I notice my monthly Twitter round-ups have been getting longer again. Sorry about that. I don't think it's because there was that much more going on.
Most recently there was the assault on a high school girl by a cop at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina:
The thing I'm getting about the Spring Valley High assault is that violence to students of color isn't a flaw in the system but a design feature.Just before that, the late-October Republican CNBC debate:
By cfee | chris thinnes
If you're such a pathetically incompetent teacher that you enable police violence because a student took her phone out, get a different job.
By Bailey
Only mandates for restorative justice & cultural competency might help protect students of color from violence like the assault at Spring Valley High.
By cfee | chris thinnes
"Give me a break. That wouldn't happen to my kid because I've taught my kid to respect the Gestapo." America: full of people who would in fact use their time machines to go back & ask what that Jewish teenager did to provoke that SS officer.
By Saladin Ahmed
Mainstream reporters refuse to grapple with the fact that they must choose between facts/math & taking the GOP seriously. Can’t have both.And for symmetry, the Democratic debate earlier in the month:
By David Roberts
If Ben Carson is basing his tax plan on the Bible, does this mean we get a Year of Jubilee every 50 years w/ all debts forgiven? #prollyno
By Maggie Koerth-Baker
GOP lives in alternate reality. Asking questions from outside it, questions that do not share its premises, is coded as bias. Kind of a sad situation when neither the media nor the GOP seems able to distinguish substantive policy questions from gimmicky gotcha questions. Remember that the first debate question to Clinton was basically, "you’re a liar & a flip-flopper, how can we trust you?" She didn’t whine. The first debate question to Sanders was, "why do you hate capitalism?" He didn’t whine.
By David Roberts
The reason media-bashing works in the GOP primary is also the reason the GOP struggles in national elections — closed information ecosystem.
By Dan Pfeiffer
Today's Republicans make Nixon and Eisenhower look like they were raised by Noam Chomsky and Bell Hooks.
By jamiekilstein
Why is marijuana the only area of public policy in which personal experience is supposed to determine one’s views?There was some kerfuffle in San Francisco about AirBnB putting up jerky ads that implied librarians are responsible for budget cuts to libraries or something like that:
By David Roberts
Fox News hysterical over "freebies" [proposed by Democratic candidates], many of which Europeans consider to be standard elements of developed society.
By ChristianChristensen
I don’t know how you watch the GOP primary debate and the Democratic primary debate & believe that both parties are from the same planet.
By David Roberts
Sanders: We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Why do we have 47 million people living in poverty?
By Howard French
This AirBnB cockup is making me think that giving people with zero life experience unlimited funds to remake the world is a bad idea.Then there was the vile Columbus Day holiday:
By Jim Ray
At least the robber barons of the last industrial revolution built libraries, rather than making vague threats(?) about them.
By Buzz Andersen
Hey it's annual "read the first chapter of The People's History of the U.S. and be horrified we ever honored Columbus" day.There were a couple about the realities of behavioral economics in health care:
By Matt Haughey
It's cheap and easy to be self-righteous about Columbus Day. A bit harder to face down the colonial mass murder we're still complicit in.
By Saladin Ahmed
Forcing Americans to pay a higher share of health costs won't make them shop around.And there were many reactions to the latest mass shooting (I think it was the one in Oregon, but who knows, there are so many):
By Economic Policy Institute
You can always lower spending by just denying people necessary care, which seems to be what giving people "skin in the game" does.
By Jeff Spross
The stated rationale for why we can't take reasonable means to reduce gun violence? So those guns can be used to kill government officials. Our argument is simple: We need serious action to curb the number of people killed by guns. Your armed insurrection fantasy isn't worth it.
By Anil Dash
Your pro-gun arguments expose how gullible you are. You've been played by rich companies. And all you got in return were dead Americans.
By Chris Sacca
Things previously considered impossible:
• women’s suffrage
• going to the moon
• smoke-free bars.
Let’s add gun-free America to the list.
