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| post | Toots 🐘 from 05/22 to 05/26 | 2023-05-26 17:03:03-0400 |
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Toots for the Week of May 22nd, 2023 | /blog/assets/CLM_14456_71r_detail.png | This week, we have Rand Paul, democracy in Thailand, silencing Black American officials, Fani Willis, OTC birth control, prosecution of Russian theater, Pakistani Internet blockage, gorillas overcoming childhood issues, and Jewish-American Heritage. | true |
As [discussed previously]({% post_url 2019-12-31-new-year %}), on Fridays, I present my weekly social media roundups. Note that toots of articles generally include header images from the articles, which I don't include here unless their creators happen to have released them for use under a free license, and I notice. Most have not, or I don't notice. But I now add my commentary here, where I don't feel restricted by message length.
Also, I don't generally attach pictures to posts with quotations.
9:06 -- Mon 22 May 2023
{% cw US Politics, Rand Paul %} {% embed https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screen-Shot-2023-05-15-at-6.01.57-PM.png|A scan of a notebook, reading "Potus, AG, Don Mc Gann, Deep State issue, Investigations, Firing love birds, McCabe? Trust?" as a bulleted list|false|Presumed in the public domain as the work of an employee of the United States government %}
Before Rand Paul Went to Moscow, He Was in a White House Meeting Discussing Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, and Andrew McCabe from Empty Wheel
For some reason, a week after Trump submitted to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16 and 15 days before Paul would carry a letter from Trump to Putin expressing an interest in remaining besties, Paul was in a meeting discussing the FBI officials Trump had a vendetta against (who also happen to be Russian experts).
Hashtags: #USPol #RandPaul
Paul, notably, claims that he met about revoking John Brennan’s security clearance. But, even ignoring everything else about this, when have you ever attended a meeting with only one topic on the agenda?
12:03 -- Mon 22 May 2023
The man who receives five thousand dollars a year wants six thousand dollars a year, and the man who owns eight or nine hundred thousand dollars will want a hundred thousand dollars more to make it a million, while the man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.
{% cite Samuel Gompers %}
Hashtags: #Quotes #JewishAmericanHeritage
9:01 -- Tue 23 May 2023
{% embed https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-034a-08db5567e94d_w1023_r1_s.jpg| Move Forward Party supporters celebrate the party's election results in Bangkok, May 15, 2023|false| %}
'Goosebumps': Thais Barely Believe Scale of Reform Party Win from Voice of America
Court rulings have effectively hobbled multiple pro-democracy parties in the past. And Thailand’s army over the years has resorted to coups when it feels that it has been sidelined from the center of power.
Hashtags: #Thailand #Democracy
Thailand has more than a little authority in the area. This could grow a lot bigger, even as countries like Cambodia crack down on opposition parties.
12:06 -- Tue 23 May 2023
The greatest work of the composer is often sublimation, that is, the deflection of energies, thoughts, occurrences, psychological and physical reactions, into socially constructive or creative channels.
{% cite Marion Bauer %}
Hashtags: #Quotes #JewishAmericanHeritage
9:03 -- Wed 24 May 2023
{% cw Racism in US state legislatures %} {% embed https://images.theconversation.com/files/526340/original/file-20230515-25-yxzson.jpg|Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones raises a fist to the legislative gallery, as fellow Rep. Justin Pearson, left, looks on|false| %}
US has a long history of state lawmakers silencing elected Black officials and taking power from their constituents from The Conversation
Georgia was originally readmitted to the Union in July 1868. But just two months later, in September, the Democratically controlled Georgia Assembly, with a total of 196 members, voted to expel all 33 of its Black elected officials.
Hashtags: #USPol #Racism #Reconstruction
This actually under-plays the situation by a wide margin. In a lot of places, the bigoted white population staged violent insurrections to run the elected Black officials out of office.
12:04 -- Wed 24 May 2023
It is, as a rule, far more important how men pursue their occupation than what the occupation is which they select.
