Maggie Koerth
@maggiekb1
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Editorial Lead @carbonplanorg . Previously @FiveThirtyEight , @nytmag , @boingboing , etc. Nieman Fellow '15. A mom, allegedly. My opinions, not CarbonPlan's.
Minneapolis, MN
Joined March 2009
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Henry David Thoreau is a chump. The best way to experience nature is in a crowd.
My first column for the
@StarTribune
!
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My father (68, white, straight, male): "Hey, can you explain this bear in the woods thing to me? I don't understand. Obviously, women would rather meet a random gay man in the woods. But why does he have to be a bear?"
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"Are bears even into hiking? They do seem more likely to be outdoorsy, I suppose."
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As a redhead, this "Get sunburn, it's fine! The sun cannot cause cancer! Sunblock is bad!" discourse is truly one of the most insane things I have watched you people engage in.
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This is the official GoFundMe for George Floyd's little daughter:
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@Sylvius_the_Mad
I did spend some time pondering whether I would want to meet a twink in the woods. Dad and I agree the best scenario is a butch, though.
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Has anyone presented data that might explain why tablet/phone use has been so detrimental to kids' mental health, reading skills, academic achievement ... and the hours of daily TV watching that was the norm pre internet was not?
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Minnesota, as a state, cannot handle this level of drunk on attention. There’s gonna be a lot of people making bad choices at the Fair and I am so excited to watch.
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I've decided to become a "Pepsi Still Has a Secret Navy" truther.
In 1989, the cash-strapped Soviet Union paid Pepsi with 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate & a destroyer in exchange for $3 bln worth of Pepsi. This caused Pepsi to become the 6th largest military power in the world for a moment, before they sold the fleet for scrap recycling.
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Husband (architect and engineer) pointed out that whoever the contractor on this Notre Dame renovation was, they're legally and financially fucked now. That got me curious about the firm ... which led to some old articles and, oh man, the aftermath of this is gonna be messy ...
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So, in conclusion, the Pope says you can worship God at home just fine and don't need the priest as intercessor in these trying times; and the evangelical protestants have come out against the priesthood of the believer and say church service is necessary to the faith. OK then.
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If you ever want to just have your mind break at how much economics have changed over the last 60 years, go re-read Ramona and Her Father where a home-owning family in Portland is saved from financial ruin by the dad getting a job as check-out clerk at a grocery.
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If I could actually cancel one thing it would be the idea that we ought to have calm, dispassionate discussions of demonstrateably cruel ideas.
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Okay. Idea. What if we just spend the next few months putting every ancient relic we can think of back in its original location. Just see if that helps.
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I've seen this suggested before, but I do wish every Olympic event would include one rando for the sake of providing a sense of scale. Like, yes, that contestant finished last, and look how much better she still did than Carolyn James of Cleveland, our designated normal human.
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Friends, I assure you that your non-Texas chunk of the electric grid is also deeply flawed, aging, and bonkers in its own special way. ERCOT is a weird system, but it is absolutely not uniquely problematic.
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Six year old, really summing up the great existential crisis of the modern world: "I just don't like having to get out of bed on somebody else's schedule."
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I am 100% unironically serious about wanting this as the state flag. It's menacing af, but also really great design. Simple enough for kids to draw from memory. Striking colors. Easily adaptable to various memorabilia. And no one will ever forget to clean their pontoons again.
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You. Guys. This is showing $7 coach fares to LaCrosse, $41 all the way to Chicago. It leaves and arrives at times of day that make human sense. And if you don't know ... the stretch from Red Wing to Tomah is GOTDAMN BEAUTIFUL.
Today’s our birthday, but we’re giving you a gift — the brand-new Borealis service!
Enjoy round-trip daily trips between Saint Paul, MN and Chicago, IL onboard Borealis starting May 21st.
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I'm not arguing that the phone/tablet stuff isn't bad. I just haven't seen much data comparing its effects to TV norms of the previous half century. And it made me curious. Cause, like, idk if you all remember but we used to turn that shit on at 3 and shut it off at bedtime.