By Mike Monteiro
If the US had the gun death rate of the UK, only 727 people would die from guns per year.I noticed that this month, there were lots of thoughts from Jennifer Keesmat, chief planner for the city of Toronto, and others about building livable, walkable cities:
By Dylan Matthews
GOP wants to increase your access to guns, but restrict your access to harmful stuff like health care and voting rights.
By Frank Conniff
Be suspicious of liberal gun talk. They are in the pocket of Big Alive and want you to not die so they can make money off you not dying.
By Dan Telfer
Guns killed more Americans in 12 years than AIDS, war, and illegal drug overdoses combined.
By Vox
Guns don’t kill people. Bullets kill people. Fired from guns, brandished by people, who shoot you by accident or on purpose.
By Neil deGrasse Tyson
A list of things the Founding Fathers thought you should have the right to own:
1. guns
2. literal human beings
By Heather Hogan
My fellow Americans, when we put our minds to it we can achieve ANYTHING (except helping on climate change or reducing mass shootings)!
By David Roberts
WOMEN'S HEALTH: MURDER!!! ACTUAL MURDER: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
By marissa a. ross
We won't get rid of guns, but let's at least drag Wayne LaPierre in front of Congress & have them treat him like he runs Planned Parenthood.
By Tom Ceraulo
31 cases of voter impersonation since 2000. 10,000 gun deaths in America THIS YEAR. Guess which problem the GOP is trying to fix.
By Pete Nicely
Maybe gun purchasers should undergo a transvaginal ultrasound and be informed by a doctor of the possible consequences of their actions.
By Ana Marie Cox
Guns and masculinity: the home-grown terrorism we refuse to go to war against.
By §
We are living in a fantasy world where gun control is perceived as a greater threat to freedom than constant gun violence.
By Rainbow Rowell
If you think shooting a bunch of people is going to bring you infamy, bad news. There are too many of you now to remember all your names.
By Andrew Wheeler
It's not enough to talk about the value of walking and cycling to livable cities: streets need to be redesigned, priorities need to shift.While meanwhile in St. Paul, we can’t even manage to add parking meters to a busy commercial area without having a rowdy crowd show up to boo at anyone who tries to explain the high cost of free parking:
By jennifer keesmaat
Pioneer Press reporter: there’s "no story if the victim isn’t critically hurt, we can't write about them all.” Car violence so pervasive, strains all resources.
By Mike
A 30-mph speed limit on residential streets never seems more insane than when you're walking your kid to the school bus in the dark.
By Ken Paulman
Cities stopped building expressways because downtowns became gridlocked with cars and parking. With transit, cities become clogged with people.
By jennifer keesmaat
Imagine describing car ownership to someone who had only lived in a dense, walkable, transit-rich city:
By Patrick Traughber
We make choices about where to live, and those choices shape *how* we live.
By jennifer keesmaat
"Culs de sac are basically publicly maintained driveways." – Chuck Mahrohn
By Strong Towns
No one can protest or legislate away the dream of the leafy suburb. The only solution is a better dream. #carfreecities
By Free Public Transit
Vehicle trips into our downtown have been flatlined for over 40 years, even as jobs grow exponentially. Public transit is the golden goose.
By jennifer keesmaat
Almost 85% of expenditures on fuel and cars leaves the local economy.
By jennifer keesmaat
Paying a buck to park is literally *the least* we can ask of people to address climate change. Everything else is more intrusive. That folks in one of the US's most liberal cities* laugh it out of the room is really disheartening.Once again there were lots of education-related tweets:
By William Lindeke
Complaining about the cost of parking meters is like complaining about the taxes on cigarettes.
By William Lindeke
If you'd only seen birds in cages, would you believe they're born to fly? That's how it is with kids: they're confined, then judged incapable.And then the best of the rest:
By Bruce L. Smith
Barely trained, low-paid, scripted teachers can raise scores. Conclusion: better teachers are unnecessary? Or tests = lousy measures?
By Alfie Kohn
Hell is sitting with a 5-year-old who doesn’t know the alphabet, watching him guess desperately at vocabulary flashcards because the school district has decided kindergarteners should be able to write short essays WITH PUNCTUATION.
