1 / A thread about ‘gender markers’. I’d never heard of the term until I visited a friend in hospital after they’d just been castrated and had their penis inverted (‘bottom surgery’ in gender woo woo speak). I went along to be supportive and gave my friend a pink “It’s a girl!”

2 / card. Because I knew that would make my friend feel good. Also brought a cupcake, stuck a candle in it and celebrated the new ‘birth day’. At one point I reached for my bag on the floor and as I got back up unsuspectingly caught a glimpse of the bloodied bandages in between

3 / my friend’s legs, that was only visible from that particular angle. “You’re having your first period!” I squealed nervously, and felt a weird pang in my groin, knowing my friend used to have a rather sizeable and beautiful penis b4 the surgery and now it was all so... flat!

4 / We laughed and my friend also joked about having been worried that the newly created ‘canal’ wouldn’t be deep enough (for penetration, I assume), but that the surgeon had said it was pretty deep (due to big penis) & my friend better be careful not to lose anything down there

5 / There were 2 other friends there - males identifying as women. The talk was all about surgery, and particularly FFS (facial feminisation surgery). I never knew that was a thing. FFS is about reducing or removing the appearance of ‘gender markers’. I felt so naive and asked

Thread — I’m very happy and relieved that my elderly parents got their first shot of the coronavirus vaccine this week. But the story of how they got it is nucking futs and illustrates just how messed up the vaccine distribution system is. 1/?

Just for background, they are both Pennsylvania residents living right now in South Florida and they are both between 65 and 75 years old. They own a small condo in a retirement community. They both have co-morbidities, like most people their age...

They watched in horror when Trump held huge rallies in Florida that spread the virus and they hung their heads in disbelief as Gov DeSantis bungled the response every step of the way. They did the best they could and were very lucky not have caught it...

When the vaccines started to be sent out, they wanted to wait to get their shots until after healthcare workers and people over 75 got them. They were confused by the lack of information about distribution and tried to get information, to no avail...

Inside their retirement community, the residents tried as much as they could to get a vaccine distribution outpost deployed there, but nothing ever happened. The phone line advertised for information led to nothing, when it wasn’t jammed. Emails disappeared into the abyss...

Do the events in Ondo and Oyo states remind us of anything?

For me, it does. First, the gradual but sure erosion of the sovereignty of our nation-state. Note: I exaggerate the meaning of sovereignty here: that ultimate power of the state that resides in the people.

A thread

Our sovereignty is a fiction as it doesn't lie in the people; it lies in the cabal - a fiendish cohort, gang of criminals who have captured the nation - state.

Secondly, it highlights the Yugoslavia-tion of Nigeria. Or what my friend @ChidiOdinkalu describes as the

gradual restructuring of Nigeria. How can restructure happen without it being noticed? We've to look in the direction of Yugoslavia to understand how 6 ethnic nations - with same language (Serbio-Crotia) - were forced into a union and how centrifugal & centripetal forces worked

to destroy it or knolled the death's knell as someone described it earlier on my timeline.

Inspite of, three issues are emerging from the Ondo and Oyo saga:

1. The reassertion of the civic public - or what I call the civil activia - the active civic.

Here, there is a growing insistence by the people on the sovereignty of the people: the people have become the counterweight to forceful power and are resisting attempt by power to determine state protection. Sunday Igboho represents this

Vaccines against the three major killers of the world's poorest: TB, HIV and malaria are unlikely to have vaccines anytime soon unless vastly more money is committed to researching them, according to the Bill Gates-funded Gates Open Research...

Combined, HIV, TB and malaria kill up to 6 million people a year worldwide, yet the foremost leading voice for production of vaccines in the world says getting vaccines for them is not a priority. Why is that?

When one considers that only about 500 people die of TB in the United States a year, it becomes clear that millions dying in Africa, is not important enough to warrant putting more effort into researching vaccines for them

This reveals - albeit expected - a level of hypocrisy from those who claim to want to save the lives of Africans from a pandemic which doesn't even do anything to Africans, at least relative to the Big 3 killers...

Furthermore, other solutions including a hepatitis C vaccine, a combination vaccine against the four leading causes of deadly diarrhoea and a rapid TB cure have been identified by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and by extension the WHO as non-priorities

A few weeks ago, I asked this question: since Muigai doesn't respect the 2010 constitution, why is he invested in #BBInonsense, and in getting Kenyans to accept? He can just run for another term, send cops to kill people, the US will support him and he will remain in office.

The great #KOT explained this to me: #BBINonsense isn't about destroying the constitution. It's about destroying the story. Unfortunately, the only story which we use to challenge Muigai is the constitution.

We don't know our history, we have no theology, our arts are commercialized, our cultures are corrupted, and our education is destroyed. The last pillar standing between us and full scale uthamaki fascism is the Constitution 2010.
#BBINonsense #UhuruinSagana

I honor the lawyers and those working hard to ensure #BBINonsense doesn't happen. But I hallenge us in the arts, in faith, in history to do our work to spport those in law with philosophical, theological, artistic and educational arguments against #BBINonsense.

