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Lindsay Lee Wallace

@lindsayleewallace.bsky.social

3.4K followers 1.3K following 760 posts

Writing about culture, health, tech, bats, & anything else people will answer my questions about for BBC, Mother Jones, MSNBC, Teen Vogue, TIME, Xtra, etc. she/her https://linktr.ee/lindsayleewallace lindsaylwallace (at) gmail (dot) com & Signal llw.56

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Lindsay Lee Wallace @lindsayleewallace.bsky.social · 15d

For @motherjones.com, I wrote about the political pressure & coercion faced by teachers & staff at Success Academy.

"They explicitly started with naming Mamdani and how he is the villain in our story," one teacher told me. "It makes me feel like we will be fired if we don’t participate."

The charter school pressuring teachers to get involved in politics

“It makes me feel like we will be fired if we don’t participate," one Success Academy educator said.

www.motherjones.com

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 16h

My first thought was “wow I hope this guy didn’t give out his name because he could absolutely be charged” and yup, he is correct to stay anonymous.

This man’s account is shocking. His neighbors’ situation is shocking. The entire Chicago raid is shocking.

On the other side was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for his help.
"I wasn't planning on letting her stay, but I didn't know what the hell was going on," the man said of his Venezuelan migrant neighbors. But he quickly relented. The little girl was inconsolable and hid under his bed.
"I didn't want them to take her," said the man, who didn't want to be named because he fears he'll be targeted by federal authorities for his actions.
"I gave her my bedroom, and I just told her,
'Just stay there. Don't open, don't, shh, just stay quiet," he recalled telling the mom and daughter as he choked back tears.

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Lindsay Lee Wallace @lindsayleewallace.bsky.social · 2d

Obviously there are different factors influencing the procedures older vs. younger people get. Obviously age & lifestyle & medical situation of patients lead to varied outcomes. But that being said, I am curious (& a little concerned) & I'd love to talk to people who know more than me about this!

Lindsay Lee Wallace @lindsayleewallace.bsky.social · 2d

I'm wondering if I should worry & if there's something preventative, etc.

And it's kinda hard to find conclusive answers! Even the fusion overuse & outcome research referenced in this piece, which is great, specifically excludes scoliosis outcomes.
lownhospitalsindex.org/unnecessary-...

Spinal fusion and/or laminectomy was defined as overuse for patients with low-back pain, excluding patients with radicular symptoms, trauma, herniated disc, discitis, spondylosis, myelopathy, radiculopathy, radicular pain or scoliosis. For spinal fusion only cases, patients with stenosis with neural claudication and spondylolisthesis were excluded. For laminectomy only cases, patients with stenosis with neural claudication were excluded. Overuse rates of spinal fusion/laminectomy were measured as a ratio of low-value procedures as a proportion of total spinal fusion/laminectomy procedures.

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Lindsay Lee Wallace @lindsayleewallace.bsky.social · 2d

And like, my surgery has by all accounts gone great! It worked, I rarely even have to think about it, one time a doctor in an unrelated visit told me I had "the best fusion" she's ever seen. But as I age & hear more about horrid fusion complications in pieces like the above (again, great piece!)...

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Lindsay Lee Wallace @lindsayleewallace.bsky.social · 2d

Because honestly, research on long-term outcomes of adolescent fusion for scoliosis is kinda weirdly sparse! This recent literature review repeatedly references the lack of data! pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Long-term outcomes of spinal fusion in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: a literature review

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is the most common form of spinal deformity in the younger population. The surgical management for these patients improved constantly over the last year and might...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Lindsay Lee Wallace @lindsayleewallace.bsky.social · 2d

As one of the cohort who had a fusion at 14 after the middle school scoliosis check (remember those? I bought my first bra for that lol) found a curve that 3 years of bracing didn't slow, I've hoped some of the new back surgery coverage would address if fusions like mine are also over-incentivized.

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Lindsay Lee Wallace @lindsayleewallace.bsky.social · 2d

TRULY not doing the "this story about one thing isn't also about MY experience" dance. This is really interesting & necessary & I'm glad for reporting on the overuse of dubious spinal fusions (my grandma had one the surgeon claimed would make her walk. It didn't.)
But...
nymag.com/intelligence...

The Spinal Surgeries That Didn’t Need to Happen

As much as half of all spinal fusions don’t alleviate pain — why do doctors perform so many?

nymag.com

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Prof. Jennie Roe-mick 🏳️‍🌈 @romich.bsky.social · 3d

Wow. My University of Washington colleague Amy Hagopian was expelled from APHA for her pro-Palestinan advocacy. 🧵

academeblog.org/2025/10/07/w...

What to Do When Your Professional Association Breaks Your Heart

BY AMY HAGOPIAN Public health professionals are charged with responding to humanitarian crises. When hospitals are bombed, when children are deliberately starved, when doctors are assassinated, we’…

academeblog.org

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Gretchen Felker-Martin 🍉 @scumbelievable.bsky.social · 3d

You know what they say: if you want to win a war, just give up on every battle, let the enemy dictate terms, and let your people die and surely you'll take it in the long game!

