Summer Tweets

July was pretty much cool in the upper Midwest. It ended a little hotter, with Cecil the lion, but I've already said enough about that.

I started following activist Bree Newsome, who took down the Confederate flag after the white supremacist killings in Charleston. That was one of the major topics of the month:

If this Republican Party were truly the "party of Lincoln,” it wouldn't be defending the confederacy. Let's be real. This is about racism.
By Bree Newsome

CNN: "A majority of people still see it [the Confederate battle flag] as a sign of heritage." A majority of people once supported segregation. So what.
By Bree Newsome

Part of why folks haven't removed the flag yet is because they fear violent backlash of white supremacists. How is that not terrorism?
By Bree Newsome

How can we *begin* to address covert racism when folks still don't even appreciate the brutality of US slavery or Jim Crow?
By Bree Newsome

Mention slavery and it's, "Forget the past and move on." Ask to remove relics of white supremacy and it's, "You're trying to erase history!"
By Ryan Dalton

Very hard for people to get that there is no redemptive portion of the "Old South" that can be separated from racism.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Any song about the "Old South" that mentions cotton is basically an ode to Nazi-style slave labor camps.
By billmon

Standing up for what you believe isn't a virtue if what you believe in is awful.
By God

Religious opponents to same sex marriage are getting more air time than black people whose churches are being burned down.
By jamiekilstein
I was raised Hindu — I could claim a swastika is "heritage, not hate.” But why would I want to torment people who already endured a genocide?
By Anil Dash

For everyone asking "why are we changing so fast on the confederate flag?!" Here's your answer: Because it's easier than fixing the problem.
By Phillip Atiba Goff

Lots of tweets about Black Lives Matter in general, the killing of Sandra Bland in particular, and related topics:

If you truly believe all lives matter, then the importance of saying "#BlackLivesMatter" should not be vexing to you
By Bree Newsome

Nobody said "All Lives Matter" until someone said "Black Lives Matter." It is only said to change the conversation.
By JRehling

All I know is I'm not asking anyone to value my life. Anyone who thinks that #BlackLivesMatter is a request when I say it has me mistaken.
By Bree Newsome

Acknowledging the concerns of #BlackLivesMatter means acknowledging there are citizens being marginalized by the system & no one's fixing it.
By Sean Jordan

#BlackLivesMatter doesn't mean other lives don't. Like people who say "Save The Rainforests" aren't saying "Fuck All Other Types of Forests."
By Matt McGorry

People too often think that structural racism works the same way that interpersonal racism does. It doesn't. No malice/awareness necessary.
By Charles M. Blow

The patriarchy gotta go, bruh. Defending the subjugation & abuse of women is NOT black liberation & unity. It's just more oppression.
By Bree Newsome

Is she talking about Emmett Till in the '50's? Nope. Sandra Bland in the 2010's. Welcome to post-racial America:


By Alan Mills

67% of black women killed by police last year were unarmed. SIXTY SEVEN PERCENT. #SandraBland
By Samuel Sinyangwe

Peace does not co-exist with oppression & injustice. What folks call "peace" is really just law & order, often unequally & unjustly applied.
By Bree Newsome

Critical:

By SaadiaM

Me: It's not illegal to be rude to cops.
Them: Well, if you poke a bear, what do you expect?
Me: That's why we don't make bears cops.
By Ashley Ford

"Not all cops are bad!" Not all politicians are crooked, either. Funny how it doesn't take but a few to corrupt the whole thing, no?
By Bree Newsome

Property and money are more protected in America than the lives of black people. Why is that? Because that's what slavery was, folks.
By Bree Newsome

I was the only black kid in history class when we were given an assignment to write about a day in life of someone living in colonial America. I wrote from the point of view of a slave girl. One of the questions asked what my schooling was like. I wrote "I'm not allowed to read." The teacher wrote me a long note about how she appreciated my attempt to do something different but it didn't work for the assignment.
By Bree Newsome

Then there was the mass shooting in Lafayette, Louisiana, by a white guy who hates feminists and liberals:

If people are on Twitter talking about our national mental health problem it usually means a white person just killed several people.
By John Fugelsang

How much misery & suffering does this country endure to indulge the resentments & fantasies of angry white men? The mind boggles. The hypothetical ability of angry white men to resist government tyranny with guns is apparently worth a mass killing every single day.
By David Roberts

And of course, there’s my least favorite topic, Donald Trump:

Donald Trump, Bobby Jindal, and Ted Cruz walk into a bar. Everyone else leaves.
By Aparna Nancherla

Trump is like a YouTube comment thread that achieved sentience.
By Olivia Nuzzi

Trump supporters want a leader tough enough to build golf courses, present beauty pageants, and name a cologne after himself.
By Frank Conniff
When you say you have a great relationship with "The Hispanics," you don't.
By Hemant Mehta

