#2020yearinreview
My coverage and commentary of San Francisco homelessness in the past year.

To make it more interesting, I'm interspersing quotes throughout this thread ⬇️

We are all products of our own environments. Our environments shape our character, our personality, our habits, our identity.

The environment that Ousmane Dembélé grew up in and the environment that FC Barcelona seeks to engulf its youngsters with could not be more different.

The Great Gatsby starts with a life lesson.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

Ousmane hasn’t had the advantages that La Masia youngsters have had. That’s why he’s Ousmane.

Like every La Masia youngster, Ousmane grew up with a dream: playing for Barça.

Like every youngster, he fought to stand out amid a talented group of players, the majority of which would fail to go pro.

However, his football education was the polar opposite to that of La Masia.

Ousmane did not reside in one of the most expensive academies in Europe: he lived in a low-cost public housing unit in Normandy. He did not play in the well-trimmed pitches of La Masia, he played in the concrete jungles of Évreux. These disadvantages made him the man he is today.

While street soccer encourages individuality & creative freedom, academy-based training like La Masia encourages unselfishness & teamwork.

That’s why Barça produce certain types of 20-year-olds like a factory line. It’s also why Barça spent €145m on a 20-year-old Ousmane.

Every modern effort to crush free speech begins as a crusade against "disinformation." China's massive Internet censorship apparatus was initially justified as an effort to control the spread of false information, and the Chinese state still describes it that way.

Censors begin by claiming that they only want to control the spread of deliberate falsehoods and push back against propaganda campaigns. They always begin by saying their primary concern is disinformation spread by hostile foreign powers. China constantly says that to this day.

The definition of "disinformation" begins to expand as the censors seek more power. Soon they aren't just going after DELIBERATE falsehoods pushed by malevolent conspiracies - they're suppressing everything from honest mistakes to predictions and "wrong" opinions.

It soon becomes clear that the censorship rules - like all other rules in totalitarian societies - are not applied evenly. The ruling party and its friends are judged much less harshly than dissidents. They get far more latitude to make unfounded statements or outright lies.

The censors move on, suppressing not just "disinformation" or demonstrably false statements, but even completely true statements that lack some vital "context." The censors declare that even pure truth is deceptive when it's not packaged and delivered "correctly."

Thread

"Main jab mar jaun to meri alag se pehchan likh dena,mere lahu se meri peshani pr Hindustan likh dena(After I die,write my identity differently,with blood,write India on my forehead)”- msg on wall in Brijpuri. It's faded.

A year on,we revisit where #DelhiRiots broke out.

Feb 2020 Vs Feb 2021
While the hustle and bustle of the area has returned in severely hit Shiv Vihar, some cracks in the walls, a black smoke patch on the door, a few burnt utensils and a pile of photographs remind the victims of the days and nights they lived in “terror”.

Khushnaz’s daughter Alfiza was six days old on February 25 when the riots broke out near her house. She recalled pressing her palm against the infant’s mouth to prevent her voice from being heard as she cried.

Shawra Begum’s single-storey residence near Medina Masjid has still not been repaired. Looking at the broken and burnt taps of her washroom, Shawra said, “That time reminds me of death.”

Sitting inside his house near Auliya Masjid, Nizamuddin had tears in his eyes thinking about the time. Over 5,000 men were walking and running amok on the streets destroying everything and everyone, he said.

My wonderful @jainfamilyinst colleagues @laura_bmw & @Edi_Nilaj have released their new report "Student Debt and Young America," which pretty comprehensively demolishes many of the myths about who does and doesn't have student debt.
https://t.co/y02KFosRQ3
Highlights to follow
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@laura_bmw @Edi_Nilaj First of all, look at this one chart that tells you why the student debt crisis is happening: rising debt; stagnant income, and the gap has opened widest for minority borrowers.
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You look at that chart and you see the total failure of the human capital model to explain labor market outcomes, insofar as it even is a falsifiable social science hypothesis.
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Second, while it's true that total loan balances are increasing in income, student debt has increased most over time among the lowest-income groups. This tells you that student debt is becoming a marker of the disadvantaged rather than the advantaged.
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Third, balances on outstanding loans are rising over time, not declining. As I said in my last report, the student debt crisis is a crisis of non-repayment. This is why it's foolish to think the student debt is ever going to be paid back, whether it's cancelled now or not.
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