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Alec MacGillis Profile picture
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8 Jul, 6 tweets, 2 min read
So many delightful quotes from John Gunther's "Inside U.S.A.," in this Robert Gottlieb appreciation of the 1947 classic. Makes me seriously abashed not to have read it. And I'm going to have to offer up some of the excerpts here now. nytimes.com/2021/06/26/boo…
The South:
Vermont:
Northern hypocrisy:
Segregation (with premonitions of Isabel Wilkerson):
I could go on but won't. So much more good stuff in the essay.

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More from @AlecMacGillis

Alec MacGillis Profile picture
9 Jul
Such a well-reported and damning piece about elite universities' masters-degree programs milking students with massive tuition and leaving them unable to pay off six-figure loans. Columbia, especially, my goodness. @melissakorn & @anfuller: wsj.com/articles/finan…
"Columbia grad students who borrowed money typically held loans that exceeded annual earnings two years after graduation in 14 of 32 master’s programs...In about a dozen Columbia master’s programs, the majority of recent grads weren’t repaying the principal or took forbearance."
“'We were told by the establishment our whole lives this was the way to jump social classes...' During a car ride last year with three friends from the film program, they calculated they collectively owed $1.5 million in loans... 'Financially hobbled for life. That’s the joke.'”
Read 4 tweets
Alec MacGillis Profile picture
4 Jul
Your Sunday quiz: whose first published short story was also the first story to appear in the New Yorker with an openly gay main character?
Am extending this quiz another hour, to 4 pm ET. Still looking for a winner!
Wow, right at the wire, we got ourselves a winner. Gurganus's "Minor Heroism," published on November 18, 1974 (a week after I was born!) He had a class with Cheever at the Iowa Writers Workshop and Cheever submitted the story to New Yorker w/o his knowing.
Read 5 tweets
Alec MacGillis Profile picture
26 May
The no-cash-accepted rules are still lingering, long after the CDC belatedly declared surface transmission virtually nonexistent. Coffee shops, baseball concessions etc etc. Life getting ever harder for those without plastic.
Those people without plastic of course include kids. Before, a kid could run down the street to buy chips or ice cream with a fiver. Now you need mom's bank card. If mom has a bank card.
Meanwhile, the hand sanitizer is going begging...
Read 4 tweets
Alec MacGillis Profile picture
20 May
I'm not sure it's sunk in just how flush state (and many local) governments are now, between higher than expected tax revenues and the surge in federal aid. The challenge is figuring out how to spend it well. Officials just aren't used to this largesse. washingtonpost.com/local/virginia…
And many local governments also lack the capacity to spend the money well, because they've been so stripped down by lack of funding in recent years. There's a mismatch between a thin government infrastructure and this massive wave of one-time money to spend.
I mean, this is wild: "All told, Virginia has received or is slated to receive about $26.5 billion in federal aid to state and local governments — an amount roughly equivalent to the state’s general fund."
Read 4 tweets
Alec MacGillis Profile picture
14 May
Late to this thoughtful, nuanced @MckeanCarrie dispatch from Midland, Texas on the Covid-response regional divide: nytimes.com/2021/05/12/opi…
"Despite the tragedy of lives still being lost, it’s not demonstrably clear to many Texans that the governor’s rollback of rules was foolish or that the high cost of draconian measures in other areas provided markedly better outcomes than our approach."
"In the midst of all this confusion and deep loss, we also experienced odd pockets of joy this past year, perhaps thanks to the more flexible social consensus found here than in deep-blue areas."
Read 4 tweets
Alec MacGillis Profile picture
11 May
"Pediatricians say they are seeing alarming weight gains in children and adolescents as many return for in-person visits for the first time since the pandemic began." @rddysum: wsj.com/livecoverage/c…
"Doctors also report increases in weight-related health conditions, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and fatty liver disease. And some children with prediabetes are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes."
"'I’ve been really shocked by the amount of kids who have gone from normal weight to obese in a short period of time during the pandemic,' says Rachana Shah, medical director of the healthy weight program at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia."
Read 4 tweets

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