Show 'Em You're a Tiger

Earlier today, Toronto police moved the participants of a days-long Tamil protest in front of the U.S. Consulate off of a major downtown street and onto the sidewalk. There were apparently about 100 protesters today, down from the roughly 4,000 that initially blocked off the high-traffic area when the protest began on Sunday and had continued to do so until this morning.

The protesters are advocating for international intervention in the civil war that has raged in Sri Lanka for the past 25 years. They support the LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, a militia that has fought for an independent Tamil state within Sri Lanka and has been branded a terrorist organization by more than 30 countries - including Canada - for using reprehensible tactics such as suicide bombing and the recruitment of child soldiers. The Sri Lankan government, over the course of the war, has carried out several massacres of its own, so this is one of those conflicts where it's not easy to pick a side, especially from this (uneducated) distance. Thus, I'll leave judgments on who's right - or who's less wrong - to the experts.  

What I'm curious about is what this protest, and its eventual relocation to the sidewalk, implies about freedom of assembly and freedom of speech laws and their applications in Canada. The protests have been almost uniformly peaceful, although police did arrest 15 protesters last night. And certainly, the freedom to band together in a public space to speak up about an issue is one of Western society's most important differentiating ideals. To have squashed the protest or carried out mass arrests based not on criminal activity but on the inconvenience of blocking off busy streets would have appeared to be the actions of a police state.

But there is that issue of inconvenience. At what point does a municipal or provincial or federal government have the right and responsibility to step in and shut down the people who are shutting down a section of the city? The area of the protest is home to three major hospitals and a high density of economic activity, neither of which could have been allowed to be disrupted indefinitely.

Once the numbers went down, the police moved the protesters to a less disruptive location, and for the most part, the protesters complied. Problem solved, for now. But what if their numbers had remained in the thousands? At some point, the collective rights of the city's inhabitants would have collided with the rights of the protesters. Given that the police had already waited five days to relocate the protest, it's not clear what would have happened. 

If anything, though, it was a testament to both the protesters and the rest of the city's population that this inconvenience didn't (or hasn't yet, I should say) result in more heated confrontation.

Standing Up For...???

Earlier this week, Canadian Business blogger (and - disclosure note - friend and former colleague) Bryan Borzykowski warned Canadians not to expect too much in the way of exciting policy announcements from Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff at the party's convention, which begins tomorrow. That's because, as Borzykowski pointed out in an earlier post, Iggy had to go quickly into backpedal mode the last time he made a clear economic policy statement - the always-popular "raising taxes" refrain.

What does Iggy stand for? is the question Borzykowski poses, adding that we might have gotten closer to an answer if the once-expected leadership duel between Ignatieff and coulda-been-a-contendah- Bob Rae had ever materialized. Instead, what we'll get is bland platitudes, an orgy of self-congratulation and a nice, easy coronation for Iggy.

Which wouldn't be too, too much of a bad thing if it weren't for the fact that a lack of concrete ideas from the opposition Liberals allows Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper to similarly coast on a principle-free wave of political pragmatism. As Maclean's columnist Andrew Coyne wrote a couple of months back, Harper's been busy selling out conservative ideology in his quest to maintain and consolidate power, and Conservatives, disappointed though they may be at Harper's betrayal, haven't been given anything to latch onto by the Liberals.

Whether you lean left or right, this is poor era for Canadian politics - two major-party leaders trying to cling to an ephemeral ideological centre by shunning virtually any trace of ideology, while smaller parties with actual ideas, good and bad, wield disproportionate king-making power.

As the guy on top, Harper's not likely to be the one to blink first in this dull game of chicken. That means it's up to Ignatieff to take a risk. Say what you will about the ineffectual Stephane Dion - at least he was willing to make an ass of himself. Canadians could use more of that attitude from its politicians.

Is This What They Mean By "Activist Judges"

Justice James O'Reilly slapped the wrist of Canada's Conservative government this week by issuing an order that Prime Minister Stephen Harper take steps to repatriate Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen who was taken into custody at age 15 by American authorities for allegedly lobbing a grenade that killed an American soldier in Afghanistan. Khadr's spent the past seven years at Guantanamo Bay, where the amenities, as we all know, include complimentary torture.

