an incredible map. 50% of GDP comes from the orange areas, 50% from the blue:


By Ezra Klein

I don't see anybody talking about how Michael Dunn and George Zimmerman should've just made better choices. Been more personally responsible.
By Brittney Cooper

We don't have failed schools, we have a failed political system that has not tried to solve the problems of poverty & mental health.
By Kevin Kelly Ph.D.

Some people think climate change could be leading to extinction-level event, but man are we gonna have cool apps in the meantime.
By Tom Tomorrow

6-year-old: "Why is the Little House always smiling, no matter what happens to her?"


By Rainbow Rowell

"Living is learning and when kids are living fully and happily they are learning a lot, even if we don't know what it is. " --John Holt
By mpljr (Sisyphus38)

Cars use 90% of road space to move 10% of passenger load: Campaign to promote walking, cycling.
By Free Public Transit

Now this is a Winter Olympics event I could get behind: Men's Outdoor Kerning:


By Dudley Storey

Focus on lowering the achievement gap? Or focus on changing what we consider achievement?
By mpljr (Sisyphus38)

The burden of blackness is to prove one’s innocence, to justify one’s humanity. #JordanDavis #Dunntrial #Dunnverdict
By Khalil G. Muhammad

The privilege of whiteness is to take both for granted. #Dunnverdict #Dunntrial #JordanDavis
By Khalil G. Muhammad

Florida should open a Justice Theme Park so the state's black residents can live the fantasy they never experience in real life.
By Frank Conniff

"The 1.5 billion people living in fragile or failed states understand very well that what they need is a better state, not the absence of one."
By Jay Ulfelder

It is kind of humanizing that 1 percenters want not just to be rich but also to be loved and respected.
By Matt Bruenig

Hell is full of people who slow down when they merge.
By Daniel Miessler 

When I was 11, a friend designed and built an AMAZING tree house. Sans adults. He was a brilliant C- student. Lots of them running around.
By mpljr (Sisyphus38)

If you think a major problem in American education is the lack of student work ethic, you're deluded and dead wrong.
By Nikhil Goyal

Liberals: If you share "Natural News" articles, you don't get to laugh at Republicans who are creationists and global warming deniers.
By Ryan Grant Long

If we hate the tests we have to stop bragging about our test scores and stop talking about student growth/achievement based on test scores.
By mpljr (Sisyphus38)

Is there a worse government misnomer than the U.S. Department of the Interior? Hello...? Exterior?
By Chris Steller

General patriarchy check: Way too many men at my events telling me to stop excluding them by talking theory and feminism. Please don't.
By Suey Park

Idea: For students whose lunch-accounts are not current, offer Asian carp. #winwin
By Chris Steller 

School has a type of Munchausen by Proxy -- we give them the "illness" then we try to cure them. (Apathy, lack of curiosity, etc.)
By mpljr (Sisyphus38)

Hundreds of schools send 100% to college ... after booting 40%.
By Gary Rubinstein

Dear Capitalism, an entry level position doesn't require 3+ years of experiences. Stop saying entry level when you just mean low paying.
By Amy

Odd that we pathologize impostor syndrome. Seems like those afflicted are the correct ones and the non-afflicted merely self-delusional.
By Matt Bruenig

Today in Portland:


By Ben Matasar

Meritocracy: Work hard and you will be rewarded. Poverty, inequality, unemployment, institutionalized racism, mass incarceration be damned!
By Nikhil Goyal

UPS says it saved 10 million gallons of gas from 2004-2012 by eliminating left turns from delivery routes.
By Carlton Purvis

If organizations are worried about developing young people who then leave -- what if you DON'T develop them and they stay?
By Chris Oien

When can AOL get past this distraction and return to its core business of selling email to people who don't realize it's available for free?
By Josh Barro

Hey @nytimes: When you refer to us as "The Heartland," we know what you mean: Quaint. Ignorant. Inconsequential.
By Phil Brinkman

"No American should accept the idea that the POTUS has the power to order American citizens killed." —Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now
By Nikhil Goyal

It makes me so sad that entire charity organizations exist to buy supplies for underfunded schools, yet the pointless TSA is totally funded.
By Brian Vargas

