Remembering Vaclav Havel

"The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world?"

#WomenWontWheesht

"I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions."

"That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be."

"If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life."

Got yer pronouns on yer profile and in yer email signatures, boys and girls?

Don't want tae be accused a being *disloyal* dae ye!

Got get on, keep that salary coming in. Wullnae daere upset the wee plooky ranty tyrannical 15 year auld son a the boss, eh!

#WomenWontWheesht

People whose response to calls for raising the minimum wage is "But minimum wage jobs aren't meant to be life-long careers!"

Even if you were right, what's that got to do with it? You've still got to live while you have one.

Just jumped into listening to the Tipton status hearing in the Texas case and the Texas AG just said something wildly incorrect, that all 14,000 people held in ICE detention would be released—but that's just completely wrong. It only applies to those with final orders!

Tipton, admitting his lack of knowledge on immigration law, asks a series of questions about detention that suggests he completely buys into Texas's argument that anyone with a criminal record is per se dangerous. But they served their time! If they were a citizen they'd be out.

Kirschner pushing back on Tipton and the AG's focus on detention, making clear that the case is about "removal," not detention. He asks Tipton to lay out his questions fully so they can answer them.

Texas's AG office completely botches Zadvydas, claiming that if removable is not foreseeable the government has no authority to detain them.

That is simply false (DHS can always continue to detain on public safety grounds), and @CodyWofsy jumps in to correct that issue.

Pushing back, @CodyWofsy makes clear that "as a practical matter, people who have final removal orders are often detained for years," including in circumstances where there are practical issues with their removal (diplomatic issues, e.g.) and Texas's claim was just wrong.

It’s funny how, when Black people leave toxic church spaces we are the ones called “divisive.” We always have to bear the weight of judgment and have to explain ourselves.

When you see Black people leaving a predominantly white church space en masse, you should be asking...

Why are so many people walking away? Why are their stories all similar or exactly the same? Why is this not being addressed by leadership? Why does it feel like it’s being swept under the rug? Why is Black folks’ departure deemed as their issue or fault?

Why does the leadership of my church or organization only take the slightest of responsibility (if any at all)? Why do the sermons end teaching in my church seem to change for a season directly after departures? Why are the Black folks who remain given promotions or visibility?

I have observed a pattern of behavior around Black folks leaving white Christian institutions.

There’s a lot of folks who leave who won’t make public (or private) comment about their departure. Often it’s out of fear of what opportunities that it could cost them.

This allows the institution to shape the narrative around the departure and make it seem more amicable than it actually was. I’ve seen this pattern multiple times.

BREAKING: Two liberal Democrats have written a report debunking claims that social media companies
censor conservatives. Ironically, they managed to censor the 'conservatives' they purportedly studied. https://t.co/CFxlB2y9zK

1/11
Last week General Motors announced plans to be carbon neutral in its global operations by 2040 & to offer only zero-emissions vehicles even by 2035. #velshi

2/11
I’ve had my share of things to say about GM's poor corporate responsibility & leadership for years but now, it seems, even GM sees the writing on the wall: the future is about cutting emissions, transitioning to electric vehicles or other zero-emissions technologies #velshi

3/11
America is less than 5% of the world’s population, but uses 20% of all the oil produced in the world every day. Gasoline for driving accounts for half of that. #velshi

4/11
General Motors has done the math. Getting to zero-emissions as quickly as it can is where GM can have the biggest positive environmental impact. With this announcement, we may witness an America where gas stations eventually become charging stations. #velshi

5/11
The upside to doing any of this is clean air, a healthier earth, stopping the warming of the earth, moderating the effects of hurricanes & floods & wildfires, all by transitioning away from an energy source that kills the planet to produce it & to burn it. #velshi

i hate that the school/covid situation is framed as 'reopen schools.' schools ARE open. schools ARE meeting, daily. teachers are working their asses off to make online teaching work. schools. are. open.

the question is when can schools meet in person and start face to face learning.

when you frame it as 'face to face learning' or 'in person learning' it exposes what the REAL problem is. face to face/in person shit is NOT OK RIGHT NOW.

and with that we get the entire avalanche of real problems. some kids are NOT adjusting to online learning well. some kids need resources that online learning can't give. all human beings need to be around other human beings.

