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Unknown's avatar Chris Thilk 1:27 am on October 16, 2020  

lip service

In a striking new sign of the broader role corporations are shouldering in society, Business Roundtable — the CEOs of America’s biggest companies — today announced a raft of initiatives “to advance racial equity and justice.”

Top CEOs admit racial divide, promise to work for “real change” – Axios

Well, to be fair, they’ve only known this was a problem and talked about fixing it for like 40 or 50 years. Let’s see if this turns out like their pledge to value employees and customers instead of just shareholders, though.

Unknown's avatar Chris Thilk 1:22 am on October 16, 2020
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public schools

Comprehensive national data aren’t available yet, but reporting by NPR and our member stations, along with media reports from around the country, shows enrollment declines in dozens of school districts across 20 states.

Coronavirus Appears To Be Driving Student Enrollment Drops : NPR

Meanwhile, the wealthy are enrolling their kids in private schools. Yet another way in which we will feel the impact of this pandemic for generations.

Unknown's avatar Chris Thilk 1:19 am on October 16, 2020
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all pandemics are local

Though it’s difficult to quantify the effect of declining local news coverage on our capacity to monitor infectious disease, it’s clear that local information is best positioned to prevent outbreaks. “A pandemic starts at the local level,” Madoff says. “The closer you can get to identifying a cluster and outbreak at its origin, the better. The further you get from the local, the bigger an outbreak needs to be before it gets noticed or picked up and the more likely it is to spread.”

The decline of local newsrooms could make it harder for us to detect the next disease outbreak – Columbia Journalism Review

Thank you, Facebook.

Unknown's avatar Chris Thilk 1:54 am on October 12, 2020
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needed public transit

Cities urgently need to convince residents that it’s safe to ride public transit if they want to recover from the coronavirus-induced double whammy of dwindling ridership and higher fixed costs.

Public transit faces “existential” challenge after the pandemic – Axios

There hasn’t been enough conversation over the last several months about the necessary role public transit plays and the support needed to keep it operational. And this concern needs to be put in the context of reports the Trump Administration blocked CDC guidelines mandating masks etc on public transportation.

Unknown's avatar Chris Thilk 1:51 am on October 12, 2020
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traitors

It’s not often that you see a US senator declare that “we’re not a democracy,” let alone to paint that as a good thing. Yet that’s exactly what Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) did in a pair of tweets spanning Wednesday night and Thursday morning, arguing that “democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity [sic] are.”

Sen. Mike Lee’s tweets against “democracy,” explained – Vox

No other way to frame this.

Unknown's avatar Chris Thilk 6:53 pm on October 7, 2020
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banned…maybe

Facebook is banning all pages, groups, and accounts associated with QAnon, the company announced on Tuesday, in the most significant action taken against the mass delusion that has seeped into the highest level of American politics.

Facebook Has Banned QAnon

This is great, but Facebook’s enforcement of existing rules and bans leaves a lot to be desired so we’ll see how this actually plays out in reality.

Unknown's avatar Chris Thilk 9:38 pm on October 6, 2020
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anti-union

The 11-page document, dated February 2020, describes Amazon’s plans to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to better analyze and visualize data on unions around the globe, alongside other non-union “threats” to the company related to factors like crime and weather.

Leaked Amazon internal memo reveals new software to track unions – Vox

As always, you can usually tell how good an idea something is by how vehemently those in power seek to prevent it happening.

Unknown's avatar Chris Thilk 2:34 am on October 2, 2020  

let it all burn

Coinbase, a major cryptocurrency exchange based in Silicon Valley, has announced that it will not engage with pressing social issues such as racial injustice and is offering exit packages to employees who disagree.

Coinbase Is Showing Workers With a Conscience the Door

While certainly reprehensible, at least this jack weed isn’t engaging in the same play-acting other tech CEOs do. They all are fine with the world burning down around them as long as they get their payout.