The Tweets of September 2015

September 2015: Not a bad month. (Compared to 2014, at least, when the ebola crisis started. Remember that?)

First, there are a few about the latest Republican debate:

GOP debate in a nutshell: I'll unite the country! That's why I oppose women's rights, pot smokers, the Supreme Court, and minorities.
By Hemant Mehta

The idea that the president is a national Father responsible for “keeping us safe” is right up there with “homeland” on the creepy scale.
By David Roberts

"My brother, he kept us safe." In that "other than that how did you enjoy the play Mrs. Lincoln?" kind of way
By Tom Tomorrow

Which runs right into the latest Trump tweets:

Donald Trump would not enjoy being president. At all. I wonder if he knows that. The presidency is massive responsibility and accountability in a context of highly, highly constrained action. Bluster won’t get you sh*t.
By David Roberts

To paraphrase Sam Kriss, what's the point of keeping Iran from getting the bomb if we're going to give it to Donald Trump?
By Ludovic Lesage

New poll shows Fiorina gaining ground with gullible rubes, but Trump's support staying strong with racist shitheads.
By Frank Conniff

We're never getting back all these hours we've had to spend thinking about Donald Trump.
By Tom Tomorrow

This [watching Donald Trump and Bobby Jindal trade insults] is like watching herpes fight lead poisoning.
By Saladin Ahmed

Best Possible Outcome: Trump is a Borat sequel.
By Aaron Fullerton

The aesthetics of the Trump campaign look like a political campaign as represented in a Batman movie.
By Christopher Hayes

Then there was the kerfuffle over Kim Davis refusing to issue marriage licenses in Kentucky:

To say this Kim Davis thing is evidence of a war on Christianity is like saying there's a war on cars because you can't drive on the sidewalk.
By Andy Richter

Sigh. —Kim Davis is not Rosa Parks. Kim Davis is the bus driver, unjustly prevented from being able to force Rosa Parks to sit in the back.
By Kip Manley

No one's being jailed for practicing her religion. Someone's being jailed for using the government to force others to practice her religion.
By Rachel Held Evans

If your religion says that allowing two consenting adults to live happily ever after is punishable by eternal torture, maybe examine that.
By Todd Ditchendorf

There were a good number of education tweets this month, once again:

The fact that children across the United States are not guaranteed the right to play is an abomination.
By Nikhil Goyal

Learning is not a ladder. Children are far more complex than a linear progression model implies.
By Alison Peacock

At my son's middle school, "tests" are now referred to as "celebrations of knowledge." George Orwell would be proud.
By Jonathan Mugan

I think we worry too much about test scores and not enough about the mental health of our kids in schools today.
By John Gunnell

I say it again: “zero tolerance” school policies are machines, to be operated by unskilled labor, that grind up kids.
By Andy Ihnatko

Those segue into the story of Ahmed Muhammed, the 14-year-old Texas boy who made the mistake of bringing a homemade clock to school…

Saying "We mistook the clock for a bomb" is a real greasy way of side-stepping the truth: "We mistook the kid for a bomb-maker."
By J.A. Myerson

Was the bomb squad called? Was the school evacuated? No. They knew this wasn't a real threat, they just wanted to put a kid in his place.
By dansinker

STEM: how to build a clock.
HUMANITIES: how to build world in which students of color are not arrested for building clocks.
By Jonathan S.

I don't know what kind of country arrests a kid for building a clock, but suspect it's not one that will be a leader in science in 20 years.
By Cate Huston

And then on to the best of the rest.

Hard to mock ancient cultures for relying on mystics when our justice system is based on what five dudes think dead slave-owners would want.
By Sean McElwee

Deray McKesson on the Nightly Show:


By ShordeeDooWhop

"30 writers under 30 who are telling the same old fucking stories using the same old fucking forms." How about an award list/big magazine spread for writers who published their first book *after* 30? Stop fetishizing pretty young rich kids.