If Magoha can say, despite the constitution, that kids should be caned, it means that education is completely spineless. #uhuruinsagana #BBInonsense

Men are only allies/support women survivors when it doesn't make them have to reflect on the friends they keep or become self reflective of how they treat women.
A thread :

Im a sexual assault survivor and yes I am triggered every time another man is trending on a social media platform because of abusing women.
You know why? Because I see how quiet men get when this shit goes down when its "too close to home" and I just fuckin lose it.

In the 90's. I rented a room in an apartment from friend of a friend. it was a female friend recommending this guy, I felt safe.
But I wasnt. After a house party when i went to my room to sleep, my roommate and 2 of his friends came into my room and sexual assaulted me.

It was the most scariest shit I've lived through, and I've live thru some shit. I called the cops, I filed charges.1 of my best friends since I was 16 was at that party. When I told him what happened he said he wasn't surprised b/c my roommate bragged about doing things to women.

When I asked him to testify in court for me, he said he couldn't get the time off work... whats even more troubling is that he could have warned me. Got me out of there that night because of what knew. But I guess it's bros code, ya know?

@Olivia_Rodrigo's "drivers license" is all in 4/4, but uses some VERY creative phrasing to create a sense of suspense! cc @SwitchedOnPop @Top40Theory @TheDanielNigro

each verse is 7 bars long, with 6 lines and one bar of rest. Your ears expect 8, but you get an odd number. (1/5)

Rodrigo sings the last line, "Crying 'cause you weren't around," then her voice drops out, leaving you in the emptiness of the music...

But then, a piano chord pitchshifts down as the next section starts up a bar early, as if she's interrupted by her own thoughts. (2/5)

similarly, each chorus is 10(!) bars long. The first four lines are two pairs of 3 bars, which is pretty uncommon...

But just as you get used to it, the last two lines have twice as many syllables - and cut off the chorus unresolved in only 2 bars! (3/5)

The bridge is more conventional, with two sets of 8 bars. It's the only part of the song that feels familiar and predictable. Olivia's going nowhere, stuck in her past memories. (4/5)

In the final chorus, she repeats the last line, resolving the song with 3 sets of 4 bars.

It's neater, but it's still not symmetrical. Where any other song would give you a chorus of 16, "drivers license" doesn't give you the satisfaction. Brilliant pop songwriting. (5/5)

The issue of Black families' trust is not only missing from school reopening plans, but also from many school reopening arguments.

But Black families make up more than 1/3 of our school district and many others, so it matters.

It absolutely matters.

Chicago Public Schools is the third-largest school district in the U.S. In the past 20 years, our classrooms have lost more than 5,000 Black educators, which has had a negative impact on many school communities.

Some of the direct causes of this loss are Rahm's 50 school closings, terminations in Black and Brown schools as a result of turnarounds, and annual layoffs targeting high-need schools with predominantly Black student populations.

CPS then failed to replace the Black teachers forced out of the system, and our district remains deeply segregated. So even as the Black workforce declined as Black schools were closed or turned around, educators were then seldom hired by schools outside of Black neighborhoods.

The decline of Black teachers has also been accelerated by CPS' chief policies of the last decade: student based-budgeting (SBB) and School Quality Ratings Policy (SQRP).

Listening to a @jbouie livechat about the filibuster right now and it's made it clear: the filibuster (and particularly reconciliation as a workaround) hasn't just bottled up progressive legislation, but it's warped the entire constitutional system in subtle-but-fundamental ways.

Reconciliation is the only way to get a law through Congress most of the time, and most of Congress's authorities, to regulate or pass social legislation, are inaccessible in reconciliation.

So the role of Congress has shifted. Instead of the broad national legislature envisioned by Article I - a body to rule over the whole country and direct its government - Congress has become, in most cases, an agency for management of the federal budget.

The existence of reconciliation as an exception to the filibuster is essential to this shift. If reconciliation didn't exist, Congress would be sidelined almost completely, paralyzed, and what would likely happen is that frustrated majorities would just end the practice entirely.

But because of reconciliation, there's actually a pathway to legislating - it's just bound by a strict set of rules that actually dramatically alter the scope of how Congress can act. Thus most of Congress's work gets channeled through those limits, narrowing its practical power.

It's true that a sufficiently high UBI could serve as an alternative to a $15 minimum wage, but I personally would prefer a combo of both plus a 4-day 32-hour week. Let's pay people more for work, support all unpaid work, and distribute employment and leisure time more equitably.

What the left needs to be honest about in regards to a $15 min wage is that although the overall effects will likely be positive, there will be impacts like reduced hours to compensate. Let's lean into that by leaving the 5-day 40-hour week behind. Every weekend should be 3 days.

It's also likely that a higher min wage will increase automation. Great! Let's do that! But that means less employment for humans. 4-day weeks share the available employment better, and universal basic income makes automation literally work for

UBI makes sure that micro-level responses to a higher minimum wage don't reduce people's total incomes if hours drop, or drop incomes to zero. For that person who can't find a job to pay them $15/hr, they can have $1500/mo vs $0. And unpaid workers would have $1500/mo vs $0 too.

