Buffy

Trying to be a true reflection of my creator.

[Jason Henrichs @jasonhenrichs]

If you pass kids selling lemonade, you stop, buy lemonade, overpay, complement the kids, and drive on your merry way. Those are the rules.

[Liz Wolfe @LizWolfeReason]

Unintentionally heartbreaking. Doing it *to this degree* is reserved for the ultra-wealthy, but *plenty* of upper-middle-class families in big cities like New York do a version of this. When so much of parenting & household-management is professionalized:
-the standards ratchet upwards (naturally, parenting/taking care of children is more intensive when it's the *sole* thing someone is tasked w doing, as opposed to the traditional SAHM model where the mom is tackling like seven things at once)
-community becomes fragmented or nonexistent (because everything is transactional, and every function of the family is outsourced, so swapping watching one another's kids or cooking dinner for another family that just drops in no longer happens)
-kids don't necessarily learn how to manage their future households and learn critical life skills (like how to do their own laundry, clean their own bathrooms, or––yes––take care of younger siblings)

We have replaced "the village" we so deeply crave with a professionalized advice economy (sleep consultants, lactation consultants, night nannies, day nannies, nannies you take on vacation with you, postpartum doulas, parenting coaches, bike-riding consultants) and then wonder why we're lonely and spiritually undernourished.

[Maryam @hell_line0]

Ok hear me out: instead of all of us having to become extremely knowledgeable on a new infectious disease every 3-6 months, what if we got a large group of experts together and just put them in charge of giving us easy to understand health recommendations. They could also do things like track outbreaks and predict future concerns.

[Buffy @launchplanb]

@FreddyLA7 So glad you’re back!

[Simon Maechling @simonmaechling]

The greatest irony of scientific progress is this: when science succeeds, people stop seeing the problems it solved. Eventually, they begin to believe those problems never existed in the first place.

[‏ً @omgsidewalks]

“Scientists don’t want you to know” is a phrase that cracks me up always, cause if you actually meet a scientist, they will be shaking and crying like an overexcited golden retriever, desperate to tell you everything they know.

[British Embassy Washington @UKinUSA]

The greatest ex we ever had 😢

[U.S. Soccer Men's National Team @USMNT]

The Best of U.S.

❤️ @balogun

[Summie's write @RuthSummie]

"You should read before bed to help you get sleepy." is the biggest lie i’ve ever been told. i’ll be up until 3am, fully invested.

[Tomos Doran 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇮🇱🕊️ 🇵🇸 @portraitinflesh]

Not sure if this 100% answers the question, but this @Quora answer has stuck with me ever since I first read it. I find it unbearably moving.

[Buffy @launchplanb]

What a remarkable story!

[Bob Elder @southernphd]

I never met Gordon Wood, but I have a story about him.

In one of my grad school seminars, we read Wood’s Creation of the American Republic. The sheer erudition and evidentiary depth of the book bowled me over.

Back then, before kids and before life accelerated to warp speed, I used to call my mother every Sunday to catch up. Lots of times, we ended up talking about what I was reading that week in my grad seminars or for leisure. Mom had an omnivorous mind, and she was always looking for something else to read. She was a true intellectual—curious about almost everything, always eager to integrate new arguments or ideas into her existing schemas of how the world worked or to have those schemas challenged and changed.

When we talked that particular Sunday, I think I tried to describe to her part of Wood’s argument about the relationship between the state constitutions during the Articles of Confederation era and the federal Constitution. Maybe I was tired, maybe I didn’t completely understand her questions, but the end result of the conversation was that Mom had questions about Wood’s argument that I didn’t answer satisfactorily. I told her that she should probably just read the book, and we said goodbye.

She did eventually read the book, but the next Sunday, Mom started our conversation by saying, “Well, I had a lovely conversation with Gordon Wood this week.” For a split second, I thought she was joking, but then I remembered who I was dealing with. I started to sweat. “How?” I asked. A whole variety of unlikely scenarios in which the foremost historian of the American Revolution and my mother, who lived in Wichita, Kansas, might have met ran through my mind. “Oh, I just looked up his office phone number on Brown’s website and called, and he picked up!” Mom said. I decided I would have to find another profession.

As it ended up, Gordon Wood spent about an hour on the phone with my mother answering her questions about the Constitution. Ever since, I’ve had a soft spot for the man when I imagine him picking up the phone in Providence and finding Becky Elder from Wichita on the other end of the line. His generosity in that moment spoke very well of him.

Rest in peace, professor.

[Buffy @launchplanb]

@KSPrior This is so good!

[Buffy @launchplanb]

@RighttoTryGuy @JohnBoozman - As a physician, I’m sure you understand better than most the urgency and critical importance of your support & advocacy for this patient!

[maddie rune🪰 @themaddierune]

You are not the only one who has felt this very peculiar and unspeakable thing. Someone has already written it down. Someone sat alone with the same unbearable weight you are carrying right now and they survived it long enough to find words for it. That is what the whole of human literature is. Millions of people saying: me too, me too, me too…in the dark, across centuries, reaching forward through time to find you. You are not alone in this, you never were. The writers were always writing specifically to you. They just didn’t know your name.

[YIMBYLAND @YIMBYLAND]

This is legitimately insane.

Banning cell phones in schools might turn out to be the best thing we’ve done for our kids in a generation.

[Rep. Melanie Stansbury @Rep_Stansbury]

For all those still feeling the moon joy—Artemis II was brought to you by public schools and publicly funded science. Copy that! 👩‍🚀🚀💕

*All four astronauts went to public schools!

[Michael Beschloss @BeschlossDC]

President Eisenhower in blooming White House Rose Garden with Dr. Jonas Salk, today 1955, celebrating success of new polio vaccine:

[LetsGoDU @LetsGoDU]

DENVER HAS DONE IT AGAIN!!!!! The Pioneers have won their record 11th national title!

[Barry Bonzack @bonzack]

"...I looked at thousands of people cheering, and it's wonderful. All America stood together for this. That's what we need in America. I am proud of them all, from the Janitor to the astronauts"

Not a quote from Mr. Isaacman. Not Wiseman, not Glover, nor Koch.

THAT'S MY GRANDMA

[Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇬🇪🇲🇩 @acoyne]

These astronauts are just a balm: impossibly cheery, down to earth, committed, decent. They are clearly extraordinary people, and yet reassuringly normal. At a time when the news is dominated by people who are either cruel or corrupt or insane or incompetent or all of the above, they remind us not all is lost.