Harper et al have announced their plan to appeal the ruling, basing their continued inaction on the fact that Khadr's been charged with serious crimes and the U.S. hasn't yet decided to drop those charges. O'Reilly's of the opinion that respecting American legal sovereignty is secondary to upholding Canada's own Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international agreements such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. 

We don't yet know what will become of Harper's appeal, but having this story in the news again is its own kind of justice. It's a reminder that the rule of law still applies in wartime, and that the spectacular crime of 9/11 is no justification for ignoring established policy on child soldiers. When young fighters are pitted against each other in Africa, we call it a tragedy and, when they are saved, we acknowledge their minimal culpability in their crimes. When they fight against the West, they're treated as fully culpable adults. Time for some consistency here.

For years, Harper's deferred a crucial moral and legal decision, leaving Khadr's fate in the hands of the U.S. government rather than take a sovereign stand (worth noting that this goes for his Liberal predecessor Paul Martin, too). If nothing else, this judicial scolding could force him to behave like a leader whether he likes it or not.

Vicious Cycles

Within the media industry, you encounter many people who believe that the internet and its scourge of bloggers are killing journalism. Old-school reporters and editors moan about readers and viewers defecting to non-traditional sources for their information, decrying the lack of appreciation for the work done by media outlets that are held to high professional standards. There's a little bit of truth to this myth, of course, but when it comes to the declining fortunes of mainstream media, the boogeyman isn't the chubby slacker with a laptop, it's the immaculately-groomed suit in the boardroom.

Consider for a moment this cycle: A media entity - let's say Magazine X - is in some financial difficulty due to scarce advertising dollars and decreasing readership. Magazine X is owned by the massive Corporation Y, whose bean-counters don't like the way Magazine X's beans are adding up. Corporation Y puts pressure on Magazine X to cut costs in the form of layoffs to the editorial staff and to look for "creative" ways to satisfy the desires of advertisers. In a bind, Magazine X does both of these, thinning its roster of reporters and editors and stretching the remaining group to breaking point, while attempting to disguise advertorial copy as genuine reporting. Over time, Magazine X's readers notice the effects of these compromises in stories that are inaccurate, incomplete or otherwise sloppily reported (due to the unreasonable demands on the skeleton crew of a staff) and in copy that reeks of undue advertiser influence. Many of these readers, quite sensibly, decide that Magazine X is no longer worth their time or money. Subscriptions are cancelled and, in turn, advertisers stop advertising in Magazine X because of the dwindling readership. Which puts Magazine X under even greater financial strain. Which causes Corporation Y to ask for more staff cuts and church-state compromises. Which causes reader trust to decline further. Which results in fewer readers. Which results in fewer ad dollars. Which puts increasing strain on Magazine X. Which...

It goes on and on. And it is happening. More and more Magazine X's are owned by massive Corporation Y's, who don't understand what it is they're selling. To the suits at the top, the product in question is pages of pictures and words bound together, or rolls of film and video. They are wrong. The commodity that media organizations are in the business of selling is credibility. No more, no less. The only reason for a person to pick up a magazine or a newspaper or watch a news program is to get information from what they believe to be an honest and effective group of journalists. When the suits allow advertisers to exercise control over copy, they compromise the honesty of the stories in that publication/program. When they cut staff beyond a certain level, they compromise the ability of reporters and editors to do their jobs effectively. And when all of this happens, they compromise the credibility of a publication/program. They damage the quality of the very product it is that they sell.

Leaving aside the high-minded moral arguments, these compromises make no business sense. No consumer is going to continue to buy a damaged product. The boardroom geniuses that control media companies need to think beyond the next quarterly report and consider the long-term future of their products, lest they be left with nothing to sell.

Never mind the bloggers. If journalism's dying, the wounds are mostly self-inflicted.

"Good Things Don't End With 'eum'...

...they end with 'mania' or 'teria.'"

In Homer Simpson's world, the new affliction of "infomania," diagnosed by Britain's Institute of Psychiatry in a recent study for Hewlett Packard, would be a great thing. In the non-cartoon universe, however, it's being presented as the opposite. According to this BBC report about the study, infomania is an addiction to emails, text messages and other forms of instant communication that causes people to become distracted from their work and, most alarmingly, suffer a drop in IQ that's twice as precipitous as that caused by marijuana use. 