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A under-appreciated part of why rich school neighborhoods/districts have more and do more (besides pure cash) is that schools in the US are set up to only function well with lots of well organized unpaid stay at home mom labor.
How many parts of society run on the apparent assumption that every child has a stay-at-home parent, even in communities where that isn’t even close to being true
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Fun supply chain story. In the research I've been doing, it's become clear that food supply chains can't easily cross streams. Food meant for school lunches can't just be sent to the grocery or the food shelf instead. A lot of it ends up going to waste.
So, with that in mind ..
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So this is probably going to get me yelled at, but I want to talk a little about a sci com issue around the J&J vaccine and how well it works.
The official take in sci com and public health seems to be that it's just as good as Pfizer and Moderna ... which is correct, sorta ...
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One of these people has the opportunity to commit the funniest murder of all time tonight
At least 100 visitors trapped in Agatha Christie's home after single road is blocked
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A reminder that “officer involved shooting” is an intentionally obtuse, PR developed term and the
@AP
says to not use it. It’s vague and misleading to your audience.
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We just found
@StarTribune
reporter
@RyanFaircloth
bleeding from the head at Lake and Chicago. Police shot out his window.
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CHOOSE THE THREATENING LOON YOU COWARDS
Whoever is picking these will be too afraid to pick this masterpiece, but this should absolutely be the flag
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@emilykmay
Oh man this one hits haaard. I took teasing as love for a long time till it curdled into contempt.
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Important note for my colleagues in the national press: "Minnesota Nice" is ironic, my dudes. It is the niceness of making eye contact and being super friendly and then NEVER EVER actually making friends. "Willing to give you anything except directions to their house" is the joke
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@sohosatan
This dude I liked blew it on the second date with the most epically red flag filled sentence ever spoken by a human. “Can you explain to me what gaslighting is, because my mom and my ex say I do it all the time … and I think they’re wrong.”
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Hey, remember how schools had no problem enforcing skirt lengths, spaghetti straps, pats sag and sending big boobed girls home for existing in anything other than a funny sack? Weird how mask use is unenforceable.
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Driving and listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me while my 7 year old yells “Why is this funny? Why are people laughing? Why is any of this funny??”
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I am so fundamentally opposed to "trunk or treat" that it borders on a moral crusade. If I'm not careful, I can easily drift into over-serious polemic about how this endangers the very fabric of society.
Heard a relative talk about “trunk or treat” this week, and honestly it feels like one of the greatest indignations car brain forces on kids. Not even walking endlessly around the neighborhood anymore?
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Some of you did not spend your childhoods getting second degree burns from normal amounts of sun exposure and it shows.
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Look, we can have debates about the best detailed policy response to rampant racism and unchecked violence in policing. We can have debates about how best to reduce crime.
But as someone who currently lives in Minneapolis, what
@tomfriedman
is saying here is a lie.
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Is this a net win or loss for the Ghost of Martin Luther? I can't decide.
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Tech bros insistence on framing shitty 19th century exploitation we outlawed decades ago as “inNoVaTioN” is gonna kill me.
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Hey, did you guys know there are two species of flying squirrels native to Minnesota? I just found out.
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Interesting side digression in here around the 19th century renovations that were done fast and sloppy basically because Victor Hugo made Notre Dame famous all of a sudden and it needed to look a little better for tourists.
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It feels explosively radical for my city to just be making sure kids get fed and not caring whether its the "right" kids, doing the "right" things, in the "right" ways. The hours could be tough for some parents - 10-2. But that is the only hurdle they're putting up.
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Turns out MLK's famous quote about riots came from a speech he gave at the University of Minnesota ... about the 1967 Minneapolis riots.
6/ Post Script: MLK visited the Univ. of Minnesota a few months before the 1967 unrest & made prescient observations, including his well-known line: “Riots are the language of the unheard. Our summers of riots are caused by our winters of delay.”
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More broadly applicable: How are you all justifying the contradiction between "living near a nuclear power plant is bad even if there is no malfunction" and "the giant nuclear furnace in the sky cannot hurt you"?
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Read this ... it's pretty clear both church and state were already pissed at each other about Notre Dame's condition before renovations even began.
