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Jan 28 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The false memory that they watched Challenger explode live on TV at school is amazingly widespread among younger GenXers.

I have friends who swear we did (I was 8), but I know otherwise: my best friend was sick that day and came running to the bus stop to tell us after school.
Of course, some people surely did see it live at school; it was definitely a thing to watch space launches. They were still a really big deal in 1986.

But my good, suburban elementary school literally owned 2 30" TVs. It simply wasn't possible for everyone to have seen it.
Also true: it was only live on CNN. I suspect very few schools in 1986 had cable. Mine certainly didn't.
This seems right. People either heard about it at school (but didn't see it live) or saw the replays so many times over the next few days. One thing is true: I've think I've seen the video of the explosion more than any other news event clip, even 9/11.
Decent article here on this topic:

google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.…
Another related false memory is that a ton of people believe a teacher from their town was a finalist for the spot on the shuttle. More likely they had just applied. Here's the complete finalist list:

worldspaceflight.com/bios/teacher.p…
This, another good technical analysis:

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More from @MattGlassman312

Matt Glassman Profile picture
Jan 4
These assertions are almost always built on three errors: (1) mistaking Jacksonian America for the Early Republic; (2) believing Jacksonian America was a libertarian paradise; and (3) believing the Founders aimed for Jacksonian America. 1/
Here's the thing: the Founders didn't build Jacksonian America, they built the Early Republic. By 1835 or so, America *already* didn't resemble politically what was being contemplated in the 1780s. 2/
This confusion---the belief that the Founders were aiming for antebellum America rather than a republic version of the 18th century English mixed system---fuels a lot of nonsense, since it lets people give the Founders the semi-familiar political structures of the 19th c. 3/
Read 9 tweets
Matt Glassman Profile picture
Nov 5, 2021
Newt Gingrich is talking about dictatorial Speakers and bills out of regular order and I’m officially dead.
Up next, Joe Cannon laments the centralization of committee assignment power.
After that, Henry Clay is annoyed about all the freshman in the leadership.
Read 4 tweets
Matt Glassman Profile picture
Nov 2, 2021
The amazing thing about huge electoral shifts is that the involve like 5-10% of people changing their opinion. When people say there's a ton of anger in NoVa at the Dems, it translates to like 1 in 10 Northam-Biden voters who *might* vote for Youngkin.
No different than the *huge* anger among some NoVa Republicans at Trump. It's was like 10% of them.

Most people are partisans, and most elections are (big-picture) not huge landslides numerically, so it doesn't take monster swings to move outcomes.
On the other hand, you do get people who literally can't believe Northam-Biden-Youngkin voters exist. And that's clearly wrong too, even in an age of elevated partisanship.

Especially given the Trump factor, which made more Northam-Biden voters than usual out of Republicans.
Read 4 tweets
Matt Glassman Profile picture
Oct 6, 2021
Both parties procedural positions at this moment on the debt limit are so stupid, in their own way, that I really don't know what to say. The GOP's seems more craven and dangerous, but the Dems also seem to be operating in a transparently-hackish fantasyland.
The GOP position can be summed up as "we won't consent to letting you do something alone that you want to do and we want you to do, because we want you to do it alone a different way in order to put an exact number on it."
The Dem position seems to be "we can't do it the way you want us to because you will somehow prevent us from doing the exact thing you want us to do."
Read 4 tweets
Matt Glassman Profile picture
Oct 5, 2021
Among other reasons, the debt limit should be abolished so I never have to entertain another question about the platinum coin.
I'm getting texts from my relatives about it, a sure signal that things are completely out of hand.
The platinum coin is the "did you know the Speaker doesn't have to be a member" of our budgetary politics.
Read 5 tweets
Matt Glassman Profile picture
Oct 5, 2021
I'd buy this libertarian view of vaccines if the proponents were offering a plan to hold people liable for infecting others, but that's sort of the point of public health regulation: the externalities can't be controlled by the market.
Old thread:
It's one thing to say "people shouldn't have to get the vaccine." I actually agree with that.

It's a entirely different thing to say "people shouldn't have to get the vaccine and also should pay no public cost for making that choice." That's nuts.
Read 4 tweets

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