remember when every ad campaign for food aimed at kids had a bug-eyed, gremlin-like mascot and the mascot's schtick was that if you tried to eat the food it would appear and attack you? what was that. why was that done. pic.twitter.com/eyD38nqOSD

— Gretchen Felker-Martin (@scumbelievable) May 26, 2020

We were tougher back then, in the 1980s and 1990s. It really kept obesity down, having to fight a bug-eyed, gremlin-like monster every time you wanted, like, a slice of cheese or some cereal.

Economists: you can’t artificially prop up the economy forever

The Fed:

pic.twitter.com/K4gsHudXDL

— Morning Brew (@MorningBrew) May 26, 2020

Ok that made me laugh. That’s much of our economy now.

this is gross. who writes a ~4k word article on how "unremarkable" a lifeform is. whats really disappointing is how allergic to wonder some people can be https://t.co/o8fFpI3wao

— emily_ (@cosimia_) May 26, 2020

Dipshits, that’s who. Total disphits.

Paraphrasing Neal Stephenson, every lifeform on earth is a huge badass because each one contains genes that have survived more than 3 billion years.

Except that Slate mook, who contains mostly sludge.

Battle in Seattle was opposition to engaging with China and opening borders.

Modern left is now neoliberal.

I often think about this inflection point. Battle in Seattle was historic for this reason.

The MAGA right would support the black block protestors if it happened now. https://t.co/0Vk9GcAryF

— Jack Murphy (@jackmurphylive) May 24, 2020

Exactly. Whatever the left is now, it’s not something I recognize.

Olivia de Havilland rides a bike at age 103. pic.twitter.com/TQzvCcP8yn

— Larry Karaszewski (@Karaszewski) May 25, 2020

Holy shit. I had no idea at all that Olivia de Havilland was still alive. I thought she was long dead.

Why don't we have a vaccine for SARS? MERS? HIV? These viruses have been around longer than SARS-CoV-2. A mini-thread to provide some perspective and even a little dose of optimism. We are not in the same situation here. 1/7

— Natalie E. Dean, PhD (@nataliexdean) May 25, 2020

It’s been a long time since I’ve read my virology and epidemiology textbooks and I am certainly no expert, but if the drug companies can be convinced to keep working on a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, the chances we can develop one is about 95% from what I can tell.

If we do fail to develop one, the most likely reason for that is not that it’s technologically impossible but that it’s not profitable.

Apparently 00's pop is the sweet spot for "happy making music" for me. Earlier music I've heard too often, 2010s stuff has diverged too far from the music I grew up on in the 70s and 80s.

— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) May 26, 2020

Not me. These days I listen to a lot of Russian witch house and weirdo dubstep robots-having-sex-in-a-dryer type of stuff that didn’t even exist when I grew up.

give me a horror story from your specialty in five words or less

— status annoyicus (@medburnbook) May 22, 2020

“We don’t have any backups.”

The arc of history doesn’t bend unless you jump up and down on it https://t.co/YmWoxG7KX8

— John Leavitt 🌹 (@LeavittAlone) May 24, 2020

There is no arc of history. There is what you make happen and what you forego, chanting the centrist mantra of “nothing is possible.” The whole “arc of history” idea is just a high-minded gloss on the “nothing is possible” philosophy because it implies actions without actors, events without causes, and that justice occurs because it is moral.

This is not the way history bends and not what moves the world. Power and action mobilize change. Nothing else does.