By Rainbow Rowell
Child care is both too costly for parents & too poorly paid for providers: should be a wake-up call — we need more public investment.
By Amy Traub
To pay for a year of infant daycare in DC, a minimum wage worker would have to spend 102% of their annual earnings. [Citing the Washington Post.]
By Danielle Paquette
If children learn and live with freedom, they will demand freedom in adult life. That is why progressive ed is so dangerous to the ruling class.
By Nikhil Goyal
How can most people I know acknowledge the uselessness of much of what was learned in school but still defend doing what we do in school? [At a recent professional development session] I once again looked at the "old woman or young woman" picture to reach the conclusion that people see things differently. Sigh. It’s funny that when an instructor is trying to teach you the "perspective" idea that he ultimately wants you to see his perspective.
By Sisyphus38
Many schools say they're preparing students to become democratic citizens while confining them in the least democratic institutions we have.
By Bruce L. Smith
If your identity is defined by the job you do, it's incredibly difficult to convince you that your job could be done completely differently.
By Sisyphus38
"What billionth of 1% of all there is to know should we cover in school?" – Seymour Papert. But hey, some people know what all kids must know.
By Sisyphus38
Intelligence is not memorizing facts and figures. It's not static. It's the ability to learn new things, discard, connect and acquire.
By OneL
Why do we love inspirational quotes about passion and creativity, but then lock our kids up in standardized schools?
By Shauna Reisewitz
Kind of in love with this picture of designer Gary Anderson presenting, as a student, his design for the recycling logo:
By Neven Mrgan
Oh, I get it now. 'Artisan' is the word you use when a middle-class person makes something a working-class person used to make...
By Adam Liaw
The stress of being economically insecure, even just transiently with a rocky job or lease falling thru, is crushing. Imagine that everyday.
By Matt Bruenig
The most important message of a crucifix, was how cruel supposedly sane human beings can be when under orders from a superior authority.
By Kurt Vonnegut
I was just called a "race traitor" on Facebook, for suggesting that black racism wasn't a real thing. One to cross off the bucket list!
By Alan Mills
Well, it's come to this: when someone uses the correct form of the possessive "its," I feel a little jolt of joy.
By Wil Wheaton
The idea that "sometimes people at the beginning of their careers need to work for free!" ignores a couple of important things. Most importantly, the fact that only people who already have wealth/resources can afford to work for free. Shrugging and saying that free labor is a fact of creative industries virtually guarantees those industries remain dominated by rich people. People with student loans to pay off, who don't have wealthy parents to cushion the blow, etc, cannot afford to work "for exposure."
By G. Willow Wilson
A gorgeous Namibian desert gecko licks up water from its eyes! (Photo: Isak Pretorius):
By Strange Animals
Since 1993, consolidation has reduced the number of large defense firms from 107 to five. Secret dark contractor cash must stop. #NoSecretMoney
By Zephyr Teachout
The White "Yes, but" response to Black Voices IS THE PROBLEM
By Paul Thomas
College loans "turn future labor into spending today, at an interest rate pegged above government borrowing costs."
By Clay Shirky
I don't want you to allow me a place at the table. I want to take away your ability to decide who sits at the table. equality > diversity all day, every day
By Saladin Ahmed
Well, that escalated quickly:
By AlanBaxter
My friend used to interview police applicants. She asked one why he wants to be a cop. He said, "To get the respect I deserve.” So... there it is.
By jamiekilstein
Indonesia's forest fires have produced more carbon this year than Germany or Japan's entire economy.
By Bill McKibben
Common sin of Washington journalism isn't making stuff up. It's turning off your bullshit detector when a powerful source lies to you.
By Timothy Noah
Compliance with the law begins with trust in it, not fear of it.
By JusticeCollaboratory
I think the real Dr. Ben Carson is tied to a chair, trying to dial a phone with his nose to report an escaped patient who stole his I.D.
By Alex Baze
When the inventor of the USB stick dies, they'll lower his coffin into the ground, raise it up, flip it over and lower it again.
By Rik Ferguson
Frequently the abstract version of "rationality" seems a lot like sociopathy.