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There is still an opportunity for the committee to redeem itself by making the Deathshead Loon our state battle flag.
Here are the top choices so far for the new Minnesota flag entries. 2100 entries, cut to 216, now down to 9. Committee now discussing swapping colors, stars, reflections.
@bbierschbach
with the story:
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I wish stories like this would explain exactly what is wrong with these books. The zoo one, for instance, has caricatures of black people that look damn near inhuman out on display in the zoo.
Six Dr. Seuss books will no longer be published because of racist and insensitive imagery.
#NBCCT
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Prince was one of the first people in the world to play Oregon Trail.
"The Oregon Trail" turns 50 this year.
In the fall of 1971, the computer game was created for student teacher Don Rawitsch's 8th-grade history classes at Bryant Junior High in Minneapolis.
In the fall of 1971, Prince was an 8th-grader at Bryant Junior High in Minneapolis.
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In 2017, Time published a story about how the cathedral needed renovations desperately. But nobody could agree who should be paying for it. The government owns the building and leases it to the Church for free. But church is supposed to cover upkeep ...
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Anyway.
@CityMinneapolis
@MPS_News
, THANK YOU. Thank you for giving my kids a thrill. (Seriously, it was like Christmas morning for them.) And for caring for the community in this open, no-bullshit, no-Karens-allowed way.
Want food?
Here's the link:
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Basically, there is going to be a shitstorm of blame and political/legal wrangling around the burning of Notre Dame. (And the building was already in pretty rough shape, which is probably contributing to what happens now as it's burning.)
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By including Kentucky, we are telling Iowa and Dakotas things about themselves in a tone that only Upper Midwesterners can hear.
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Also I still haven't found a source talking about what contracting companies were involved in the renovation of Notre Dame. I assume that's specialized historic restoration firms? But who knows. Holler if you see something. I'm not working on a story, I'm just weird and obsessive
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You ever do something simultaneously deeply stupid and also really smart?
Me, I just bought 14 boxes full of Fiesta ware off Facebook Marketplace for $500.
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Also, this is gonna tie into nationalist politics in Europe. The fallout from Notre Dame burning isn't just going to be about a cathedral.
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You ever do something simultaneously deeply stupid and also really smart?
Me, I just bought 14 boxes full of Fiesta ware off Facebook Marketplace for $500.
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It’s morning in America and here’s a friendly reminder to make sure your webcam is adjusted so it only shows the waist up.
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@stoicfaux
He was an art professor for 30 years and before that a hipster bartender for a decade. Also was previously married to a theater professor.
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Little One, age 3, sobbing uncontrollably while clutching a copy
@neilhimself
's "Graveyard Book":
"I DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ!!!"
Is it nap time? Could be nap time.
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@realgirl_fieri
Best game: bury mommy. Kids get to pile pillows and toys on top of you while giggling uproariously. Meanwhile, you are hidden in a dark quiet place with your phone. Sometimes you move and everything falls off so they can start again
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My microwave buttons just ... stopped working yesterday. All of them. Except "potato". This is maybe the saddest way the microwave could have gone out on me.
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And you, guys, I'm almost crying at how good and kind and wonderful this kids' food distribution program is. These boxes are PACKED. Fresh veggies, fresh fruit, cheese sticks and turkey sticks, juice and milk, crackers, bagels and cream cheese + sandwiches, pizza, tamales.
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Also the distribution guy told me they're upping it to 7 days worth of meals next week.
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Researchers say police de-escalation helps keep protests peaceful. Police keep using escalation techniques, anyway.
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It takes a village to produce a "lone wolf" terrorist.
Social science is showing that lone actors are never truly acting alone. Violent rhetoric and the communities that support it help create individual violent acts.
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Everybody knows the best crime reporters have killed at least one man.
ESPN just gave a HUGE new contract to their "NFL analyst" Mina Kimes.
Kimes has never played a down of football in her life, yet she will be paid $1.7 million a year to talk about it on woke ESPN.
ESPN is no longer about sports, it's about promoting equity among the genders!