Trump's problem is that he's a VEEP character who thinks he's in House of Cards.
By ryangrim
Also worth remembering that John McCain was slandered in South Carolina for something Strom Thurmond actually did.
By jelani cobb

I admire the bravery of Trump, who managed to elude capture by the Viet Cong by staying home and building shitty condos.
By Frank Conniff

A bit of positive distraction from the successful Pluto mission:

Holy shit you guys, NASA threw a robot toward the ass end of the solar system and it got there within 72 seconds of their estimated arrival.
By Rob DenBleyker

Hey, what if the people who sent a machine 9 billion miles to fly by an icy rock are right about climate?
By pourmecoffee

The oldest living person in the world was alive before the Wright Brothers flew the first plane And we just sent something past Pluto today
By Erik

And finally, the round-up of comments on other topics as well as a fine assortment of jokes...

You can tell it's a parking lane, because they paint a picture of a bicycle right on it.
By Paul Kafasis

Q: Why did hatred of Reagan & Thatcher spawn so much great music & art while all the George W Bush loathing begat...not much, artistically?
By Zack Stentz 

Best way I've found to explain poverty to those who've never experienced it: Imagine if your phone battery only went up to 6%.
By Ronen V

We used to have universal childcare, you know. During the war. When we realized collectively that children needed care while moms worked.
By KillerMartinis

People can't know that their income is primarily a function of random stuff like what technological era they were born into.
By Matt Bruenig

She love me? She love me not? Why is Bigfoot violently interrogating a flower? They are stupid and know nothing... OR DO THEY??!!
By Bigfoot TheBigfoot

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. — John F. Kennedy #compassion @KillerMartinis @JFM
By norm

Core conservative belief: everyone shares their anger & resentment & would show them if being "real" vs. politically correct.
By David Roberts

The people against the Iran deal think the invasion of Iraq and the Cuba embargo are foreign policy success stories.
By mattyglesias

How to reduce fatalities in cities: keep cities compact, reduce speeds, + design streets for all users not just cars. It's proximity of uses that creates *truly* walkable places, not just sidewalks.
By jennifer keesmaat

Even if the US released every drug offender, we'd still have the world's highest incarceration rate.
By Nate Silver

If you publish deeply reported long-form journalism and a half-dozen sites don't immediately aggregate it, did it really exist?
By Matt Ford

Funny thing is Christians go on & on about gay marriage but never are bothered by usury, a far bigger deal in the Bible.
By Scott FitzGerald

We live in a world where freedom of speech is a right to make crap jokes about women yet asking for a living wage/workers rights is extreme.
By Jake

In the '50's, the dream of super highways was freedom. Instead we got long commutes, expensive transportation, and...obesity.
By jennifer keesmaat

If you're paranoid enough to think that someone is going to take your guns away, someone should probably take your guns away.
By Carl Newman

Shorter GOP: "I hate America as it actually exists, vote for me!"
By Tom Tomorrow

Not only does God endorse multiculturalism but He seems to have invented it.
By John Fugelsang

The upside to bringing a disappointing book on vacation is that you don’t have to find a place for it in your luggage on the way home.
By Rainbow Rowell

My lack of response to your unsolicited sales email *was* the response. It is also my response to your follow-up inquiry.
By Michael Lopp

Einstein didn't think much of traditional schooling (though we got lots of posters of him in schools) and neither does Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
By Sisyphus38

"The average American is giving up 1.5 months of wages for the privilege of driving versus biking ..." #bikelove
By Joe Shindelar

I love this photo it's beautiful:


By Steve Wolfhard

There's this weird line of thinking in America that your personal opinion formed without any basis in fact is equal to facts. It's not.
By Bree Newsome

I now feel obliged to repeat my regular PSA: the Prydain Chronicles are better than the Narnia books in every way, esp. for older kids. Basically the Prydain Chronicles are the Best Ever, period, no discussion, no argument, no you shut up.
By David Roberts

"What's wrong with us?" America makes people pay for water, electricity & Internet -- but not the roads we drive on.
By GOVERNING

People who hate racism should definitely fight against people who hate economic injustice, and vice versa. Great use of energy.
By David Roberts

Instead of supporting an educational system with a strong welfare state, we ask education to serve as THE welfare state. Doesn't work! By Sara Goldrick-Rab

The importance of good design: same number of lanes before & after, but a safer street. 8th Ave NYC:


By jennifer keesmaat

Automation is not going to liberate the dispossessed from misery. It is going to liberate the bosses from needing to keep us alive to work.
By George Bell

The lady whose car had both “Say No To Genetic Modification!” & “I ❤️ My Labradoodle” bumper stickers didn’t get why I was laughing so hard.
By Logan Dobson

It costs twice as much to incarcerate a single juvenile then to pay for them to go to the most expensive college.
By Betsey Stevenson

Entrepreneurs don’t have a special gene for risk — they come from families with money.
By Tracy Chou

Why is the assertion that cops are NOT more lethal today generally uncontested? How do people know? Stats haven't been systematically kept.
By Prison Culture

Logically speaking, if you wear a bike helmet, you should also wear a pedestrian helmet.
By William Easterly

Oppression is not a competition. Either you're fighting for liberation for all in a spirit of solidarity or you ain't really bout it.
By Bree Newsome

Rosemary Sutcliff. Monolith of my childhood: grandmother of dragons.
By Joanne Harris

"For transit to attract ridership, patterns of development need to be understood in terms of: density, walkability, linearity, proximity."
By jennifer keesmaat

Allies listen.
By goldietaylor

Can't stop laughing at this...