• A literary award open only to working mothers.
• A literary award where you're ineligible if your parents paid for your college.
• Women who raised kids before publishing, PoC who weren't born into networks, working class writers -

'Under 30' lists diss all these folks.
By Saladin Ahmed

Portland has met the Kyoto carbon emission reductions, even while growing.
By jennifer keesmaat

Twitter: A series of messages in bottles. Facebook: A Christmas letter about everything forever.
By Chris Steller

Protip: it’s easier to get a nation addicted to warm, sugary milk if you call it "coffee."
By David Roberts

What I find to be the most common dynamic in American discussions of race is the desire for cheap absolution. Or false comparatives. "Other people have done worse." Like Pol Pot saying "But what about Stalin?" Often this takes the form of minimization or acceptance of fanciful narratives that make slavery out to be a sort interracial collaboration. This all-consuming desire for a false innocence leads to bizarre conclusions -- like blacks should be grateful for the end of slavery.
By jelani cobb

It sees to me the argument against reparations is essentially an argument against government.
By Patrick LaSalle

Heartwarming! Experts say divestment has grown into 'large, threatening' force for oil, coal companies.
By Bill McKibben

"Opinions are like nipples. Everybody has them, but men get to share theirs in public." via Isaac Wolkerstorfer
By Jess Erickson

How few Americans ever question the colonies' justifications in taking up arms against the British Crown, though the privations of the American colonies were minor in comparison to what the enslaved populace suffered for centuries. Yet the same Americans who praise the colonists for fighting over comparatively minor excesses deride slavery as oppression. The American Revolution was born of disputes that arose after the 7 years war. The revolutionary ferment grew quickly and led to war. But the British never created an organized regimen of rape toward the colonies. Never declared them literal property.
By jelani cobb

Truck driver is the No. 1 occupation in a number of U.S. states.
By David Roberts

Stop talking about WMDs falling into 'the wrong hands,' and start asking why on Earth you believe there's such a thing as 'the right hands.'
By Saladin Ahmed

Forget 'developing' poor countries, it's time to 'de-develop' rich countries.
By Nikhil Goyal

If it's a silent majority, why does it use caps lock so much?
By Josh Barro

Volkswagen's deceit is just 1 example of many in the auto industry, thanks to weak, underfunded govt regulation.
By Alfie Kohn

Complaining about parking meters = classic first world problem.
By William Lindeke

Honestly, the fact that he's willing to cry in public is about the only thing I *don't* find utterly despicable about John Boehner.
By Saladin Ahmed

When someone tells you "this isn’t a game,” they usually mean it is a game but you need to follow their rules.
By Aparna Nancherla

Here's the problem with the people who talk about stopping climate change and ending poverty: Very few of them are talking about capitalism.
By Nikhil Goyal

To consider persons & events & situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell. - Thomas Merton
By Saladin Ahmed

Today’s Right Wing doesn’t want "religious liberty," they want Christianity affirmed as the dominant religion. Can we all stop pretending otherwise?
By David Roberts

Disappointment is a dish best served to the person next to you.
By Aparna Nancherla

Neocolonialism loves to disguise itself as meritocracy.
By Arash Daneshzadeh

Guitar solo faces make so much more sense when the guitars are replaced with slugs:


By Matt Bloom


Fares are for rationing, not revenue. Policing costs can be added to the long list of auto sprawl subsidy.
By Free Public Transit

Here's a little secret: If you are partnered with the IMF and the World Bank, you will not end poverty. You will massively increase it.
By Nikhil Goyal

The construct of masculinity is toxic as fuck. It is actually hurting you. Gender binaries & forced conformity to gender roles IS TOXIC. One of the major differences between feminism & men's rights is that feminism actually seeks to liberate men from a toxic gender role.
By Elle of Oakland

Disappointed to learn that the International Cave Bear Symposium is a gathering of palaeontologists, not cave bears.
By Ed Yong

What’s up with this marxist pope? Jesus explicitly told us to acquire pharmaceutical companies and jack up prices 5,000% for cancer patients. “Actually R&D is pretty expensive, you selfish AIDS patient" were, I think Jesus' exact words. In the Bible. Which is true.
By Matt Bors