But hold on a minute. The BBC report leaves out some information that would seem pretty crucial in determining whether this study is worth paying attention to. For instance, it cites a 10-point drop in IQ among those who were "distracted by incoming email and phone calls." Who qualifies as distracted? A 10-point drop over what period of time, and what level of distraction? And the marijuana use - are they comparing IQ loss to that of pot smokers who puff a single joint, puff occasionally or puff chronically? Without those details, it's difficult to attach much significance to this research.

Which could be the fault of the BBC, or the researchers themselves. Either way, there are far too many of these stories in the media these days, stories based on weak or at least very preliminary research that nevertheless get published because of the need to fill space and the attention-grabbing value of a headline that screams "Infomania worse than marijuana." I fear that this kind of journalism is also too easily accepted by the public because, shaky facts aside, the conclusions somehow feel  true. I know I certainly found myself shaking my head in sad agreement at the finding that 62% of respondents checked work-related messages while at home or on holiday.

Is infomania real? Possibly, but I don't see the reason to get all manic about it at this point. 

Tortured Logic

Barack Obama yesterday made public the Bush Administration's infamous "torture memos," the documents that provided the legal foundation for interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against suspected terrorist detainees. I'll admit that I haven't gone through the memos themselves line by line, but much of what they contain has apparently already been public for some time. And a decent Cliff's Notes version was posted online by the New York Times.

Reaction to the release of this material has been charged on both sides of the debate. Former CIA director Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey claimed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that publicizing such information would hamstring U.S. intelligence officers and aid terrorists. Meanwhile, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick took issue with Obama's declaration that the lawyers who authored the memos would not be prosecuted for what can quite compellingly be argued were crimes under international law. 

Initially, I was firmly in Lithwick's camp. If the U.S. is to be considered any kind of model of a society governed by the rule of law, those who break it - however high up in the government food chain and however much they might bleat a Nuremberg-style defence - should be held accountable. Thus, I found Obama's statement that "This is a time for reflection, not retribution" infuriating.

Upon reflection, though, I have to soften my criticism of Obama. This is a world where, unfortunately, there is a gulf between what should happen and what can happen, and there is simply no way that Obama could call for the heads of the Bush lawyers without it looking like political opportunism.  And with so many other issues to confront, he can't afford to expend the political capital to do so. 

In light of this, the public release of the documents was arguably the best available punishment Obama could mete out. While there will always be those who defend America's right to crash through any legal barrier in the name of national security, allowing the arguments in favour of torture to be seen in their near-entirety should result in some additional public shame for the lawyers themselves. Public shame isn't a jail sentence - or a waterboarding session - but it's got to hurt a little. And besides, if Congress wants to exact additional penalties, it does have a few options.

The guilty parties certainly don't deserve to skate on the torture memos, and simply releasing them to the public feels like - is - an incomplete and unsatisfying measure. Nevertheless, it's probably the only one we're going to see.

Patches On Both Eyes

Pirates are getting a lot of news coverage lately, and not the fake, filmed kind based on Keith Richards. Early this week, there was the dramatic rescue of an American captain who had been taken hostage by a group of Somali pirates, three of whom were gunned down in a precise sniper strike. It's notable - and more than a little creepy - that so many reports of the incident featured the kind of breathless, awed language about the snipers' capabilities that one might expect to hear from teenagers playing Doom. 

Then again, it's hardly surprising that the dead pirates were treated as more or less equal to video game casualties. For one thing, Somalian lives have been one of the world's weakest currencies since the UN's failed attempts to bring order to the the essentially lawless country in the early 1990s. For another thing, these young men, and countless others like them, make a regular habit of hijacking ships at gunpoint - not exactly an act of high moral character.

It's easy to understand why Westerners might want to simply throw the book (or the sniper's bullet) at pirates for their illegal activity. Punishment to fit the crime, and all of that. But as in most crime issues, punishment is unlikely to serve as an effective deterrent unless deeper causes are addressed. That means asking crucial questions, the first being: who are these pirates?

Slate's Fred Kaplan takes a rather dim view. Kaplan concludes this article by writing:

These pirates are nasty criminals, nothing more. And the fight against them should be treated, and seen, as a routine and legitimate procedure to stamp out nasty crime.

