1.
“Trump’s Purge of Washington,” February 24-March 9
New York’s latest cover featured a set of stories detailing the destructive start of the new administration. Andrew Rice wrote about how Trump loyalist Kash Patel, the recently appointed director of the FBI, might deal with the bureau that had led investigations into the president (“Vengeance Is His”). Commenter stephen.stirling asked, “Why is anyone surprised … and shocked, shocked! … that they’re doing precisely what they said they’d do during the campaign? Did you think they weren’t serious? That they didn’t really mean it?” Tailline News wondered on X, “Why would someone be worried about payback if the original action was justified? If it wasn’t, it’s not really payback, but justice. Maybe they should be worried about justice?” Commenter venturagirl said, “Patel is insane. Take a good look in his eyes if you have doubts. Every one of the senators who confirmed this is completely unfit. QAnon loving conspiracy theorists know Patel has no business being head of the FBI. They all belong in the book of shame.” And referencing the title of a book by Patel, Andrea Knott wrote on Instagram, “So basically he’s replacing one group of ‘government gangsters’ with another.” Next in the series, Pilar Meléndez and William Bredderman profiled Eddie “Big Balls” Coristine, a 19-year-old doge employee (“Portrait of a Muskrat”). On BlueSky, William Morin said, “I remember when traitors weren’t destroying our country.” Vanilla I.C.E. tweeted, “19 years old and slapping federal contracts out of existence. Jealousy is the only reason someone could hate him. You wanted young people, now you hate it.” Will Davis said on X, “The kids are learning that it just doesn’t pay to be normal and boring. Big Balls is showing this generation how it’s done.” On Instagram, Bobby Calabrese wrote, “It’s often the child soldiers who are capable of the greatest atrocities, their moral minds aren’t fully developed yet.”
2.
“Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Microplastics”
Also in the issue, Carolyn Kormann explored an alarming man-made health hazard. On X, Juhu Thukral said that she was “avoiding reading this @nymag.com piece on microplastics until I felt emotionally ready, and yes, it’s even worse than we can imagine,” and art4cc said, “With a spoonful of microplastics in our brains (and more throughout the rest of our bodies, in the water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and in every living being on Earth) … we just keep on making more plastic! Silly humans.” Silvia Killingsworth posted, “It is some kind of beautiful irony that in a world simultaneously built and destroyed by petrochemicals, our bodies are literally undeniably absolutely full of them. And yet, it’s pretty low on the list of things people truly worry about.” Commenter glasseye concluded, “face it. our lives are comprised of plastic. you scrub a clump of nylon bristles in your mouth daily. coffee machines, cooking utensils, clothing, packaging of almost every item we buy. plastic has found its way into rice & salt. it’s contaminated soil which grows crops & feeds livestock. it’s in our oceans/fish. you can’t escape.” On Instagram, benasaurus87 leaned in: “I want to become macro plastic, can’t wait.”
3.
“Who Killed the Footless Goose?”
Owen Long probed the unsolved 1991 murder of a celebrity bird. For Longreads, Carolyn Wells wrote, “While some may consider it a wild goose chase, Owen Long still wants to solve the mystery of who killed Andy, a footless goose [whose] owner, Gene Fleming, gave him baby shoes to enable him to walk. (The photographs of the goose in boots are remarkable.) There are no clear answers, but Long’s list of suspects is a fascinating one.” On BlueSky, good-writing99 said, “Cold-blooded murder has never been so funny,” and J.W. Mason called the story “the sort of thing we used to buy magazines for. It has nothing to do with anything that is happening now. I enjoyed it, you might as well.” On Instagram, journalistfritz wrote, “A couple weeks after finding a headless goose in our driveway, it’s extremely weird to see this story in my feed.” Asked commenter johncougarmenstrualcramp, “Was there a single unusual killing in the 80s that didn’t have ‘Satanists’ as a top suspect? Rest in Power, Andy, you magnificent stumpy bastard,” and tyre.sykes wondered, “Where was RFK Jr.?” Commenter mhck said, “Literally at no point in this story did I have any idea what the next sentence was going to be.”
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