You know our pharmaceutical industry is totally broken when it attracts people who would otherwise be hedge fund mangers.
By Katherine Elliott

Conservatives love the welfare state for soldiers and unions for cops. Not contradictory because people always want good things for their people.
By Matt Bruenig

"Turbulent year for race relations" = black Americans refusing to remain second class citizens.
By Bree Newsome

The way to end mass incarceration: stop putting most people in prison, let lots of people out. Fewer cops, fewer crimes, shorter sentences.
By David Kaib

I heard a guy today spell "Prima Donna" as "PRE-Madonna.” You know, like someone who's so obnoxious they're almost becoming Madonna.
By Jonathan Foley

Have you never had an abortion? Will you never need an abortion? Do you not understand abortion? GREAT! You're in charge of abortion!
By jamiekilstein

"Motorized vehicles create remoteness which they alone can shrink." —Ivan Illich, 1973:


By Taras Grescoe

Ad revenue will continue to play a key role in funding journalism, but ad-blocking is a direct response to incredibly user-hostile choices.
By Christa Mrgan

Why run a country like a business? Why not like a family or like a community?
By Soul Khan

The ability to appear “authentic” in a public setting is a skill that has virtually nothing to do with authenticity.
By David Roberts

One of the most vile discourses in the US right now (spreading cancerlike through anglophone media) is that wanting to be paid is mercenary.
By Katherine Cross

Protip: "Militant" does not necessarily mean "violent."
By Occubrarian Rachel

The problem with gyms is that they're run by people who like to work out.
By Rainbow Rowell

There's nothing wrong with black folks that eliminating racism wouldn't cure. But it's surprising how hard that is for some folks to believe
By blackink12

You mark my words, hipsters:


By bruce lawson

If your Personal Beliefs deny what’s objectively true about the world, then they're more accurately called Personal Delusions.
By Neil deGrasse Tyson

This is called "crown shyness." In some tree species the canopies don't touch. [photo: Patrice78500]:


By Ziya Tong

If only people dedicated half as much energy toward stopping rapists as they do telling survivors how to heal and live their lives...
By Occubrarian Rachel

Show me a plate of sweet potato fries, and I will show you a diner who wishes they'd ordered regular fries.
By Greg Morabito

Reform is cute, has social capital, gets attn. Organizing is DAILY ARDUOUS work that rarely gets the credit it deserves.
By Camara Mpinduzi

When cars took over cities we lost our civic space. Can we make infrastructure useful and beautiful again?
By Sprawl Repair Manual

Invoking 9/11 to attack diplomacy with Iran would be like criticizing Nixon going to China because of Pearl Harbor.
By Christopher Hayes

You are not sitting in traffic. You are causing a global climate crisis, destroying the social cohesion of your community, and getting fat.
By Bike Lobby

[On September 11th] Today is the day that people who don't want us to remember slavery, Jim Crow, or continued genocides against people of color want us never to forget 9/11.
By Son of Baldwin

This opinion piece takes it as an article of faith that more police = better neighborhood. There is mounting evidence that mass incarceration has made neighborhoods LESS safe by destroying community bonds… Everyone agrees decent neighborhoods are a good thing. But there is ZERO evidence that more arrests helps.
By Alan Mills

If dirtbags were out here protesting every time a synagogue was built, the media wouldn't treat it as a 'controversy' with 'two sides.'
By Saladin Ahmed

How do other writers write anything during the day? It’s like trying to juggle while random passers-by pelt you with debris.
By David Roberts

Fourth Estate #Fail:


By CharliePatrick

The state, the street and the home form of a trifecta of misogyny that shares obsession of virginity and controlling women's sexuality.
By Mona Eltahawy

What's certain is that as long as there's a large industry that benefits from scandal, there will be scandal. And casual news consumers will never, in the end, know whether it was real or BS. It is the nature of the industry never to settle the question.
By David Roberts

“We fear kidnapping when childhood obesity is a far more pernicious and common danger...”
By jennifer keesmaat

Two sidewalk people I never stop for: Person with Clipboard & Person Who Asks Me If They Can Ask Me A Question.
By Robert O. Simonson