Fair enough. Clearly, a nation has the right to defend itself against criminal acts such as ship hijackings and hostage-takings, as the French did yesterday. But methinks Kaplan has glossed over some of the complexities surrounding these "nasty criminals." He might want to ask himself, as would others who see the issue in simple black-and-white, whether he, if he lived in an impoverished country run by brutal warlords, would refuse to commit piracy if it was the only means of survival available to him. And even if these pirates are paid by the warlords and thus part of a criminal gang, one must consider the fact that refusing the requests of the top gangsters is probably the equivalent of putting a gun to one's head. 

And that's leaving aside the contention, made in this entry on the Huffington Post, that Western countries have plundered the fish and dumped radioactive waste in the waters off of Somalia, taking advantage of a country that has no Coast Guard to defend itself. I'm a little skeptical of these claims - the sources the writer refers to seem somewhat questionable - but not so skeptical that I can completely dismiss them. Somalis certainly haven't - the HuffPost article cites a poll that found 70% of the country's citizen's supported piracy as a means of national self-defence.

I don't excuse piracy in Africa any more than I excuse murder in Toronto, and I fully support bringing criminals to justice. But these kinds of crimes will continue to go on - angry pirates have seized several ships since Monday's rescue of the American captain - until powerful nations go beyond law-and-order.

One person's "nasty" is another person's "desperate." If we remain blind to that, we remain blind to any possible solution.

Once More, With Less Cynicism

Okay, so the Susan Boyle portion of the previous post might have been a little too cynical. I didn't realize that Britain's Got Talent had awarded top prize to less magazine cover-worthy contestants before. Ergo, Boyle might have a shot at following in the homely footsteps of the unfortunately-named Paul Potts, who won the contest a couple of years ago.

Gratitude

In one corner, we have Billy Bob Thornton - drummer, singer and songwriter for The Boxmasters. He's also, you may have heard, an actor and screenwriter whose body of work includes the masterful 1996 film Sling Blade. Not that he wants anyone to know about that, as he made clear to CBC Radio's Jian Ghomeshi in Boxmasters interview that has since become a YouTube favourite. View it here if you're one of the three people who haven't already.

In the other corner, we have Susan Boyle, a frumpy, 47-year-old wannabe singer from a small British village (actually, a "collection of villages," to hear her tell it). Boyle caused a sensation, and got a standing ovation, on the American Idol-type show Britain's Got Talent the other night when she let loose with a gorgeous rendition of a Les Miserables tune.

What we have here is a case of a man who doesn't realize he has more than he deserves, and a woman who deserves better than she will probably get.

Thornton, of course, threw a silent hissy-fit when Ghomeshi included a mention of his movie career into his introduction of The Boxmasters.  And Thornton, rather than just come out and say he was upset, offered up a series of befuddling non-sequitur answers and unresponsive passive aggression before Ghomeshi finally got him to admit he was pissed about the introduction. While I admit that it might be irritating to Thornton and the other band members for an interviewer to focus on Thornton's film glory in a band-wide interview, Ghomsehi kept the questions music-related. He also had a point when he said that referring to Thornton's other career was a valid and necessary way of providing context for listeners.

What Thornton doesn't seem to get is that it's unlikely anyone would have heard of his band, regardless of how good they are - and I've heard that they're not bad - if it wasn't for his name brand. So, annoying or not, he should grow up and be grateful that, because he's who he is, he and his band got to bypass a few hurdles that trip up thousands of equally talented no-name musicians.

Boyle, on the other hand, provided one of the few truly touching moments you'll ever see on these insipid musical talent contests. If nothing else, she will have enjoyed a proud moment of glory in front of a mass audience, having shattered the assumptions of judges and fans alike with her performance. Based on talent, she earned her 15 minutes.

But that's likely all it'll be, because these talent contests aren't really talent contests. Boyle is no beauty, and at some point in the competition they'll find some excuse to boot her out because of it. Even as they glowed and moved her on to the next round, the judges indicated, through their expressions, that they were mostly happy to pat themselves on the back for rewarding substance instead of style. Call me a cynic, but I don't think that'll last.