AND--it's not safe to be around other human beings in enclosed rooms right now. AND there's variants running rampant throughout our communities and those variants THRIVE in out of control rampant conditions. AND we're on our way to losing 500,000 people to this crap.

A short thread on how face masks work, why we wear masks *to protect other people from ourselves* and not the other way around, & why wearing face-shields without a mask, masks with valves, or masks that hang open on the bottom or sides IS ACTUALLY DANGEROUS FOR EVERYONE ELSE...

I am going to start off by citing from a great paper by @trishgreenhalgh about the benefits of mask wearing, which you can read in full here:

Masks can work in 2 ways: protecting the wearer, & protecting other people from exhalations emitted by the wearer. Surgical grade masks are supposed to do both. They block out small particles emitted by the source, AND they filter those particles out from other emissions

For cloth masks, however, they are not so good at filtering out tiny particles which can contain viruses. But what they are good at doing is limiting the large droplets people give off when they breathe or cough – before they become aerosolised.

This means when you wear a cloth mask, the most important role that it plays is not protecting you from other people's exhalations but *protecting them from yours*. @trishgreenhalgh calls this 'source control' i.e. 'protects other people from droplets emitted by the wearer'

The reason there is the "Only for use in Africa" label on some vaccines. Please bring every #African here:

The fundamental reason is essentially one of supply management so that #Africans also get a sizeable share of the vaccine within a reasonable time frame. In other words, it is a way to reserve a portion of the vaccine for #Africa.

It is meant to secure the vaccines for #Africa - it is the manufacturers, being aware of the scarcity of the vaccine, proactively managing supply so that there is some for #Africa.

COVID19 is a worldwide pandemic and some parts of the world are more affected than others and every nation and region is working frantically to secure some vaccine for its population.

The problem is that supply is limited, there are roughly less than a dozen vaccines that have been approved by WHO for distribution.

#nofgm thread about getting period for the first time. Trigger warning. So in our communities no ones discuses period or sex. So you don't know that .you are suppose to get period and its part of life. You truly have no idea

The first time I got period. I freaked out . I thought, I was dying literally. I told my cousin I am dying
She asked how .I said I am bleeding and my abdomen is on fire 🔥. First she said you are not dying . You have become a woman .

There its my panic gear goes into overdrive. She mentioned the word woman. The source of my pain. I associate the womanhood with something terrible will occur again. Before the Mutilation. They throw you a party and what everyone says to you is. You are going to be a woman.

For me at that time .everytime I heard the word woman. I panicked and literally scared. My cousin explain abit more. She said now that you have your period
You are a woman. That means you ready for marriage. You are not dying. Its a celebration for the family .

She must have told my mother and other aunties. All of a sudden they were whispering and I can see in their faces the happiness. I dont trust them. I am extremely wary of been hurt again. They are truly happy.. my aunty says. Mashallah( praise the lord) you are a woman

1/ Republicans and Reactionaries, a thread.

There will be post-mortems ad infinitum on how Trumpism rose and fell, but those narratives will always be incompete or deliberately evasive if they don't reckon w/the fact that the GOP itself made Trump possible.

2/ It's undeniably true that we have always had fringe, extremist movements in the USA, whether Know-Nothings or Birchers. What kept them on the fringe was their comparative *political* irrelevance.

3/ Since the Goldwater campaign in 1964, however, the Republican Party began adopting elements of extremist/fringe ideations, slowly at first and then with gusto.

4/ It started with Goldwater's paeans to "State's Rights," which have always been a stalking horse for institutionalized racism. After Buckley's pro forma denunciation of the JBS, it then accelerated with incorporation of anti-UN ("anti-globalist") notions.

5/ Well-documented in the literature, the craven Southern Strategy of the late '60s through mid '70s -- another overt/covert appeal to racism (cf, the notorious Lee Atwater "n****r n****r" interview) -- continued the GOP's embracing of the hard(er) Right...

1. Sat. 16 Jan. Rumor Mills Situation Report:

Conservative MP calls for nationwide rollout of vitamin D tablets, a Spanish region saw an 82% drop in covid deaths after handing out vitamin D.