{% cite Louis Brandeis %}
Hashtags: #Quotes #JewishAmericanHeritage
9:04 -- Thu 25 May 2023
{% cw US Politics %} {% embed https://images.dailykos.com/images/1188704/story_image/AP23110484894193.jpg|Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis poses for a portrait, Wednesday, April 19, 2023, in Atlanta|false| %}
Georgia prosecutor fights back against Trump attempt to remove her from election probe from Daily Kos
Willis wrote that the arguments put forth in the motions fail to meet the “exacting standards" for disqualifying a prosecutor and they also fail to prove their claims that their own due process rights have been violated or that the grand jury process was “tainted” or the law governing it unconstitutional.
Hashtags: #USPol #FaniWillis #Trump
This seems like a good sign, not only that Willis pushes back against the petty attempts to impact her case against Trump, but also because the new law about removing prosecutors---a law almost certainly written to disrupt the case against Trump---doesn't seem to have an impact.
12:07 -- Thu 25 May 2023
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.
{% cite Bernard Berenson %}
Hashtags: #Quotes #JewishAmericanHeritage
9:05 -- Fri 26 May 2023
{% embed https://i0.wp.com/otherwords.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/shutterstock_1485018701.jpg|Hands display partially used birth control pills against a pink background|false| %}
Over-the-Counter Birth Control Would Be a Game Changer from OtherWords
One organization peddling flat-out lies in order to pave the way for ending access to contraception is Pulse Life Advocates. The group’s website makes claims that are so preposterous, they veer on comical — such as “contraception increases likelihood of divorce” and “contraception kills babies.”
Hashtags: #Abortion #BirthControl
I write in support of abortion, periodically, but I don't talk much about birth control pills, even though Sam Alito almost certainly salivates at the prospect of banning them, too. And I have to admit that represents a flaw on the blog, because I find it a fascinating story that the placebo pills exist in hopes of appeasing the Catholic Church, rather than for medical reasons, and that the myth of the biological clock exists largely as a way to control women in response to birth control.
12:05 -- Fri 26 May 2023
To have a good memory the first thing you have to do is to trust your memory.
{% cite Paul Sophus Epstein %}
Hashtags: #Quotes #JewishAmericanHeritage
Bonus
Because it accidentally became a tradition early on in the life of the blog, I drop any additional articles that didn't fit into the one-article-per-day week, but too weird or important to not mention, here.
{% embed https://cdn2.opendemocracy.net/media/images/Berkovich.max-760x504.jpg|Russian theater director Yevgenia Berkovich, detained on charges of justification of terrorism, sits inside a defendants' cage during her remand hearing at a Moscow court on 5 May 2023|false| %}
Theater stands accused for the first time in post-soviet Russia from openDemocracy
The play has been acclaimed for making one of the most influential feminist statements in Russian theater. In 2022, it even won two Golden Mask awards --- the country’s top theater prize --- for best playwright and best costume design.
Imagine how shaky your government's position would have to feel, that it would feel the need to prosecute theaters for its productions not being nice enough to it.
{% embed https://globalvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/no-access-Eichenor1920-1200x675.jpg|A simulated computer screen with a bright red Access Denied warning covering the content|false|Image by Elchinator from Pixabay, released under the Pixabay License %}
Pakistan faces nationwide internet blockage: A digital crisis unfolds from Global Voices
It also impacted individual or corporate users who incurred heavy losses due to the disruption in internet services. As Pakistanis eagerly awaited the restoration of internet services, unconfirmed reports circulated on social media, providing conflicting information about the resumption.
Well, this probably won't go well...
{% embed https://images.theconversation.com/files/525949/original/file-20230512-23918-udbd4r.jpeg|two juvenile gorillas sit very close together|false| %}
Thriving in the face of adversity: Resilient gorillas reveal clues about overcoming childhood misfortune from The Conversation
...female baboons who have the hardest childhoods have life spans that are on average only half as long as their peers that have the easiest. Activities like smoking and unhealthy food choices can’t be the whole story, then, since animals don’t engage in typical human health risk behaviors.
This probably doesn't rate as the most important story of the week, but enough people had rough childhoods that this research might have some direct utility.
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Credits: Header image is Circular diagrams showing the division of the day and of the week from a manuscript drafted during the Carolingian Dynasty.