Oliver Sacks never used the internet. In case you wondered how he accomplished so much and led such an interesting life.
By Erika Hall

In the bitter, unappreciated irony of the plant world, plants are only green because that's the wavelength of visible light they -reject-.
By Jacquelyn Gill

Life hack: if someone makes a racist/sexist joke, say, with total seriousness, “I don’t get it, can you explain it.” Then watch them crash.
By flexan

“Between 2005-2013, about 16% of low-wage workers had some of their wages stolen each year.” [quoting the Washington Post]
By Stephen Pimpare

Just 4% of U.S. parents believe an understanding of other cultures will be critical to their children's success.
By Simon Kemp

So Walter Isaacson says we don't "think big" anymore. I wonder if 30 years of government-bashing has anything to do with it.
By George Colombo

So many U.S. political dramas result from our absurd, opaque, corrupt, veto-point-ridden system of government. Yet we almost never discuss it. As though if we just elect more courageous, "authentic" people, the structural barriers can be blown down through sheer force of will. In my experience, people really hate systemic explanations. They want to think all problems can be traced to the venality of individual politicians. It is a recipe for an endless cycle of raised hopes and crushing disappointment. Practically designed to make people cynical about government. And as we know, disgust and cynicism about government help one party a lot more than they help the other.
By David Roberts

Black herons use canopy feeding to catch fish that are lured into the shade they make with their wings:


By Strange Animals

Schrödinger’s immigrant “lazes around on benefits whilst simultaneously stealing your job.”
By Alex Tabarrok

I need to join Parentheticals Anonymous.
By David Roberts

While I'm on a rant: DON'T send me some outrageous racist/sexist shit and demand "Thoughts?”. I have a life beyond getting angry on demand.
By Mona Eltahawy

Donations are good but strong public policy is profoundly better. #Syria
By jennifer keesmaat

Since Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, criminalizing black insistence on human rights has basically been the standard response. I can't actually think of a black political protest where the response wasn't either "This leads to crime" or "This IS crime." "Negro goon squads have reportedly been organized to intimidate Negroes who ride Montgomery City Line buses." - Montgomery Advertiser, 1955. Motherfuckers called Rosa Parks and MLK a "Negro Goon Squad." This ain't new. There is no point in American History when the demand by black people for equality was not declared by powerful people to be criminal. None.
By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Whoever came up with "like taking candy from a baby" as a synonym for "easy and painless" has never met a baby.
By Tim Carvell

Private financing of elections works for billionaires & courtiers, but not for a democracy made up of free leaders from every walk of life.
By zephyrteachout

When all you have is a car, everything looks like a road.
By Bike Lobby

Childhood is now a curated experience for the rich, and a desperate challenge full of lotteries…for everyone else.
By ILMDJ

There needs to be a special word for NIMBY-induced rage.
By David Roberts

I like the word Egyptology cause it suggests that one day there will be Americology to try to find out what the fuck we were all doing.
By drewtoothpaste

Selling a cake is 'participating in same sex marriage.' Selling a gun isn’t 'participating in murder.' For some reason.
By Gareth Davies

Imagine thinking this is an indictment of welfare, not capitalism:


By Charles Davis

YOU DO NOT GET IT: DENALI is a threat to ALL the things named after white dudes who had nothing to do with them!
By hodgman

I hate the neologism "owned" for "scored a victory over." I have no intention of owning anyone, and nobody will ever own me.
By Richard Dawkins

I still don't think "cheating" [on your spouse] is an easy way to gauge someone's moral compass. The fact that it's so common just means divorce is hard.
By Molly Priesmeyer

66% of food service workers and 52% of retail workers have at most a week’s notice of their schedules.
By Fight For 15

IMO, the proper utility role is:
a) rationalizing/coordinating energy services markets,
b) consumer protection within those markets,
c) maintaining the grid.
Access to the grid, for purposes of buying/selling energy services, should be open to all, like access to internet.
By David Roberts

I wonder what people who type "ur" and "ppl" do with all the time they save.
By BangsRBetterThnBotox