By nothingsmonstered
In the 12th century, Bologna had an estimated 180 towers, most around 60 meters tall:
By Danielle Alberti
When you think about it, it’s kind of psychotic how rarely shoes are shaped like feet. We’re in deep denial about what feet look like.
By Rainbow Rowell
Anti-Muslim sentiment isn't increasing "naturally.” It is being encouraged by people who profit from it.
By Carl Nyberg
Busing [children to school] became a problem BECAUSE it worked.
By tressie mc
The line that poor people shouldn't have families is amazing. What should they do in life? Just endless meaningless alienated labor?
By Elizabeth Stoker
You know why no one ever blamed Bush for 9/11? By the time we were out of shock, we were blaming him for Iraq.
By Pete Nicely
Desegregation was never the end goal of the 60s civil rights movement, despite the revisionist history we're taught today. The issues of racism & segregation were always understood as inextricably linked to issues of economic injustice.
By Bree Newsome
I don't understand why people get emotional stimulation from believing in things. I get much more stimulation from being annoyed by other people's beliefs.
By Ryan Dow
It's weird that nerds love BACK TO THE FUTURE so much when its message is that nerds are worthless until they act macho.
By Saladin Ahmed
Research shows nearly 9,500 people die each year in London due to pollution. Is air quality a greater threat than terrorism?
By Tom London
The killings of police officers are not systemic. The killings of unarmed black people are systemic and part of a long American tradition.
By Nikhil Goyal
You might hate the Vikes stadium now, but wait until you have to use it to escape to another planet!
By William Lindeke
I'm really glad my fellow hetero men are on twitter dot com because otherwise thousands of rhetorical questions would go unanswered each day.
By Saladin Ahmed
The truth is rich, white, male privilege LACKS grit, doesn't have a growth mindset.
By Paul Thomas
I've taught history for 19 years. You'd be amazed at how much cinema drives the perception of the past.
By jelani cobb
There is a whole genre of think piece that laments the possibility that parents failed to raise millennials to be obedient workers.
By Matt Bruenig
Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond: "We are learning that eviction is a cause, not just a condition, of poverty."
By Nikhil Goyal
Good fucking Lord:
By Gabe
God, give me the strength of a woman with good ideas and the confidence of a man with bad ones.
By julieklausner
Instead of a block option on Twitter, let's have a "notify his mom" button.
By Jessica Valenti
22% of Michigan's budget is spent on prisons -- the highest percentage among all 50 states.
By Niraj Warikoo
I haven't seen an inner city issue that wouldn't be solved by job creation, better schools and fair housing. Also, "black on black crime" is never mentioned as argument for peace but rather to justify state violence against blacks.
By Bree Newsome
So many great writers of the Western canon would turn over in their graves if they saw the bigoted idiots advocating for them in the 21st century.
By Saladin Ahmed
What's so sick about the pretend game of empirically driven policy arguments is even when you actually do a policy and it works, it's denied. Like you'd think you could at least get people to admit Social Security really did a good job bringing down elderly poverty. Nah.
By Matt Bruenig
America desperately needs an absolute moratorium on scripted dramas about terrorism. TV & film. 10 years at least. Zero tolerance. Please.
By Saladin Ahmed
Reminder: white supremacy will always be mediated by institutions so that the beneficiaries believe they earned their success.
By Sean McElwee
I don’t think Democrats realize what a potent political issue solar power is for them. Polls consistently show 90+% public support!
By David Roberts
This is what men thought women would be doing in the future:
By Becky Lang
It’s charming, the way economists mix
a) total, arrogant certitude, and
b) a wretched, unbroken record of failure.
By David Roberts
The US invasion of Iraq isn't a talking point or a gotcha moment. It's a massive crime with *millions* of real human victims.
By Saladin Ahmed
I like very precise recipes that suddenly call for "1 egg.” "Add 225 g. of flour to 157 g. of butter to whatever a hen feels like today."
By Tim Carvell
Late in his life WEB DuBois overheard someone ridicule his old nemesis Booker T. Washington as someone who lacked militancy. DuBois, who had feuded with Washington for years, said simply "That man knew what it was to be a slave. You're in no position to judge him." I think that should apply to our conceptions of the past broadly. Fictive or not.