Intelligent design in a nutshell: “Your theory isn’t complete, so here’s an alternative theory that’s orders of magnitude less complete.”
By Jack Scanlan

Almost all heroin users in US are white, but whites are never villainized in media as the cause of their addictions. Instead, focus on Mexico.
By Think Mexican

I love how diverse Fox News is:


By Calvin

If you have to smile while you're performing, it's not a real sport.
By Laura Helmuth

Capitalism never worked. It was just a drunken bully chugging cheap oil.
By Free Public Transit

“If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be impossible to embrace the myth of war." —Chris Hedges
By Nikhil Goyal

Leaning in. But then I lost my balance & am stuck in this ravine.
By Janine Brito

The entire bi-partisan practice of giving ambassadorships to donors is corrupt and embarrassing. Get rid of it.
By Christopher Hayes

Happy boxes need to get a room:


By Halloween Costumes

Same sex marriage isn't gay privilege, it's equal rights. Privilege would be something like gay people not paying taxes. Like churches don't.
By Ricky Gervais

"Today I wouldn't get an academic job. I don't think I would be regarded as productive enough." -- Almost anyone hired more than 20 years ago
By Shit Academics Say

Kids are so cool. They play & love & play & love & play & love. You can do this, too.
By worldsdaughter

"Women's tragic inability to grasp circular logic has long hindered their success in many creative fields."
By Monika Bauerlein

Are any of us THAT surprised Jerry Seinfeld has never read "A Room of One's Own"?
By Guy Branum

Someone needs to tell the whiny rich about the French Revolution. Seems more on point than the holocaust.
By Matt Bruenig

Mayor Hodges at [Minneapolis] Downtown Council: "People don't object to the density of people, they object to the density of cars."
By Sam Black

Magical realism is a lovely device for fiction, but makes for a pisspoor understanding of the world we actually live in.
By Tom Tomorrow

Never use "effect" as a verb. It is a verb, sure. But just, don't.
By Chris Steller

Twitter creates relationships with people you'll never meet. Facebook destroys relationships with people you've known for years.
By Chris Rock

The rule of design concepts: If you show one, they’ll hate it. If you show more than one, they’ll want to combine them.
By Dan Saffer

The difference between cult and religion: In a cult there's a person at the top who knows it's a scam. In a religion that person is dead.
By Atheist World

This entire time I thought you guys were making a joke about the 400 Bar in the Mall of America. Real life is why the Simpsons isn't funny anymore.
By Molly Priesmeyer

How sad for bathing suit designers that they have never ever seen or touched a breast. I mean, I'm assuming.
By Julieanne Smolinski

I bristle when romantic love is treated like a low or girlie thing. It's not lame and girlie to want love. IT'S LIFE.
By Rainbow Rowell

Putting in 100% of your effort into any task is scary because it "robs you of all your excuses" should it not succeed.
By Adam Holman

What if being productive is the least interesting goal we could ever imagine? What if being more interesting were our national ambition?
By Elissa Milne

School mobility (moving in or out of a district during the year) is highest for low-income, migrant & homeless kids. 38-40% in my Colorado county.
By Charlie Quimby

But when kids fail in school, it's on the teachers and the system.
By Charlie Quimby

Rigor and pre-k going together scares me.
By Peter DeWitt

Corporations are people. The kind who don't get arrested after poisoning your water, flooding a town with oil or blowing up a fertilizer plant.
By Everybody Needs It

Is there anything more tautological than tautology?
By Chris Steller

My brain is sports Teflon. There's no judgment attached either way. Just...nothing sports goes in. It's like showing a dog a card trick.
By maureenjohnson

California's in a drought. ~10% of our water is personal use; ~85% is agriculture. I'm supposed to shower less. 1 lb of beef = ~1800lbs of water...
By Bradley Voytek

There is a certain irony in the car with the "coexist" bumper sticker taking up two spots.
By Daniel Wolter

Am filled with a certain irony finding Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory on sale at Walmart.
By Josh Marshall

Low tide and a rake are all Andres Amador needs to create his works of art:


By Saatchi Gallery

Every essay starts with an elaborate magic trick intended to disguise the actual first sentence, which is "You know, I was just thinking..."
By John Dickerson