It Was on Your Table Every Morning Growing Up. It’s Dying Before Our Eyes. No One Wants to Face It. The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal decline. Everyone has a theory about why.

The possible culprits: private equity, Wall Street, foreign capital from Brazil, the 2007 Florida housing crash/Great Recession, suburban sprawl, climate change, and an addiction to Monsanto's glyphosate. All swallowed the mighty Florida Orange alive.

slate.com/business/202...

It Was on Your Table Every Morning Growing Up. It’s Dying Before Our Eyes. No One Wants to Face It. The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal decline. Everyone has a theory about why.

The Florida orange crop has collapsed 95 percent in 20 years, headed for a century-low 12 million boxes. 100 percent of the trees are infected with a disease transmitted by an invasive Chinese bug, and deemed "incurable."

Who killed the Florida Orange? slate.com/business/202...

This is amazing.

This is some read.

The article keeps hinting at a big secret from Gil’s past that points to a sinister motivation, but he just seems like a genuinely idealistic guy, who’s only (admittedly major) mistake was thinking he could do this all by himself.

This story is a wild ride and I recommend taking it.

For what it’s worth, the reaction that tells me the most about whose side I’m on is Janet’s (late in the piece, when it’s all over). But there’s a lot to experience here that doesn’t boil down to whose side you pick, whoever it is.

When the New Neighbor Arrived, They Were Excited. It Turned Into a Seven-Year Nightmare That Had Liberals Losing Their Minds. The seven-year war between the bookstore owner and the good liberals who went rogue.

"For a long time, the housed neighbors had felt like the city had abandoned homeless people. Now they felt like the city was abandoning them." @alexsammon.bsky.social for @slate.com
#longreads slate.com/business/202...

good catch!

When the New Neighbor Arrived, They Were Excited. It Turned Into a Seven-Year Nightmare That Had Liberals Losing Their Minds. The seven-year war between the bookstore owner and the good liberals who went rogue.

My goodness, this piece is messy, complex, bleak, deeply human. Absolutely Incredible piece of journalism from
@alexsammon.bsky.social

Alternative title: Everyone's a YIMBY until the homeless camp comes to your backyard

When the New Neighbor Arrived, They Were Excited. It Turned Into a Seven-Year Nightmare That Had Liberals Losing Their Minds. The seven-year war between the bookstore owner and the good liberals who went rogue.

In 2022, Gil Kerley opened a used bookstore in Albuquerque. His neighbors were elated—gentrification! Higher property values! Then they watched in dismay as he moved a steadily growing homeless camp into the parking lot. Was it all a revenge plot?
slate.com/business/202...

thanks dude !

.@alexsammon.bsky.social profiled a day laborer at a Los Angeles Home Depot.

a tragic story, expertly told: slate.com/business/202...

I Spent 12 Hours in the Parking Lot Where Donald Trump’s Darkest Work Is Unfolding. They’re Hoping You Don’t Notice. How a quintessentially American setting became an epicenter of cruelty.

slate.com/business/202... @slate.com Story by @alexsammon.bsky.social

A second kidnap car drove by, a Kia with Arizona plates. Then a third: a Volkswagen ID.4, electric. Sometimes, the group said, it would see vehicles with no plates, or plates blacked out with electrical tape, or temporary paper plates that just so happened to tear off in the wind. Sometimes multiple cars would have the same plates; sometimes the numbers were laughably fake: ABC1234, for instance. Somehow, the cops never seemed to pull these cars over.

plateless presumed kidnap car

A pair of plateless kidnap cars outside every cop's favorite hangout, Pita 360 in Gardena

Great @alexsammon.bsky.social article, and also, I wasn't imagining it after all slate.com/business/202...

Beer Is Officially on the Decline in America. No One Saw the Real Culprit Coming. The war on suds has multiple fronts—but they all come from the same place.

(Story by the great @alexsammon.bsky.social) slate.com/life/2025/09...

I'd be curious how US trends compare to global/ROW trends. Is this really an American only phenomena?

@alexsammon.bsky.social
@slate.com

blue rose you say...somehow i do not find myself surprised

Man Got an Unexpected Text Offering a Dream Job, So He Said Yes — and Discovered a Strange Scam Ring In 2024, Americans reported $470 million in losses to text scams, more than fivefold the amount reported in 2020, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The digital landscape continues to evolve, ...

participated in my first People Magazine exclusive, in which I am "man." people.com/what-happene...

Today in “One-liners That Absolutely Destroyed Me”: “Someone should invent a currency that’s just the amount that it is.” - @alexsammon.bsky.social

This shameful episode👇 set the stage for what Trump is doing today. Cynical Democrats and pundits claimed that D.C. couldn't be trusted to write our own criminal laws, legitimizing Republicans' insistence that we don't deserve home rule. A straight line from there to here. slate.com/news-and-pol...

I Responded to One of the Spam Texts From a “Recruiter”—Then Took the Job. It Got Weirder Than I Could Have Imagined. The story of “Cathy,” my scammer.

Congratulations to @alexsammon.bsky.social! He won this week's audience award for "My Scammer" at @slate.com

slate.com/technology/2...

haha, thank you!

widespread adoption of crypto
+ proliferation of AI
+ softening of the labor market
+ enforcement “replaced by crypto industry toadies”

= “It is a great time to be a scammer.”

thanks!

This is incredible.

'This whole march of human cultural production—incalculable progress—and the one constant that has survived and adapted and thrived? The scam. ... In the end, I arrived at a simple truth. Over the course of two months, “Cathy” had run me for $96.'

happy to be of service

Crypto is the scam enabler. It's where crooks hide money.

It also does important cultural work by lubricating transactions with a magical get-rich-quick aura. It says you don't fully understand what's happening with your "earnings" because the rules are different in the cryptosphere. Duh.