By jelani cobb
Watching Hillary suddenly give a shit about the white supremacist prison state would be funny if the media weren't taking it seriously.
By Saladin Ahmed
I love my co-workers. "YA fantasy”:
By kiranb
If you want to protect your rights, you've got to protect the rights of others. Social justice is common sense.
By Edward Snowden
Orienting American foreign policy around the views of a single extremist billionaire seems like a good plan.
By Christopher Hayes
A pornography glut forcing Playboy to abandon nudity in 2016 would've been a funny fictional idea in 1999. Wish I'd thought of it then.
By Kurt Andersen
Name one term of endearment worse than "hubby." WRONG.
By Mouthful of Platinum
Have been immersing myself in colonial history and it's amazing how routine and important mob violence was in the country's founding.
By Christopher Hayes
"You're too entitled!" yell baby boomers, who destroyed the world economy for personal gain and now blame their kids.
By Aaminah Khan
This is the picture that needs to be beside the definition of white privilege:
By Kriss
The reality is that most advice on the internet is post hoc rationalization of success and is in no way useful to anyone trying to succeed.
By Sean Rose
There IS a war on men. Problem is, it's toxic masculinity and the call is coming from inside the fucking house.
By H.P. Davis
Politics is complicated & there are few hard & fast rules, but "just don’t ever talk about Hitler" is a pretty reliable guide.
By David Roberts
It required a heroin addiction crisis among white people in the Northeast for people to call for treatment, not criminalization, of addicts.
By Nikhil Goyal
Heroin abuse among whites? Tragedy requiring medical & social intervention. Crack epidemic among blacks? Lock em up.By Lydia Polgreen
Why do we say 'new species' when we mean 'species white people didn't know about'?
By Saladin Ahmed
Nothing brings out mainstream reporters' passive voice like our government blowing the shit out of a hospital.
By Joshua Holland
Have seen so many fundraisers for funeral costs from impoverished St Louis families who lost loved ones to violence. Is this where we are? I can't imagine the pain of losing a loved one and then having to rely on GoFundMe to put him to rest. The new economy of grief.
By Sarah Kendzior
He who dies with the most PDFs wins.
By David Roberts
I like playing Real World Monopoly where one player starts with way more money and then lectures everyone else for not doing better.
By Scott Simpson
When national news people talk about "the narrative" or "what people are talking about," they mean elites.
By David Kaib
Just like in The Martian movie, we are going to have to "science the hell" out of a planet (our planet) to survive. The movie is a metaphor (an allegory?) for climate change.
By Bill Nye
11% of Americans — 23 million citizens of voting age — lack specified photo ID, could be turned away on Election Day.
By Demos_Org
Climate change is like driving drunk: It doesn't guarantee accident every time, but makes an accident more likely each time.
By sethdmichaels
Give me 10% of your income so I can make church buildings that are only used four hours a week.
By almightygod
My bank has written to me about my 'outstanding balance.’ A bit random, but thanks, guys!
By Julius Nicholson
The social media comment paradox: the people with the most to say comment the least, and vice versa.
By Clark Aldrich
boy: i wished girls liked sports
girl: i like sports
boy: oh yeah name the blood type of the seahawks coach from the 1990s
By jor
If profiling were actually about anything other than racism, white men would be policed at theaters and schools the way I am at the airport.
By Saladin Ahmed
By far the worst underpinning of modern conservatism is its brutal, nihilistic pessimism. They think we can't fix anything, ever.
By Anil Dash
waiter, i'm in the mood to eat my nightmares. can you recommend anything?
By Sean Lennon Harris
The great embarrassments of the US: whites denying racism, men denying women's rights, self-proclaimed Christians clutching their guns.
By Paul Thomas
That no one ever talks about Mary Poppins as a great fantasy film tells us a lot about genre's gender biases and contempt for children.
By Saladin Ahmed
Nobody likes candy corn. Why do they still make it?
By Robert O. Simonson
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