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Ellen

@elcush

landlord, mommy, public intellectual https://www.theatlantic.com/author/ellen-cushing/

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13.11.2023
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Latest posts by Ellen @elcush

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Series - Low Cinema Lowball: America's Pastime (Mon March 2 through Sun March 8) Movies and baseball: Easily the two best things this country ever invented. These films—hand-selected by baseball sickos—capture the sport ...

the sweeties at Low Cinema in beautiful RIDGEWOOD QUEENS asked me about my favorite baseball movies and now they’re going to show them on a screen!!! you should come!!! lowcinema.com/page/series/

27.02.2026 23:25 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
cover of The Washington Post on Wednesday Feb 4, 2026. Headline on bottom, right: Musk wanted to hook users; his chatbot got more sexual

cover of The Washington Post on Wednesday Feb 4, 2026. Headline on bottom, right: Musk wanted to hook users; his chatbot got more sexual

My story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost.com. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely loved my job my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting @ the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power

04.02.2026 19:40 👍 6670 🔁 2136 💬 160 📌 111

I was laid off from The Washington Post today. I know, real original sentence. My first plagiarism in 20 years of journalism.

My job was stupid fun and I loved every minute of it. I’m sad for my talented colleagues but sadder the world will not get to read, watch and listen to their amazing work.

04.02.2026 21:56 👍 133 🔁 23 💬 15 📌 3
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Don’t Cancel The Washington Post. Cancel Amazon Prime. The subscription money enriching Jeff Bezos could instead be spent on the journalism crucial to preserving democracy.

I wrote this two years ago and it's still true www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

04.02.2026 18:25 👍 52 🔁 17 💬 0 📌 0
Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs.

The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs. The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

27.01.2026 13:06 👍 12114 🔁 4027 💬 266 📌 435
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The Rise and Fall of the Ultimate Millennial Power Lunch Sweetgreen didn’t change. We did.

Once the ultimate Millennial power lunch, a symbol of moral superiority and hyperproductivity, Sweetgreen is now in free fall—along with the optimism it once represented, @elcush.bsky.social writes:

11.01.2026 10:15 👍 18 🔁 5 💬 3 📌 3
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The Rise and Fall of the Ultimate Millennial Power Lunch Sweetgreen didn’t change. We did.

wrote about the fall of sweetgreen and the end of optimism ✌️https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/01/sweetgreen-rise-fall-power-lunch/685545/?gift=4WBWMfKv39sQTWzHBHFACFIisJpxNrOJK1Kks9GPxAM&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

08.01.2026 22:19 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 2
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The Innovation That’s Killing Restaurant Culture Delivery has turned America into a nation of order-inners.

More than half of adults under 45 use delivery at least once a week, and 13 percent use it once a day. I wrote about what that means for restaurants, restaurateurs, cities, and food: www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

29.10.2025 17:31 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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How Delivery Destroyed American Restaurants We’ve become a nation of order-inners. Eating will never be the same.

I wrote about what food delivery has done to restaurants … it’s not good …. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

27.10.2025 19:28 👍 64 🔁 13 💬 6 📌 1
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59. Season Finale, RIP and LGM

last episode of our mets podcast for the season! miss you already <3 open.spotify.com/episode/4Yef...

03.10.2025 16:28 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Post image Post image

I went to the Tesla Diner! It bummed me out

www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

22.09.2025 14:58 👍 36 🔁 5 💬 2 📌 0
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Turns Out Meat Is Still the Ultimate Luxury After four years of vegan cuisine, the fine-dining stalwart Eleven Madison Park is cooking animals again.

Eleven Madison Park, once named the world’s best restaurant, is no longer vegan—a sign of how Americans can’t quit meat, and of fine-dining hubris, @elcush.bsky.social writes:

15.08.2025 12:00 👍 20 🔁 4 💬 4 📌 4
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Has Air Travel Ever Been Good? Not really.

Transporting human bodies through the air at hundreds of miles an hour has always been somewhat unpleasant, @elcush.bsky.social writes in Time-Travel Thursdays.

19.07.2025 21:15 👍 47 🔁 5 💬 6 📌 0
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The Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food Federal workers warned for months that the high-energy biscuits would go to waste.

"Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people who need it"
@hana-kiros.bsky.social, on spending $130,000 to burn food worth $800,000
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

15.07.2025 05:31 👍 4482 🔁 3210 💬 361 📌 623
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50. The TRUTH About the New York Mets Hits Different · Episode

new york's only baseball podcast turns 50 :)

open.spotify.com/episode/4ca1...

14.07.2025 17:07 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Cancel Amazon Prime The subscription service is Amazon’s greatest—and most terrifying—invention.

classic @elcush.bsky.social on Prime Day:

"The holiday was invented by a corporation in honor of itself, to enrich itself. It has existed for six years and is observed by tens of millions of people worldwide. I hope you are spending it with your loved ones."

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

11.07.2025 16:05 👍 61 🔁 16 💬 3 📌 1

some example questions to get you going: What's wrong with John Fisher? How did you two get so smart and fun? Why is Pete Alonso so strong? How many people could he carry out of a burning building? And so on and so forth

08.07.2025 17:03 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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My Father Prosecuted History’s Crimes. Then He Died in One.

what a big-hearted, big-brained, brave, searching, humane, lucid story by @bernstein.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/m...

21.05.2025 16:29 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0
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The Absurdity—And Genius—of the Mother’s Day Opt-Out Email This is what happens when brands try to be your friend.

More brands have been offering the choice to opt out of Mother’s Day marketing emails. The trend is kind of brilliant—and also patently absurd, @elcush.bsky.social writes:

07.05.2025 15:15 👍 25 🔁 3 💬 5 📌 2
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The Perfect Pop Star for a Dumb Stunt Katy Perry is exactly the kind of celebrity to go to space.

Space tourism is, at best, folly—silly, spectacularly wasteful, pointless by definition. And Katy Perry was the perfect celebrity to do it, @elcush.bsky.social writes:

15.04.2025 22:55 👍 249 🔁 29 💬 31 📌 6

🄷🄾🅁🄼🄱🄻🄴🅂 🄲🄷🄾🅁🄼🄱🄻🄴🅂

15.04.2025 14:23 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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thinking about this diva www.theatlantic.com/family/archi...

15.04.2025 14:22 👍 128 🔁 17 💬 4 📌 0
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The Absolutely, Positively Correct Way to Load Your Dishwasher The internet is filled with advice. So why are people still arguing about this?

The internet is filled with dishwasher-loading advice. So why are so many people still arguing about how to do it right? @elcush.bsky.social investigates:

14.04.2025 12:30 👍 43 🔁 12 💬 16 📌 7
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Americans Will Never Quit Soda Poppi and its “health-conscious” ilk are just new versions of the same old thing.

wrote-a about soda www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

27.03.2025 19:10 👍 23 🔁 3 💬 3 📌 0
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37. [Brandon Nimmo Tongue-Out Emoji] Mets Are Back! Hits Different · Episode

new york's only anti-math baseball podcast is back for seaosn 2, baby!

open.spotify.com/episode/5Vuz...

24.03.2025 21:03 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 1
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Why Aren’t Women Allowed to Play Baseball? Women have always loved America’s pastime. It has never loved them back.

kaitlyn went to baseball camp www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

17.03.2025 14:59 👍 36 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
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The Great Salt Shake-Up Why has kosher salt replaced table salt in American pantries?

Kosher salt is just big salt, @elcush.bsky.social writes. How did it become so popular?

08.03.2025 14:46 👍 70 🔁 9 💬 13 📌 5
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mTORC1 activation drives astrocyte reactivity in cortical tubers and brain organoid models of TSC Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) is a genetic neurodevelopmental disorder associated with early onset epilepsy, intellectual disability and neuropsychiatric disorders. A hallmark of the disorder is co...

Excited (again) to see this paper finally in (pre)print!

We did single-cell sequencing on our TSC model organoids and observed strong signatures of reactive astrogliosis (neat)- then we looked at resected patient brain tissue and saw the same thing! (More neat!)

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

06.03.2025 21:42 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
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The Erasing of American Science How far can the Trump administration bend U.S. research before it breaks?

Read this one by the great @katherinejwu.com www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

14.02.2025 19:30 👍 146 🔁 52 💬 5 📌 3
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Americans Need to Party More We’re not doing it as much as we used to. You can be the change we need.

important please read www.theatlantic.com/family/archi...

06.01.2025 20:36 👍 31 🔁 6 💬 3 📌 3