Thread by @JoshuaCypess

29.01/ Week twenty-nine thread, for Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2021, begins here. Last week's thread (28.01) linked below.

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1353354516876419075?s=20

29.02/ Every once in a while, I let the depraved fatalism of the phrase "boys will be boys" just wash over me...

29.03/ Snow still following here in Central NJ, with some swirling wind, allowing me to use the word "snow squalls" at the breakfast table. My 14yo suggested that if the wind is strong enough to dislodge squirrels, it'd be "squirralls of snow." Yup.

29.04/ In a nod to my early DJ days, I play music for the kids every morning before we go off to school/shul & that's persisted during the Quarantimes. I'm running thru Steely Dan now & there's got to be a word for "band whose top 20 songs you love but the rest makes you cringe"

29.04b/ Related: had The Talk with the kids about music. Even, and I'd say especially, at a young age they need to know that there's no person named Steely Dan in the band, nor a Pink in the Floyd, or Monty in Python, and Jethro Tull... it's complicated
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jethro_Tu…

29.05/ Truly unsurprising that Yang's campaign had/has a toxic male ideology and culture. It's almost textbook: primacy of math, money, and a belief that both on those trumps actual experience/expertise in governance.

https://twitter.com/dsamuelsohn/status/1355551829581508611

29.06/ I've said before: there's a big functional difference b/w someone lying to you & someone lying to themselves & then telling those lies to you. The former is evil, the latter is so common that it's basic human nature, but it's generalized self-harm.

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1282702594146799618?s=20

29.07/ I need to explore the overlap of Midrash and gaslighting, specifically when they're taken literally, which I claim was not their intention. But those who receive & teach Midrash literally are building a culture of gaslighting and that is corrosive.

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1341119041113567239

29.08/ Very happy and proud to see @njdotcom publish an op-ed by my wife and Dr. Sonya Headlam about necessary police reforms that NJ lacks. This is an injustice that must be fixed.

#PoliceReform #BlackLivesMatter

nj.com/opinion/2021/0…

29.09/ A way you can tell if you're on the path of repentance is that when someone criticizes you on your past actions - which you've repented from - you can join in & say "Yeah, that was terrible! So glad I don't do that anymore" If you don't feel that way, you haven't repented

29.10/ Remember how Trump (ym'sh) acted like a full accomplice & co-conspirator with Putin for criminal acts, including the undermining of the 2016 election?

Well, that's how #MoscowMitch acts towards Trump (ym'sh) re: the war against America, punctuated by the insurrection.

29.11/ Went to take out the garbage and needed to experiment with the snow. It made a very fine snowball. So, I brought it indoors. I had a heady feeling, as if I was armed and dangerous. Some hijinks ensued. My daughter was privileged to actually get to hurl it (out the door)

29.12/ I've suggested a link b/w #GroundhogDay and Tu B'shvat (TBSh). TBSh is day of earliest tree buds as well as a month before Purim & 6 wks before Spring (Rosh Chodesh Nisan). And like Feb 2, the Beit Din could add an extra Adar if by TBSh the weather is too cold/wet.

29.13/ One of three proposed threads about last week's parsha, #Beshalach. The first is on a proposed definition of the word "chamushim" in the opening topic.

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1356791159616585728?s=20

29.14/ What's the term for when you already disliked a guy for ruining your team and you find out he's terrible in other demonstrable, unethical ways?

TBH, many of the traits of bad managers overlap with abusive degeneracy. #LGM
metsmerizedonline.com/2021/02/former…

29.15/ Quick thread on my musings about the question of current GOP cult members as to whether they were always the really crazed and cruel people who're acting very dangerous right now.

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1357048628204822530?s=20

29.16/ The second #Beshalach thread is here. The topic, in short is "midrash & halakha & manna & cybernetics on Shabbat"

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1357102646717464583?s=20

29.17/ A yes, the ol' online book shopping experience of "lowest price $2.96? That's great! Wait, $27.99 for shipping?! Where's it coming from, Mars?" I fall for it too often.

OK, checked, it's from Faridabad, a suburb of Delhi. But still, Amazon, this is a nasty bait & switch.

29.18/ On an 80s music spree right now and came across "A View to a Kill" which was the rare Bond film where the song/video was 100 times better than the actual movie.

Hey, maybe I'll start a rumor that the song came first & the movie was an adaptation!

