Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
wrigleyfield.bsky.social
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
@wrigleyfield.bsky.social
Sociologist/demographer specializing in mortality, racial inequity, Covid-19. Avid theater-goer, inconsistent powerlifter, and erstwhile operator of an all-volunteer bookstore. Toddler parent. Living not-quite-car-free in Minneapolis. she/her
Pinned
The biggest project I've worked on for the last chunk of years was just published. It asks, how big are US Black-white lifespan differences?

This might seem like a narrow question. I hope to convince you by the end that there are answers you didn't anticipate. And I hope some of them will move you.
Three Ways of Looking at Black–White Mortality Differences in the United States | Annual Reviews
Everyone agrees that US Black deaths happen earlier than white deaths on average, but it is surprisingly challenging to find the best ways to summarize, quantify, and compare this gap. This review arg...
www.annualreviews.org
Incredible Airbnb review/response
November 10, 2025 at 8:22 PM
"At Iowa [Writing Workshop], many of my colleagues had attended Ivy Leagues, yet received nothing close to the level of thought and care I did as a student."

Minnesotans are so lucky to have this wonderful liberal arts college in our public university system. I hope we see & preserve its value
Opinion | Changes proposed for the University of Minnesota Morris warrant pushback
"University of Minnesota administrators, especially President Rebecca Cunningham: Please acknowledge the college’s historical and current value, as well as that of the liberal arts in general, when co...
www.startribune.com
November 10, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
New from HCEO member Janet Currie et al: use of an affordable housing tax credit program improves long-term health outcomes for women and their children. www.nber.org/papers/w34464
Affordable Housing During Childhood Improves Long-term Outcomes of Women and their Children
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
November 10, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
This sums it up well enough for me. I would rather be a real pawn than a performative one.

This is how a party can have an approval rating in the toilet while still winning elections by huge margins against another party doing real damage to the country.
I heard from a bunch of federal employees last night and this morning. They aren't happy.

"I would rather be an actual pawn. At least pawn sacrifices are calculated and achieve something. All this for a fucking meaningless vote."
'A Slap in the Face': Federal Employees Feel Betrayed by Democrats' Shutdown Cave
"I would rather be an actual pawn. At least pawn sacrifices are calculated and achieve something."
www.gravityisgone.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
I have to hand it to Democrats. I'm one of the feds working and not getting paid and they manage to make reopening the government feel worse than the alternative.

Like, why did I miss 2.5 paychecks to end up right back where we were before the shutdown started?
Not a political consultant but I’m not sure “standing up to trump doesn’t work” is the best midterm message, even if if accurately represents senate dems position. Not much point in putting you in power then bsky.app/profile/atru...
Sen. Angus King: "Standing up to Donald Trump didn't work"
November 10, 2025 at 2:19 PM
This is one of the best accounts I’ve read and I wish every newspaper would run it and every college would invite students to a community conversation where it would be read out and students given space and time to talk and think about it.

But, at least, you can read it.
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
November 10, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
Solar’s price drop is astonishing: panels are now 98% cheaper than when I first analyzed them in 2004.

Today, building a fence with solar can be cheaper than using wood.
November 10, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
It took a courageous Republican bucking his party to give America affordable healthcare and eight cowardous Democrats bucking their party to take it away.
November 10, 2025 at 3:12 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
Squint just a little bit, and you can see the outlines of an amazing, clean, electrified world on the horizon. The trick is to get there from here without frying the planet, or descending into illiberal, autocratic hell, or both, first.
November 9, 2025 at 8:59 PM
This thread is extremely funny, I hope you enjoy every part of it as much as I did
I can believe people musk has paid to fluff him up or i can believe reports on the team at space x who are paid to jangle keys in front of him so that he doesn’t get involved in any technical decisions
November 9, 2025 at 3:15 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
I’m not a constitutional law scholar but I do suspect that random people reporting on the ground is a lot closer to the Founding Fathers’ ideas of a free press than whatever is happening at the LA Times.
"Now the city attorney says in a leaked memo the real problem is that 'anyone can claim they are a Journalist.' Fine. Maybe those anyones shouldn’t get shot in the head, either," the @ladailynews.bsky.social' editorial board writes.
Los Angeles city attorney to press: drop dead
Why does the city attorney hate the press so much she literally wants ink-stained wretches — and their contemporary multi-media cousins — shot by the police?
www.dailynews.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
A deep commitment to anti-wokeness
November 8, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Very good essay by Mitch Duneier about the nostalgia for blue-collar masculinity and what it obscures
Opinion | Bruce Springsteen’s Father Complicates a Powerful American Narrative
www.nytimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
My latest is a love letter to Chicago. "I see you stumbling through the stubborn, awkward rhythm of showing up, again and again. I see you fighting alongside people who sometimes frustrate and confuse you, and defending neighbors you may have never met, because you know they’re all your people."
In Chicago, We Run Toward Danger Together
"Faced with unrelenting state violence, Chicagoans have refused to be cowed," says Mariame Kaba.
organizingmythoughts.org
November 8, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
This morning, in Broadview, 14 suburban women were arrested during an act of civil disobedience calling for an end to ICE/CBP’s kidnappings throughout the Chicago area.

