I’ve just finished some research about the use of biosolids (human sewage sludge) as farm manure. The results will keep me awake at night.
¾ of biosolids in the UK are spread on farmland. The rules about what it can contain are not fit for purpose. Please read and share this 🧵

I’m contemplating leaving @twitter. The platform has proven to be instrumental in harming people with marginalized identities, which normally I wouldn’t blame a media platform for except that @jack has demonstrated negative interest in doing anything about it.

in the past when I’ve thought about this I’ve thought about it from the perspective of my own safety/comfort. And I’m good on that front; I can handle it. But now I’m thinking about it differently: thinking about the people who tell me they join or stay on twitter because of me.

Every time someone in the press refers to me as a “twitter celebrity” (actual phrase that I don’t fully understand or subscribe to but this is what people say) it means that my presence and voice are adding social cachet to a company that I find to be quite terrible.

People tell me that they learn a lot from what I have to say here, and sometimes that it’s their first or only exposure to certain ideas, histories, perspectives, etc. and I have to weigh that too. But I could post that stuff elsewhere.

We’ll see. I’m just thinking aloud for now but I’m watching closely to see what @twitter and @jack do in the coming days and how they respond to what we now know about Cesar Sayoc (beyond one really stupid tweet). Because we know it’s not just him. Big changes need to happen.

My little Jacob Wohl story: August 2016, we're sitting around the trading turrets at my office on a bored to tears slow day. Our receptionist said someone was here for his 2pm appointment. None of us had an appointment on schedule. Who is it? we ask? Some guy named Jacob Wohl 1/

Jacob Wohl, for those out of loop, gained quite a bit of notoriety for becoming the youngest guy to ever get himself barred for life from the financial industry. Now he's waiting in our lobby to pitch something. We're a large merchant bank. 2/

Send him in, we said. In walks young Jacob asking to be seeded with $25mm to start a new hedge fund in exchange for an ownership stake in it. Oh, & he needs an office. And a Bloomberg station. And needs to borrow staff until he can hire some guys. And he needs a leased car... 3/

And he needs an answer today. Right now. Because there's a competing offer from Izzy Englander's firm Millenium (we know those guys well). We fight the urge to literally start laughing, but do ask him...hey, you the same guy who got banned by regulators? He didn't even flinch 4/

He went on about that being untrue & handed over a letter he said was from his lawyer who had confirmed he was not barred, had been vindicated but it 'just wasn't in the system yet at the SEC, CFTC'...whatever that means. 5/

We are all products of our own environments. Our environments shape our character, our personality, our habits, our identity.

The environment that Ousmane Dembélé grew up in and the environment that FC Barcelona seeks to engulf its youngsters with could not be more different.

The Great Gatsby starts with a life lesson.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

Ousmane hasn’t had the advantages that La Masia youngsters have had. That’s why he’s Ousmane.

Like every La Masia youngster, Ousmane grew up with a dream: playing for Barça.

Like every youngster, he fought to stand out amid a talented group of players, the majority of which would fail to go pro.

However, his football education was the polar opposite to that of La Masia.

Ousmane did not reside in one of the most expensive academies in Europe: he lived in a low-cost public housing unit in Normandy. He did not play in the well-trimmed pitches of La Masia, he played in the concrete jungles of Évreux. These disadvantages made him the man he is today.

While street soccer encourages individuality & creative freedom, academy-based training like La Masia encourages unselfishness & teamwork.

That’s why Barça produce certain types of 20-year-olds like a factory line. It’s also why Barça spent €145m on a 20-year-old Ousmane.

Thread:
A year ago, at this hour exactly I was in Maujpur in northeast Delhi. For days, weeks & months, I -- like several other reporters -- filed multiple stories on the #DelhiRiots. On the violence, the perpetrators, the victims, the burnt homes & shops, the fear.

I remember every minute of Feb 23, 2020 -- from the speeches to smoke billowing from afar. What I can't ever forget is the face of a man who sat alone in front of a shop, his kurta dusty and torn, blood on his forehead, unable to answer who he was & where he wanted to go.

I've his photo, I never posted it anywhere, and I won't either. He was in such shock, and there was no help around. I tried talking to him but he didn't say a word. He was numb.

It'll take me years before I can fully write down what happened that afternoon -- a stampede, stones flying all around me, a colleague who held nu hand & ran, another who lost her slipper for a minute, tear gas, my inhaler, salt.

I sent my mother messages, my hands trembling. At 1 am, I was home -- my head buried inside a pillow between my parents.

As a mom of 4 I have spent a significant amount of my time discussing the virtues of truth telling and the consequences of telling a lie, at this moment one of the kids is writing me an essay on using self-control to ensure her words are true.

On Monday @TuckerCarlson said, “The Green New Deal has come, believe it or not, to the state of Texas. How’s it working out so far?”

First GND is a resolution, second it hasn’t even been past, 3rd, we’re talking about TX. This is objectively false.

He went on to say, “Not a single major American city is prettier or more functional than it was in 1950. The parks that previous generations so lovingly built are filled with vagrants and junkies."

"The monuments they constructed are covered with spray paint. Public transportation is a disgrace. It’s filthy, the streets are dangerous. Are you really surprised that Cory Booker was once the mayor of Newark, New Jersey? You shouldn’t be.”

Wow, that’s a lot to unpack and has little to do with the lack of power in TX. For myself I believe the best is yet to come. I see the dog whistles there, and it’s an excellent example of racist demagoguery and a sure path towards the destruction of our democracy.