A curious theme emerged when we were compiling this week’s #NewstodonFriday — the importance of down-ballot elections in the U.S. School choice, state judicial elections, and school boards don’t get a lot of attention, but can have a long-lasting, outsized impact on people’s lives. If you’re motivated to run for something and don’t know how, it’s worth following @amandalitm, who founded the Run For Something organization. But we digress.
Also in this week’s selection, find stories about alternatives to loss and damage funds for climate disasters, going incognito, Infowars, earwigs, and, of course, Elon Musk. Please check out the stories, follow the publications, click on the stories, subscribe, donate and otherwise support if you can.
1/12
Don’t worry, America, Elon Musk is coming to save you — or so the AI slop going megaviral on Facebook would have you believe. @404mediaco reports on proliferating nonsense about how Trump’s latest BFF is going to solve climate change and the housing crisis.
[This story may be paywalled]
2/12
Loss and damage funds that are supposed to help countries hit by climate disasters are nowhere near adequate. For @TheConversationUS, Erin Coughlan de Perez looks at other ways governments and organizations can help those in need.
3/12
No one likes school vouchers — even conservative voters. Here’s @ProPublica’s story on how “school choice” was rejected at the polls in Kentucky, Nebraska, Colorado, but is sneaking through as Republicans build legislative majorities that can enact voucher laws, regardless of what voters want.
https://www.propublica.org/article/school-vouchers-2024-election-trump
4/12
Here’s another story on how important state elections are in the U.S. For @bolts, @taniel covers how, with SCOTUS locked in for the conservatives, judicial elections at the state level are increasingly important, and what happened at last week’s election.
https://boltsmag.org/state-supreme-court-results-2024/
5/12
PTX Diverse is an advocacy group in Princeton, Texas, one of America’s fastest growing cities. Its goal is to promote diverse education, and it was also the organizer of Princeton’s Pride events for several years. @TexasObserver reports on how the city’s school board used technicalities in its permitting to cancel Pride. “The school board’s votes represent one of the first Pride events ever canceled by a government entity in the state, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas, transforming Princeton’s LGBTQ+ advocates into a symbol of progressive Texans’ struggle to survive in pockets of the state that have been targeted for right-wing school board takeovers,” writes Candice Bernd.
https://www.texasobserver.org/pride-and-prejudice-in-princeton/
6/12
A rallying cry from @damemagazine as Kaitlin Byrd asks, “Can anything stop Trump now?”
“The system would not stop Donald Trump. Ballots didn’t either,” she writes. “But we will be enough. We will not acquiesce. And when we meet our next turn at the crossroads of time, we will know that we did everything we could.”
https://www.damemagazine.com/2024/11/12/can-anything-stop-trump-now/
7/12
Now, to earwigs, which seemingly have more vibrant social lives than we do (though based on this @KnowableMag story, we’ll stick with what we’ve got). Tim Vernimmen writes about their 20-hour mating rituals, peculiar penises, protective parenting, and occasional cannibalism.
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2024/social-life-of-earwigs
8/12
A new French film, “L’Histoire de Souleymane” (Souleymane’s Story) is reviewed in the latest edition of @thecontinent. Here’s what they thought of this story of a young Guinean man’s undocumented life in Paris.
“[Abou] Sangare’s emotional performance explores Souleymane’s vulnerabilities and anxieties as if they were his own. Perhaps it helped that the actor himself had only recently been granted a six-month temporary visa in France after living undocumented since 2017. He knew those anxieties intimately,” write Line Sidonie and Talla Mafotsing.
https://continent.substack.com/p/review-a-ride-through-paris-and-life
9/12
How does technology impact your life and community, and how would you represent that in a photo? If you know how, and have the shot, enter @restofworld's photography contest. Find out more about the rules here — the contest is open for entries until Nov. 30.
https://restofworld.org/pages/photography-contest-2024/
10/12
If you are pregnant and seeking an abortion, you need to ensure you get accurate information, and can protect your privacy. Here’s @themarkup's story on everything from how to read Google search results to getting good advice while staying anonymous.
https://themarkup.org/the-breakdown/2024/11/14/privacy-guide-go-incognito
11/12
@Flipboard @ProPublica We have this in Sweden. Quite unique. Allowing various mobs to reqruit children for offing targets. It is not a good recepie.
@Flipboard@flipboard.social @ProPublica@newsie.social
…but is sneaking through as Republicans build legislative majorities that can enact voucher laws, regardless of what voters want.People need to stop voting for "teams" and start voting for issues that are important to them.
@ferricoxide @ProPublica Yes, in the recent election, a lot of people voted to pass abortion ballot measures and then elected Republicans. It remains to be seen how that will work out for them...
@Flipboard@flipboard.social @ProPublica@newsie.social
Even if republicans in their own states don't (try to) end-run them, any federal bans override state-level protections.
@Flipboard @amandalitm New Mexico is all blue of late. But -- for over 3 years (at least) we have had 8 years Dem, 8 years GOP for Governor. If Republicans get control again, they will go HARD after abortion. Probably alternative energy; too bad because we are sunny and windy.
@Flipboard@flipboard.social @amandalitm@threads.net
Threads.Net is a blocked domain on the instance I use (and a lot of instances, given the whole FediPact thing).
@ferricoxide Thanks for the heads up! Does that mean users from instances where Threads is blocked can't see the first post in the thread at all? If so, we'll avoid tagging Threads users in our Newstodon posts in the future, since the whole purpose is to highlight accounts that are active on Mastodon! (Mentioning Amanda was really just an aside!).
@Flipboard@flipboard.social '
If I click on a Threads user's @
, all I get is an error. I can't speak to what other fedi-implementations get if their domain participates in FediPact.
@ferricoxide Thanks for letting us know!