Twitter roundup: When the moon hits your eye
No Raptors spoilers! Dinosaur bones, comrade Dolly, and being furious on behalf of Caster Semenya.
I didn’t spend too much time on Twitter this week! I’d say it was more of an average performance, time-wise. Still lots to show for it, though, you lucky duck.
Since I’m writing to you from the past, the Raptors’ game 7 hasn’t happened yet. It is but hours away. You stressed? I’m stressed. They’re the better team.
In hopes of saving up some goodwill for next week’s likely barrage of sports tweets, you got off easy this week. There are no allusions to the stupid cheating Astros or the playoff-seeded Jays, and not a peep about Kyle Lowry being the greatest Raptor of all time. ALL. TIME. Look at him, how can he not be the best?
Fine, one peep, but only because it’s true.
Let’s gooooooooo!
Having friends who are funnier than you is like a good school. Sometimes it’s hard to admit, but sometimes you learn something.
What even is “health” anyway
Oh look, another beautiful place to not write a book. Something something, materialism versus The Disposessed. [No judgment, I’m warming up!]
For some reason my brain read this tweet in the voice of a Welsh grandma. She’s right! I might have a lie-down right now after this large breakfast sandwich (yes I know it’s 2pm, breakfast foods are acceptable for every meal, leave me alone)
[saved you a click]
An absolutely unconscionable decision came down from the Swiss courts this week, banning three-time 800m world champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya from competing due to testosterone levels that naturally exceed the typical range of female athletes. In order to compete, she would have to undergo drug therapy or surgery to alter her hormone production.
Athletes at this level all have predispositions to excel in their fields, whether it be increased lung capacity, low lactic acid production, or simply being tall. To ban an athlete at the pinnacle of her career for the innate characteristics that contribute to her success is another vivid reminder of our culture’s obsession with enforcing the sexual binary. This is an exercise in colonial violence that impacts the bodies and lives of athletes like Caster Semenya who don’t fit the biological mold of what western culture deems acceptable.
From Semenya herself:
“I am very disappointed by this ruling, but refuse to let World Athletics drug me or stop me from being who I am,” she said. “Excluding female athletes or endangering our health solely because of our natural abilities puts World Athletics on the wrong side of history.”
From the Associated Press:
“World Athletics argued that gave her and other female athletes like her with [differences of sex development] conditions and high natural testosterone an unfair advantage.”
This week in J.D. Teaches Us Something About Space, two black holes collided in the universe far, far, away and long ago. But we know it happened!
That’s what friends are for!
If you liked last week’s piece on life in space, here’s some more of that sweet, sweet moon content. Worth a click to zoom.
When the moon wants to split and it breaks from orbit; that’s a foray
Dolly Rebecca Parton is the number one employer in Sevier County, Tennessee, thanks to her Dollywood theme park and theatre centre. She’s also distributed over 100 million books (you heard me) through her Imagination Library, and formed a six-month universal basic income programs for wildfire victims in 2016 to the tune of over $9 million.
@ArtDecider is this art
[yes]
And here are my favourites of the week:
We can care about more than one thing at a time. From Vogue’s June issue, here’s Black environmentalist Leah Thomas on the failures of climate justice-seekers to include BIPOC lives in their work:
“Why is fighting for my humanity considered an optional or special add-on to climate justice? I’ve stood beside white environmentalists during climate protests, but I’ve felt abandoned by my community during acts of unjustifiable violence toward Black and Brown people. I’ve had enough. The time is now to examine the ways the Black Lives Matter movement and environmentalism are linked.”
And an unfortunate miscommunication [sound on, it’s wORTH IT]
