haplologist

I teach Rhetoric at Boston U's College of General Studies. Interests include mantra meditation, Ashtanga yoga, opera, GTD.

[haplologist @haplologist]

@TodayinHistory Donald Trump’s election victory, such as it was, over Hillary Clinton.

[haplologist @haplologist]

@RaminNasibov Lode Runner

[haplologist @haplologist]

@MrPunyapal Deployment

[haplologist @haplologist]

@TodayinHistory Entirely depends on the season.

[haplologist @haplologist]

@MrPunyapal Livewire

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

Barney Frank was one of a kind. For more than three decades in Congress, he fought tirelessly for the people of Massachusetts, helped make housing more affordable, stood up for the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, and helped pass one of the most sweeping financial reforms in history designed to protect consumers and prevent another financial crisis. Barney’s passion and wit were second to none, and our thoughts are with his family today.

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

Donald Trump just stole $1.7B from us — and he's creating a slush fund to reward his political allies.

I've never seen anything like this in my 50 years in politics.

It makes Nixon look like a boy scout.

https://t.co/h50c8yzXtJ

[Heather Sutton @heathercsutton]

The United States already owns an official ballroom.

It is Mellon Auditorium and sits, appropriately, on Constitution Ave.

And, fantastically, it was just renovated in 2023.

So, it's time to stop talking about a $1 Billion dollar ballroom.

https://t.co/3MchJGdOGI

[haplologist @haplologist]

@_akpiper They’ve been around for a decade.

[Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600]

If you have this weird gut feeling that the rich pay little tax in the US, your gut is spot on... Source: https://t.co/4oB5o7f4cT

[haplologist @haplologist]

@mikemoviez Yunnan black snail. (This week. Usually some sort of yunnan or Keemun). Always with milk. Teabags only when I’m in the UK.

[scha·den·freu·de  @BlisterPearl]

The US government already has a ballroom just down the street. The Andrew Mellon Auditorium is less than a mile away from the White House is beautiful and accommodates more people than the new ballroom will and is owned by the U.S. Government.
via Shelia Earl

[Jean Twenge (author of 10 RULES, GENERATIONS) @jean_twenge]

Reading scores, 3rd graders to 8th graders, 2015 to 2025. This is a national tragedy.

[(((Tendar))) @Tendar]

After 12 years of absence during the Orban rule, the Hungarian parliament raised the EU flag again.

It is the latest sign that you should never surrender to populism or any other form of radicalism, even when the odds are against you.

This is a decisive European victory.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

YES. YES. I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS. I started a spreadsheet in 2019 tracking every category where America is number one globally and people keep asking me to stop bringing it to Thanksgiving.

We lead the PLANET in medical debt. Not the developed world. The PLANET. There are countries where "medical bankruptcy" doesn't translate because the CONCEPT doesn't exist in their language. We invented it. We EXPORTED it as a field of academic study. German researchers fly here to observe it happening in real time. They take NOTES. We are a living laboratory and the experiment is "what if you made people choose between insulin and rent." We chose. Exposed. This is the thing we're best at.

We lead in incarceration. More humans in cages than China. China has 1.4 billion people and an authoritarian government and we STILL have more prisoners. We beat AUTHORITARIANS at their own game using FREEDOM. We did it with both parties cooperating across NINE administrations. Name ONE other bipartisan project that lasted fifty years. You can't. This is our moon landing. We just don't film it.

We lead in insulin pricing. $300 for a vial that costs $30 in Canada. Canada is VISIBLE FROM DETROIT. You can see Canada from a Walgreens parking lot where someone is deciding between half-doses. The same molecule. The same manufacturer. The border adds $270 of LEADERSHIP. That's what leading looks like. It looks like a 900% markup on not dying.

We lead in mass shootings. Not per capita. Not adjusted. RAW TOTAL. We have so many that researchers had to invent subcategories. School. Workplace. Concert. Grocery store. We have a TAXONOMY. Other countries have incidents. We have a CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM with peer-reviewed SORTING CRITERIA. That's infrastructure. That's RIGOR.

We lead in healthcare spending AND in maternal mortality among rich nations. Simultaneously. We spend $4.3 trillion a year and mothers die at rates that would concern a developing nation. We spent MORE money to get WORSE outcomes so consistently that it can't be incompetence. Incompetence wouldn't be this RELIABLE. This takes PLANNING. This is an ACHIEVEMENT of systems working exactly as designed across multiple industries cooperating to extract value from the specific biological event of someone trying not to die.

We lead in per-capita spending on our military while our veterans sleep in tents. We allocated $886 billion to defense and our soldiers come home to a VA waitlist so long that some of them die on it. We spent the money. We just didn't spend it on THEM. The money went somewhere. It led the way. Just not toward the people who fought.

I printed this tweet on a 24x36 poster. It's in my living room. My wife moved out last month but she didn't take the poster so I think she agrees.

[haplologist @haplologist]

@Kasparov63 @theamazingdrj And his little speech here is just a string of cliches we’ve all heard a thousand times before and that any career politician could easily recite by heart. I’m not impressed.

[haplologist @haplologist]

@dwinnera @JoyceCarolOates Nor was there any British equivalent to the Jan 6 riot — after which America elected Trump to the presidency for a second time. That’s why so much of the world is giving up on the US.

[Today in History @TodayinHistory]

May 7, 1663: The Theatre Royal opened in London.

It is now known as the Drury Lane Theatre, and it’s the oldest English theater still in use!

[Richard Stengel @stengel]

Can reporters stop using the word deal? It’s an agreement, a settlement, a treaty, an understanding, an MOU etc. Using the word deal is accepting his simple-minded TV game-show framing and contributes to the bogus drama he is trying to create.