By Adrian D. Kirby

Ancient cities were designed around central public spaces with public uses to anchor civic life. A timeless principle of urbanism.
By jennifer keesmaat

There are 310 million guns in America and 330 million mobile phones. Which do you think is a more useful check on government power?
By Chris Barchak

Research shows that as much as half the cost of educating a child goes to the administrative costs of operating a large school.
By Sisyphus38

We could eliminate tuition at every public college and university in America with the $80 billion we spend each year on incarcerations.
By President Obama

White privilege allowed you to thrive while being mediocre for so long you actually bought into the allusion that you were more brilliant.
By Fat Amy

Man, I bet Bernie Sanders is happy that America is desensitized to the word "Socialist" after the GOP spent last 7 years calling Obama one.
By Ryan Kennedy

Decided over the weekend I’m going to make a weight scale app. Won’t actually work. Just want to trick people into standing on their phones.
By T. Becket Adams

Ta-Nehisi Coates on the slave markets in lower Manhattan: "Bin Laden was not the first man to bring terror to that section of the city."
By Nikhil Goyal

"When it comes to house hunting, a walk-in closet is nice. But a walk-in neighborhood is essential."
By jennifer keesmaat

I have to say I rather resent Quentin Tarantino for turning songs I always liked into "his" songs.
By Robert O. Simonson

The tragedy of all online community spaces is that the goals of "inclusive" and "safe" are, at the extreme, mutually exclusive goals. At some point you have to exclude someone. You get to pick if it's the people feeling unsafe, or the people making them feel unsafe.
By Laurie Voss

Radio shero Katie Mingle of the "99% Invisible" podcast crafted a lovely auto reply for listeners complaining about women's voices:


By Jenna Weiss-Berman

Shit yes. Always wanted to hear from a fourth-generation rich fucker [Jeb Bush] what I should be doing to chip in around here.By Coda Hale

The point of becoming a rich country is, in part, so people don't have to work endless hours at jobs that they hate!
By Ezra Klein

47-year-old Mark Ruffalo plays a superhero. 50-year-old Robert Downey Jr plays a superhero. 50 year old Marisa Tomei plays Aunt May. GOT IT.
By Mary Beth Williams

Many Americans think they can have peace and prosperity and still have 40% of world energy.
By Free Public Transit

US wealthy inequity:


By Paul Thomas

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. #whiteprivilege
By Arash Daneshzadeh

If you think it's okay to tell my kid Jesus loves her, I don't think it's out of line for me to tell your kid there's no god.
By Stephanie

Almost every time I have clicked on an ad has been an accident. What if the whole online advertising industry is based on accidental clicks?
By Keith Calder

"Why don't they just—" "Just" is my favorite word. It quickly belittles any work required to do something.
By Louie Mantia

I'll never understand the logic that companies have no societal obligations given how many benefits they're happy to take from society.
By KillerMartinis

We must take this country BACK to make it great again. Mill jobs for children! Full-body wool swimsuits for women! Tuberculosis for all!
By Hipster Mermaid

Q: What does a Grateful Dead fan say when he runs out of pot?
A: Oh my God, this band is terrible.
By Josh

The bailout Greece needs, put in some context:


By Meanwhile In Scotia

Sometimes the best way to fit in at a party is to pretend you're a reporter doing a story.
By Aparna Nancherla

I had to go on tv today and explain that if welfare pays better than work it's not a scheme on the part of recipients. It's shitty wages.
By KillerMartinis

Experimenting on other people's children in school is a lucrative hobby for #WhitePrivilege
By Arash Daneshzadeh

Some spend so much time, energy, and emotion trying to rationalize the occurrences of injustices, rather than admitting they are wrong. Let's rationalize why freedom, justice and equality should truly be a reality for and actualized by all — not just hollow words of patriotism.
By Ryan Dalton

45 times so far this year, 9-1-1 was dialed seeking medical help, only to have the police show up and kill the person. [Links to a Washington Post story.]
By Wesley Lowery

Possibly the nerdiest joke ever:


By Paul Grenfell

Shopping for cars as a "single" woman is a stark reminder that the world thinks men should be making major decisions for you.
By Molly Priesmeyer