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The result of that: Back in 1992, people were worrying about Notre Dame's structural integrity because the 19th century renovation had involved sealing joints with cement -- which allows water intrusion, which allows limestone to disintegrate
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Thing I would watch: Aging Indiana Jones gets really into 1970s ethics shift in archaeology (partly driven by experience watching colonialist powers unleash occult forces out of hubris) and starts heavily advocating for the repatriation of looted relics.
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I sorta keep coming back to the hot take that we, the media, are at least partly to blame for fucking up the electoral process by demanding constant analysis and instant results.
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Cannot stop thinking about how researchers put a zoonotic disease laboratory in a place where a lot of zoonotic disease crossovers were happening and now conspiracists are like "what are the chances a zoonotic disease could have come from a place right near this lab??"
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Has the rest of America heard about “duck duck grey duck” yet?
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Am I nuts or has the U.S. become much more of a scam-based economy in the last decade? Between
"investor university" grifts, drop shipping grifts, mlms ... even jobs that didn't used to be grifts now feel VERY grifty (real estate for example).
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It has been an amazing run at
@FiveThirtyEight
but I was laid off today. I have deeply loved working on this team. My editors and coworkers past and present have been amazing and I have done so much work at this site that I am incredibly proud of. Anybody need a science writer?
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Vice News video from last year says the flying buttresses were starting to shift, threatening the structural integrity of Notre Dame.
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Yes yes yes. For people looking to donate, here are some credible orgs in the city:
> Minnesota Freedom Fund
> Reclaim the Block
> Headwaters Foundation
> Black Visions Collective
I know influential people follow me so I wanna make an announcement:
If you want to support protesters in Minneapolis, find local organizers people in the city respect.
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, endorse "actorvists" & orgs who haven't been vetted.
Remember Ferguson?
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We just had MPD with support from outside sheriffs point weapons at us while we screamed that we were press. “Shut up!” one yelled back. We are safe.
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I've had a couple American readers ask me what to do with knowledge of Nu and Omicron variants of COVID. My hot take: New variants will keep happening. This is a system failure issue, not a personal panic time one. The world needs vaccine equity.
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Okay, now. Now we can retire this meme. Hang up its jersey.
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And to get this free food, there are almost no hoops to jump through. You just show up at any of the designated pickup spots with a kid or some proof of a kids' existence. Don't have to show this kid goes to any particular school - or any school at all. It is SO GOOD.
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Check out this for some history on how nationalist movements in France and Italy have used historic preservation as a part of their platform in the past.
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I love that Minnesota twitter is bonding in some weird, bipartisan way in defense of the Walking Taco.
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A private charity was still raising money for the urgent (and massively underfunded) renovation of Notre Dame last October
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My hot take: Surface sanitation is the COVID equivalent of security theater.
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"Do you know how to keep a friend forever?" my 4-year-old asked me Sunday.
I start to mutter something about kindness and sharing. She's like, "No. I've written a book. I'll read it to you."
OK, tiny Dale Carnegie. Let's hear it ...
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Obviously, not having a blue check mark is now a sign of elite superiority and trustworthiness.
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Now this gets all messy as hell, because those 95%/70% efficacy numbers are comparing very different clinical trials, where J&J was up against some of the newer variants and Pfizer/Moderna were not. We don't actually know how they compare to one another NOW.
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Oh just helping the girls clean up the massive mess under their beds, how are you?
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Like, guys, I was prepared for these economics to be wild. I was ready to take some deep breaths and accept that, like, houses were affordable in Portland to a family of four on one salary, and it's like, a manager at the phone company or something. I was not prepared for THIS.
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But I have some big problems with the idea that we (speaking about journalists here) have to tell people that J&J is just as good as Moderna/Pfizer. It could well be, but I don't know that. And you can't tell people 70% efficacy and 95% efficacy are the same and expect trust.
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The goals of the patient and the goals of the public health system may not be the same, basically.
And I am not 100% convinced that, as a reporter, it's my job to decide the goals of the public health system are the only ones that matter?
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Let me tell you a story. It's about my 4-year-old. Or, rather, about her alter-ego ... Punch Girl.
Yeah. You read that right. Punch 👏 Girl 👏
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