If all we did was redefine full-time as 32 hours, businesses would need to pay more per hour so that employees got paid the same for less time. That would distribute leisure time better and I think raise productivity, but it wouldn't raise total incomes, which need to be raised.

Everyone should be a lifelong learner.

We stagnate when we're okay with the status quo. But by spotting areas for improvement, we can thrive and live a life worth living.

🧵 My top five reasons to keep learning.

Learning doesn't stop when you leave school.

If you want to thrive in life, you should always be learning. Once you embrace learning as a part of your life, the world will become a playground full of possibilities.

Five reasons everyone should be a lifelong learner:

Reason 1: Learning is fun

Learning allows adults to be playful like kids. Following our curiosity and learning something new, we get little hits of dopamine — the neurotransmitter associated with rewards.

Learning is natural, but it gets shrouded in seriousness the older we get.

Make learning fun to keep it sustainable.

Reason 2: Learning creates possibilities

Most modern jobs rely on specialized knowledge, but that knowledge is changing fast. Companies look for people who can learn new skills quickly.

If you can proof you can learn something, you'll have a job.

1/ I’ve been letting my kids watch some of the news since the event they inadvertently witnessed on tv two weeks ago. I want them to see some parts, so that they always remember. Comments are welcome here. I have no idea what the magic potion is for parenting.

2/ I pool my students every year. Ask them to tell me what they remember about the 9/11 attacks. It’s been sad and informative for me personally - the differences in time zones, regions, country location, nationalities, ethnicities, races, religions, & especially age perspective.

3/ I’m grateful to start each semester that way. To hear the personal experiences of my students. Because it provides a foundation for how I try to teach that particular course. I’m old, but at least I am smart enough to know that I don’t know much, and I’m always learning.

4/ and if my students are too young to remember 9/11, then I ask them if it has affected them personally - their families and their loved ones. What I’ve observed about that tragic event, through the eyes of my students, is that the attack has rippled through generations.

5/ Like that horrible day, the only thing I am grateful for is that I have witnessed the events with my own eyes. So that I can remember, and try to explain it to others. And so that my kids will remember, and talk to me about it. But I am so heartsick with what I’ve seen.

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Keunggulan Menggunakan Layanan Towing Mobil Surabaya – Tegal

Dalam jasa pengiriman mobil, dikenal beberapa metode pengiriman yang berbeda-beda, salah satunya adalah dengan cara towing derek atau towing mobil. Anda bisa menggunakan Jasa Towing Surabaya – Tegal yang kami tawarkan sebagai cara pengiriman mobil yang aman.

Terdapat berbagai hal yang menjadi keunggulan dalam menggunakan metode towing ini, diantaranya ialah :

1. Keamanannya Lebih Bagus

Banyak orang yang belum tahu metode towing mobil dan kami menjadikan layanan towing ini sebagai salah satu layanan unggulan yang kami tawarkan. Sistem pengiriman kendaraan menggunakan towing memang lebih aman.

Sistem kerjanya ialah menempatkan mobil yang akan dikirim tepat di bagian truk towing yang aman, maka dari itu bisa Anda jadikan pilihan untuk mengirimkan mobil Surabaya – Tegal yang terjamin keamanannya.

Ideology matters, folks. I've been publicly calling Republicans a fascist party bc their only consistent ideological position is white power. Their 180° reversals on debt & national security underscore the point & make them especially dangerous. No "compromise" will fix this.

I am deeply worried that white Dems, & white folks more broadly, don't understand this point—that our national religion of whiteness will lead white Americans to embrace a neo-redemptionist politics. Nothing could be more dangerous.

The original politics of "redemption" came after the Civil War when white Americans from #bothsides found common cause in white power—suppressing migrant, white women's, & especially Black rights. This "reunion" of Rebel & U.S. soldiers at Gettysburg is a classic of the genre.

The term itself—"redemption"—comes from the white paramilitary units who sought to "redeem" their states from "Negro rule" by murdering their political opponents, especially Black southerners.

Lots of quibbling on this point, but as a historian of this movement, I think it would be correct to call theirs a proto-fascist movement.

Some thoughts on remote working...

Remote makes communication skills more critical. Some of this is valuable anyway (clarity, conciseness, logical structure) but can be compensated for with co-location. Some of this is easy with co-location but becomes difficult with remote (non-verbal cues, humanisation).

Externalise everything. People can't read your mind, especially with reduced non-verbal cues, nor can they remember everything. Get it of your head into something other people can interact with. Words and pictures, not just words. Logical structure, not just a freeform dump.

No unwritten rules (GitLab), AKA a simpler expression of Kanban's "make process policies explicit".

Distribute decision-making with decision rules/guard rails. This is an example of "no unwritten rules". At larger scales, I expect "just trust people to make good decisions" leading to either a mess or indecision.