29.19/ Thread from one year ago. Tipping my hat to a fellow social scientist who does what we can do best: predict the future based on current data and basic social trends

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1222921758375927808

29.20/ Prof. Wilson is spot on here re: currents in online Leftism and it reminds me of the trajectory of neo-cons, many of whom started as communists but ended on the Right. In my observation, many of them worship strength/bullying b/c of low self-regard.

https://twitter.com/ProfBrettWilson/status/1355623957014081538?s=20

29.21/ This is a good point re: QMTG and the GOP. The hard ceiling for her potential rise is that misogyny is core to the white supremacist brand. Doesn't reduce her danger, but Palin is an object lesson for how far violent kooky women can rise in the GOP

https://twitter.com/mbillips/status/1355561683637465091?s=20

29.22/ First of all, yes:

"if you own body armor but wear your mask under your nose you are bad at threat analysis"

Second, I wonder if these solider-cosplayers would wear a mask if it were a full 1950s Cold War era gas-mask?

https://twitter.com/magpiekilljoy/status/1355581372132446209?s=20

29.23/ OK, this has stuck with me this week. There's really something to the idea that any execution done for purely theological reasons, especially of someone who disagrees with the religious premise, is a form of human sacrifice

https://twitter.com/Potatopolitics/status/1355448619890073602?s=20

29.24/ This is an important framing.

https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1355885131391787008?s=20

29.25/ Sen. Schatz's audience is actually the political press who appear to have swallowed the GOP talking points whole. The MSM adopts this familiar double standard for every conflict where one side is normal & the other crazy (cf. the Maztav)

https://twitter.com/brianschatz/status/1355931689013239813?s=20

29.26/ Not sure what happened but Chrome just Thanosed and closed half of my tabs just willy-nilly. Luckily I use SessionBuddy to preserve my windows, but that was jarring, esp. since this morning DropBox stopped working on my old tablet. Is this a Y2K curse today?

29.27/ This is excellent framing:

https://twitter.com/lionel_trolling/status/1355898632214630405?s=20

29.28/ OK, now I understand the Thanos of my tabs (see 29.26): evidently another extension I use, The Great Suspender, was judged malware and abruptly zapped.

https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/1357389259666202625?s=20

29.29/ My feeling as well. Many of the conservatives that I know from the Northeast - who would be to the left of the Democrats I knew when I lived in the South - seem motivated by a cultural antipathy to Northern liberals. Cultural, not political.

https://twitter.com/drvolts/status/1356002206177087488?s=20

29.30/ Oh my is this so true. I've said for years that America is unfortunately a culturally cruel place. The ethic of "individualism" doesn't come from respecting others, rather from selfish greed. This can be reversed only when we identify & expose it

https://twitter.com/dynamicsymmetry/status/1356062445119401984?s=20

29.31/ Yup.

"White people stop using ableist language to describe racist people challenge"

IMO it's a problem with the English language as of now; b/c while racism is a moral failing, our lang/culture prefers to give biological reasons for moral error.

https://twitter.com/wagatwe/status/1355878171631992835?s=20

29.32/ Very well said.

And yet another example of my observation that many conservatives are #Literalist/surface thinkers. My current favorite example is how George Conway didn't know DJT was racist until he used the slur "go back where they came from"

https://twitter.com/MenshevikM/status/1355952362897203200?s=20

29.33/ This is about the dog shampoo story-line from earlier this week (in short: some masochist enjoyed public humiliation, a sub-use of Twitter I never understood) and this is my favorite entry comment to that brouhaha

https://twitter.com/The_Law_Boy/status/1355930300740755465?s=20

29.34/ This is helpful.

In general, I've tried to analyze the gendered language I use in descriptions. As a result, for non-men, I've increased my usage of terms I had mentally assigned as masculine: e.g. "genius" "powerful" "incomparable" "savant" etc.

https://twitter.com/hamlinr1/status/1355884001366581293?s=20

29.35/ 100% right & I've been saying this for years

The publishers, the gatekeepers, in the MSM are not liberal. The reporters may be, but those are mere voices while the entire structure, frame, perspective etc. is about protecting entrenched power/money

https://twitter.com/dreamingnoctis/status/1355985094385807367?s=20

29.36/ I love this. And, look, this is an important superpower of Biden: to be able to say this kind of thing while being the most powerful person on Earth yet simultaneously come across as authentic.

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1356078800845627402?s=20

29.37/ I have been saying this for so long. Politics is a profession and there are expert levels of playing. Manchin is a Democrat in a blood-red state, that takes enormous talent, and Fecke is pointing out one of the tricks the guy uses

https://twitter.com/jkfecke/status/1356094869169573891?s=20

29.38/ Rav Dr. Twerski's passing hits very hard for me. Dying of COVID when the vaccine is finally here?! My God!

A chassidic rebbe/MD who focused on treating addiction, he had an irreplaceable voice & expertise & was the highest level of Kiddush Hashem
ou.org/blog/orthodox-…

29.39/ This presentation by the Biden admin. rocks. The unity of Biden's vision is to unify the American people, to do things that helps the country and are massively popular. So much shade in the subtext!

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1357757082703904768?s=20

29.40/ Thank goodness! Didn't want to deal with a wackadoodle troll on the #Mets. Good riddance to bad trouble.

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1357780870321623046?s=20

29.41/ I had so much more planned for writing this week. But technical issues and associated pandemic nonsense has stymied me yet again. Please God it will be a #ShabbatShalom.

@threadreaderapp please unroll.

@threader_app please compile.