No matter what happens, Boyle has a memory she can cherish and be thankful for. Thornton, meanwhile, has a thing or two to learn about gratitude. Something to think about while he recovers from the "flu" that caused him to cancel the rest of The Boxmasters' Canadian tour after a Toronto audience booed them mercilessly - this for comparing reserved Canadian audiences, in the same CBC interview, to "mashed potatoes with no gravy."

Now that was deserving.

From the "Absolute Power" File

A couple of months back, this space pondered how the Obama administration had maintained some of the more troubling habits of its predecessor, specifically its treatment, in a legal sense, of detainees in what is no longer officially referred to as the war on terror. Or, more accurately, this space linked to another article and let its author do the heavy pondering.

Well, it seems like Obama's inclination to hide behind state secrets laws as a means to deny detainees access to due process wasn't just a symptom of some early presidential jitters. As Bruce Fein has written in Slate, the Commander-In-Chief remains more than happy to bypass the justice system and lock alleged terrorists away, sans key.

Lest you think Fein is anti-Obama, consider this article from a couple years back, also in Slate, in which he calls for the head of former Vice President Dick Cheney on much the same grounds. Whether you agree or disagree with him, Fein has consistently defended his position that no administration, liberal or conservative, has the right to declare such sweeping powers for itself.

Coming from a man and a party that promised greater transparency along with other grand and positive changes, Obama's continuance of a legally and morally reprehensible detainment strategy is especially disappointing. And it highlights the dangers of allowing one president decide that the military necessities of the time require a break from the rule of law - that danger being that, once such a precedent is established, it's unlikely that the next leader is going to hand that power back.

Darkness Falls...

...On the blog for a couple of days. In Quebec City for vacation.

Back next week. Until then, try and go on without Arrowsplitter.

Levant Responds

Last week, I posted an entry about free speech, prompted in part by Canada's Conservative government's ban of British MP George Galloway, a controversial supporter of the Palestinian cause (who's funneled money and supplies to Hamas), from speaking engagements in the country. In it, I mentioned that Ezra Levant, conservative provocateur and former publisher of the Western Standard magazine, supported the ban - support that I thought was hypocritical given Levant's own fight against censorship in this country, which he has chronicled in a new book.

I also called Levant a "right wing-nut of the first order."

That post found its way to Levant, who, through back channels, fired off a not-so-nutty response. In fact, it was downright genial. Here's what he said:

"I'm fine with Galloway saying whatever he likes - I don't think his words are crimes, and they shouldn't be prosecuted by the government in any way. But his deeds - giving cash to Hamas - actually are a crime in Canada. That's why he was kept out. I believe in free speech as a civil right - but Galloway isn't a citizen; he doesn't have a right to come to Canada that trumps our security concerns (a citizen would be allowed in, but then he would be arrested for fundraising for terrorists). As far as I'm concerned, he can bellow all he likes from the other side of the border, and he has!

"By the way, Christopher Hitchens has recanted his criticism of Galloway's ban. At the end of his latest column on Slate, he graciously acknowledges that he didn't go on the facts (that he (Galloway) was banned for his terrorist fundraising) but on Galloway's spin (that he was barred for free speech). Once Hitchens saw that Galloway was kept out for security reasons - and that Galloway was advised of same in advance, and invited to dispute those findings in advance, rather than to make a show of things - Hitchens wrote this.

"I'm for free speech - and I'm for borders, too! There's no contradiction."

I had noticed Hitchens' mea culpa, too, and linked to it in my own re-post on the matter. Still, I'm glad to have the chance to offer up Levant's explanation of his position, in his own words, here.

Now, I'm still not clear on how one can offer aid to Palestinians without going through Hamas. If there's an easy explanation to that question, I'd love to hear it. I have no qualms with revealing my own ignorance. But if there's no explanation, that highlights the problem with Hamas being both a democratically elected government and a terrorist group.

Nonetheless, I'd like to offer my own mea culpa for the "wing-nut" comment. Not because I'm any more in agreement with Levant's political views, but because name-calling is a weak and immature addition to a political discourse that's already too weak and immature - a point made by Andrew Coyne that I included in yesterday's post.

I think that many (most?) of the things that Levant stands for need to be defeated, but that that defeat must be brought about in the realm of honest, serious public debate in a free marketplace of ideas. So read his book, read his website and decide for yourself how "nutty" he really is (you'll have to go back in the archives to get past all the book promotion stuff). 

