Poppets! Happy Monday my loves, how I’ve missed you. Last week was the week of 6:30 AM calls, and boy am I just tired in general. So here is a mixture of long-ish and no-so-long reads because my Instapaper queue is just unwieldy. BTW, it was only in typing the word “unwiedly” three times to try and get rid of the red squiggly lines underneath it did I realize I may have been saying “unwieldy” wrong for much of my life, and now that word has lost all meaning as I mutter it under my breath over and over. Language is fun.

TO THE INTERWEBS

• So let me get this straight: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is normally vehemently anti-union, unless said unions are organizing in a tech company with a left-leaning CEO because that company is “waging a culture war against working-class values?” (USA Today) As Intelligencer points out, Rubio has previously co-sponsored “right-to-work” legislation, opposes the $15 minimum wage, and was all gung ho for anti-Labor Trump appointees, but now he’ll go all Norma Rae if how a company dares to choose what it sells as a private business is counter to his delicate GOP feels? Am I reading that right? I do not understand “conservatism” anymore, this op-ed is full-on bonkers and the intellectual dishonesty is head-spinning and I’ll just leave you with the only image in my head I ever have of Rubio.

  

• LOUDER, FOR THE FOLKS IN THE BACK: Friend of the Missive Hunter Walk makes the point that tech companies will not be able to effectively tackle “Misinformation, trolling, harassment, polarization” if they don’t decouple those efforts from revenue/monetization key performance indicators (KPIs). But that begs the question, Walk asks, what are KPIs that will incentivize real change while keeping shareholders happy, especially, as Walk’s subhead points out, “Facebook’s Responsible AI Team Needs To Be Able To Lose Money In Order To Do Its Job.”

• What’s happening to female journalists online is scary and unacceptable: Online harassment of female journalists is real, and it’s increasingly hard to endure. (Washington Post)

• And finally, someone on the tweeters posted this 2019 NPR piece and I cannot remember who, but it’s not just you, Brussels sprouts do taste better now than they did when you were a kid. 

• Oh oh oh one more, this drone commercial is the coolest damned thing and you must watch it: A Drone Went Bowling. Hollywood Noticed. (NYT)

You’re lovely. Wear a mask, be kind to each other, and don’t forget to drink water today.

xoxo Amy