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James Downie @jamescdownie.bsky.social · 3d

In unrelated news, here's @juliesulabor.bsky.social writing for @msnbc.com about how Amazon mistreats its package handlers and delivery drivers: www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 5d

"The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year... In a way, then, America has become one big bet on AI."

America is now one big bet on AI

It’s seen as the magic fix for every threat to the US economy

www.ft.com

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Tina Vasquez @tinavasquez.bsky.social · 8d

Journalist Mario Guevara is reporting that he will be deported to El Salvador today, after spending more than 100 days in detention after he was arrested on June 14 while covering a "No Kings" protest near Atlanta, GA. The charges against him were dropped, but DHS pursued deportation anyways.

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ACLU @aclu.org · 8d

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador.

Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 10d

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

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Lindsay Lee Wallace @lindsayleewallace.bsky.social · 11d

happy 1500th bat to all who celebrate!

Bat Conservation International 🦇 @batcon.org · 11d

You read that right- there are now 1,500 official bat species known to science!
The Bioko pipistrelle (𝘗𝘪𝘱𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘴 𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘭𝘢) was found on Bioko Island in Africa’s Equatorial New Guinea by former BCI Student Scholar Dr. Laura Torrent and her colleagues.

Reposted by Lindsay Lee Wallace

Lindsay Lee Wallace @lindsayleewallace.bsky.social · 15d

The charter school pressuring teachers to get involved in politics

“It makes me feel like we will be fired if we don’t participate," one Success Academy educator said.

www.motherjones.com

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Reposted by Lindsay Lee Wallace

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 11d

YES! THIS on GenAI!

Please read this absolutely splendid piece of writing that had me cheering, a little bit weepy, and writing in the margins:

"An extraordinary amount of money is spent by the AI industry to ensure that acquiescence is the only plausible response. But marketing is not destiny."

Large Language Muddle | The Editors

The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations. The university is becoming more corporate, more politically oppressive, and all but hostile to the ...

www.nplusonemag.com

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Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 12d

ICE Confirms Agents Do Not Have Faces Beneath Masks

WASHINGTON—In response to legislation that would ban officers from obscuring their identities during arrests and raids, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed Thursday that beneath their m...

theonion.com

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Alliance for Quality Education @aqeny.bsky.social · 14d

Let this be your reminder that NYC charter schools’ loyalties lie with the state’s millionaires, billionaires, and most profitable corporations rather than the Black, brown, disabled, and lower-income communities they claim to represent

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 14d

Early this month, Eva Moskowitz, the CEO of Success Academy—New York City’s largest charter school network— had an urgent message for her employees that had nothing to do with pedagogy or classroom management:

You need to help push the charter school agenda.

The charter school pressuring teachers to get involved in politics

“It makes me feel like we will be fired if we don’t participate,” one Success Academy educator said.

www.motherjones.com

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Reposted by Lindsay Lee Wallace

Jake Lahut @jakelahut.writes.news · 14d

The @telliotter.bsky.social network state story is here.

This is a really important concept driving a lot of the thinking coming out of Silicon Valley and influencing the GOP. The characters themselves are also something to behold. Trust me, you gotta check it out: www.wired.com/story/tech-b...

Tech Billionaires Already Captured the White House. They Still Want to Be Kings

From Montenegro to northern California, the tech elite dream of building cities where they make the rules. Is this, finally, their moment?

www.wired.com

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Drew Scanlon @drewscanlon.bsky.social · 15d

Hi Internet! I'm Drew and THIS IS MY FACE.

If this GIF has ever brought you joy in the past, I humbly ask you to consider making a donation to the National MS Society. It would mean a lot to me and to those I know affected by the disease!

Donate at blinkingguy.com

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Daniel Malmer @malmer.com · 15d

The Brookings Institute found that Charlie Kirk was the 2nd largest misinformation spreader among podcasts they analysed.

"Mr. Kirk, a conservative activist and the founder of Turning Point USA, ranked second, with 17 percent of his episodes containing an unsubstantiated or false claim."

Gifted:

Steve Bannon’s Podcast Is Top Misinformation Spreader, Study Says (Published 2023)

www.nytimes.com

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 15d

What might not occur to you upon reading this headline is that, in other words, ICE is targeting gay men of color

Every queer press org should be picking up this story

Cruising crackdown in Penn Station bathroom puts at least 20 men in ICE custody

State and city laws prohibit local police departments from turning people over to ICE. That restriction does not apply to the federally run Amtrak Police Department.

gothamist.com

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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 15d

The White House is telling Medicaid users to get jobs—while attacking everything that makes that possible.

The biggest hurdle to Trump's Medicaid work requirements: the war on disabled workers

The White House is telling Medicaid users to get jobs—while attacking everything that makes that possible.

www.motherjones.com

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