The Meshing of Politics and Social Media

Took in a session at the Mesh Conference today about the impact of social media on political campaigns. Naturally, the success that Barack Obama and his team had in using social media to raise funds and create a legion of active advocates is exemplary - but it's hardly representative.

As panelist Andrew Coyne, national editor and columnist at Maclean's magazine, noted - pouring cold water on all the social-media-is-changing-everything hype - blogs and Facebook and Twitter have, for the most part, simply reinforced many of the poor habits we have as a society in terms of conducting political debate. Just as in the offline universe, said Coyne, people gravitate to like-minded people online, which results in a bunch of partisans preaching to the converted. 

"What turns your mind to mush more than anything is only talking to people who think the same as you do," said Coyne. "When you only talk to people who think the same as you do, you become incapable of seeing how any reasonable person could possibly think differently."

I think Coyne hit at the essence of the poor shape of political discourse - whether it involves face-to-face communication or social media, it's not really a debate if all we do is shout at the top of our lungs and then plug our ears when someone with a different opinion starts speaking. It's not supposed to be like pro sports, where you have the team you cheer for and that's that. But that's largely what politics has become (maybe it's always been that way?).

Coyne said he saw the potential of social media to open up political debate to average Joes and Janes. But he said that all parties to the debate - politicians, reporters and citizens - have to elevate the political culture to a more civilized place before we see any real value from the technology. 

That's because technology itself isn't what changes the world. It's how people use it. If people want to harness the "power" of social media, Coyne said they should be mindful of an axiom that, when you think about it, applies equally to cave drawings: "Power comes from substance."

Housekeeping

If this otherwise meaningless update hits my Facebook page, the circle of digital life will be complete. This is no guarantee - for insight into my expertise in technology, consider that when I began typing this post, it was instantly converted into Hindi because I'd enabled transliteration in my blog settings. And my Hindi's even worse than my tech expertise.

Whoops on Galloway?

Update on last week's free speech-themed post that, among other things, mentioned Canada's denying controversial British MP George Galloway permission to enter the country. Seems no less an authority than Christopher Hitchens, whose initial essay on the topic I linked to in that post, has recalibrated his position based on this blog post.

Hitchens reconsiders presumably because Galloway was rebuked not for the views he holds, but for the money he's given to Hamas. Ergo, he wasn't denied entry to Canada on either a free speech or national security basis, but for supporting terrorism.

But the question that's still left open for me is this: if Hamas is the democratically elected government in Gaza, and one wants to offer humanitarian aid to Gaza, how does one avoid interacting with Hamas? Doesn't even the Red Cross have to go through them to do their work in the region? By no means do I support terrorism - I hope that's obvious - and by no means do I endorse Hamas, a terrorist organization regardless of how much political "legitimacy" they may have. But does sending money to Hamas automatically constitute support of terrorism?

I guess one would have to be pretty naive to think it doesn't. It's just that there's still that nagging question...

Late Adopter, Twitter edition

Sometime in the mid-90s, the internet blew up and the masses gravitated to email. Sometime around 1998, I got my first email account.

Sometime around 2004, Facebook was created and, over the next few years, became an essential social tool for, I don't know, basically everyone. I still haven't gotten around to joining.

Sometime around 2002, the "faux-hawk" became fashionable. Sometime in late 2006, I got this haircut. And I still have it.

Point is, I've lived most of my life far from the cutting edge. But I'm proud to report that, as of last week, I am now on Twitter. This still makes me a late adopter, but at least I'm not as far behind as I was with the faux-hawk. 

I've been resistant to these social media tools because I've been concerned about privacy and private-public life separation. I'm now getting past this because I've realized that, whether I'm on Facebook or Twitter or not, someone I don't even know can snap a picture of me face-down in a ditch with a bottle of moonshine bleeding its contents away beside me (I call these events "Saturdays") and damage my credibility. So why be paranoid about something I already have no control over. Also, for work-related reasons, I really need to learn up on this stuff. 

So join me, if you will, on this exciting journey into a future you may have already discovered years ago. As a conscientious fellow-traveller, I promise not to post too many meaningless, I-am-taking-a-whiz-right-now-and-using-my-other-hand-to-tell-you-about-it Tweets.