Zoë Plakias
Associate Professor of Economics @ Western Washington University | she/her
Scholarship + teaching on food, agriculture, environment, resources
Also: equity, mentorship, pedagogy, public transit, kindness, legos, cats
Views are my own
www.zoeplakias.com
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- In less than a week the Kennedy Center has effectively closed and our local DC paper has been gutted, both by billionaires. I don’t think immigrants are our problem in this country.
- This is a fantastic article. It’s a bit of a read, but nuanced and VALUABLE. Forward it to your Democratic Party representatives.
- “While democracy faces an existential threat, pundits and strategists remain stuck in the past.” Now online, @adambonica.bsky.social & @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social lead a forum on Democrats’ timidity in the face of authoritarianism, with @coribush.bsky.social @amandalitman.bsky.social + many others:
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- 74% of Democrats support abolishing ICE, with 53% *strongly* supporting it, according to YouGov polling from last month. Weak calls for "reform" are coming from *elected* Democrats like Chuck, not the average Democratic voter.
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- This was not the main point in this article about using AI in college admissions, but it stood out to me for so many reasons including the impulse to have the chatbot mediate all experiences including telling you what you do for fun. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/s...
- holy shit
- One of the things bothering me about how people are responding to the Epstein files is that there are tons of conspiracies being created and spread about what’s in them, rather than people just believing the victims like they could have been doing for years now
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- Dr Oz: "If we could get the average American to start working a year earlier, right out of high school, or a year later -- not retire -- or work better during their lifetime because they're healthy, it would generate about $3 trillion to the US economy. That would more than remove the debt."
- “It’s just weird to see a toddler in a pink onesie getting their eyes washed out from tear gas, you know?”
- Explain to me why I’m standing in front of my childrens’ schools in subzero weather trying to make sure none of their classmates are kidnapped by armed, masked goons then.
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- Incrementalists take it on the chin again. This is why they hate Mamdani. He's giving up the game that people in power HAVE POWER and don't solely exist to beg you for $5 every day. He's ruining the Democratic Party by showing voters that they have the power to do stuff instead of crouching in fear
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- Worst case scenario Beastie Boys remix
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- Today at school dismissal, I followed a suspicious pickup around for a bit, keeping an eye on them, trying to figure out if they were ICE. Then I realized they were keeping an eye on me also. Then I realized they were, in fact, other parents. Life in Minnesota, January 2026.
- this is a very cool thing to do and also highlights one of the biggest keys to Zohran's appeal: he just thinks New York City is really neat people who live somewhere want to vote for someone who likes it there and wants to make it better, not someone who wants to use it as a springboard
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- Meeting in solidarity with Haitians in Springfield, Ohio now - over 600 people and still growing.
- Watching these Grammys, you have to wonder if perhaps the Silicon Valley bros made a classic VC mistake and went all-in on reactionary politics right before the bottom dropped out.
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- "A 2-year-old boy was breastfeeding in detention. One 6-year-old boy had leukemia. An 8-year-old girl began wetting the bed. A 14-year-old girl engaged in self-harm." A must read.
- Liam Conejo Ramos is not alone. (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/o...
- This shit hits like a sledgehammer right now. It's not even remotely an exaggeration.
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- Just a reminder, the greatest living American historian filmmaker, Ken Burns, released a 720 min exploration of every facet of the American revolution using zero generative AI and paying for all of its assets instead of cobbling it from stolen data, then he gave it away for free on PBS this year.
- It’s frankly insulting that the worlds worst people weren’t meeting in a command center in a volcano wearing ceremonial robes but were all emailing on Hotmail accounts like “want 2 atrosity? With wemen?”
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