“We want to encourage other people who feel strongly about ICE’s actions to step off the sidelines and take our cities back.”
Fourteen suburban moms arrested in sit-in protest outside Broadview ICE facility
The mothers sat in a circle on Beach Street on Friday to “demand an end” to the immigration raids that have swept through the Chicago area since the Trump administration launched “Operation Midway Bli...
chicago.suntimes.com
November 7, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
Panera’s moderately caffeinated lemonade was loosely associated with 2 deaths before it was taken off market.

This article alone has 4 examples of ChatGPT encouraging young people to commit suicide, and OpenAI’s own public stats estimate over a million users discuss suicide with ChatGPT each week.
November 7, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
Literally the one place in the country where Democrats got their clock cleaned was in the home county of state chair who refused to endorse Mamdani and has generally overseen a string very poor democratic performances.
Has New York Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs resigned over Mamdani yet? I hope he hasn't, so that he can instead resign over *improving Republican margins over Trump 2024 in an anti-Republican wave election*. Trump won Nassau by just 4%—now look at this bloodbath
November 7, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
i have questions as to why due diligence didn’t happen when school admins signed these massive contracts, endangering their students
Call me controversial, but technology that leads vulnerable people into crisis and even holds their hand as they die by suicide should not be endorsed by schools and universities, we should not be giving discounted subscriptions to this monstrous tech to young people AT ALL
The boyfriend of a friend of my son's has spent several weeks in a psych ward due to Chat GPT induced psychosis. He isn't suicidal but AI encouraged him down a toxic and paranoid wormhole until he became completely delusional. Evil stuff.
November 7, 2025 at 2:02 PM
The adults in the household have been laid low all week, while the energetic three year old has NOT, and these audiobooks have been SAVING US

(They did on the three-day drive here, too)

Enjoy!
The Collected Stories of Winnie-the-Pooh
WINNIE-THE-POOH POOH GOES VISITING and other stories Story 1 In which we are introducedStory 2 In which Pooh goes visiting and gets into a tight placeStory 3 In which Pooh and Piglet go hunting and...
share.libbyapp.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
A fun question. In 5 years time, what looks better? The US’s enormous bet & capex on AI? Or China’s equally enormous bet and capex on renewables?
China has made cheap, clean energy available in huge quantities. The world should take the win econ.st/4oqFszB

Photo: Eyevine
November 7, 2025 at 7:10 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
A tribute to Charlie Kirk has gone up in the Capitol
Rep. Yassamin Ansari has set up a table and this sign outside Speaker Johnson’s office.
November 6, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
Reposted by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field
The media failed broadly, and continues to do so, but in particular Gen Z media and Latino media REALLY fucked up. Built an entirely fake fucking candidate to vote for.
Amazing how much 2025 was a hyper correction for the fact that in 2024 voters clearly didn't know what they were voting for because the media didn't report on Trump's actual policies/voters refused to believe what they were voting for.
Between 2020 and 2024, no New Jersey county moved further right than Passaic County (11pts). At 43% it's also the most the most-Latino county in the state, and is among the least-white overall.

Last night, it moved 18pts to the left, surpassed only by Hudson County (the second-most Latino county)
November 6, 2025 at 9:58 AM