Obviously, I only have the free, abbreviated version, but I thought it was funny how short the "Of course, Trump is doing some good." episode seems to be.
What, isn't there as much content to cover as in "The everything, everywhere, all at once corruption story."? 😂
Alright folks, it’s time. Consider this your open mic, your therapy session, your personal Festivus.
Got a boss who thinks “urgent” means every single email? A neighbor who mows the lawn at 7 a.m. on Saturdays? A phone that autocorrects “ducking” when you clearly meant something else?
This is the spot to unload. Big or small, petty or profound — if it’s gnawing at you, drop it here. Rant. Rave. Roast.
Rules are simple:
• No personal info.
• Keep it cathartic, not cruel.
• Upvote the stuff that makes you nod and say “YES, SAME.”
Let the grievances fly.
Hey gang,
I popped into Reddit for the first time in a while today and saw this thread, which obviously caught my eye. The post itself, and the comments, were super enlightening. I'm genuinely here not just to mount some kind of defense but engage, because I learned a bit and some stuff caught me by surprise. And because, well, I've bet my entire livelihood on making Tangle work so I gotta make sure we aren't losing long-time supporters! Some assorted thoughts I'd really love to just put into the ether
Finally, I'd just say that I constantly hear from topic-level experts who see our coverage after reading more traditional news outlets and write in with complimentary notes about how we were one of the few places to capture the nuance or complicating factors of an issue, and how grateful they are that we're not just doing some 120 word round-up that misses all that. I think that is simply a product of our format and our rigor. Of all the things I'm proud of about Tangle, that one really is the thing that is one of the most important to me. Our reality and this moment just aren't made for short-form news, yet that's the most dominant kind of news we have right now. And I love that we are pushing something different out into the ether.
Anyway, thanks all for reading, and for the folks who hopped in to make their own case for sticking around. u/TheUnsettler1216 I hope you stay with us! Will try to monitor this thread for any feedback/thoughts
I haven’t tried this, but regarding Isaac’s deer grievance, my understanding is you can buy online coyote pee and spray it around the edges of your property and that might keep the deer out?
Perhaps others know if this actually works, but maybe a fixable grievance
Was i the only one who found Audrey's pronunciation in yesterday's good news story off-putting? I've never heard it pronounced that way.
You gotta choose: Billionaire wealth or government wealth.
How about it Tangle!? Sink your teeth into some Gary! Tell me he's a liar!!
I recall Isaac defending Bari Weiss from people attacking her and painting her as doing similar work to what he's doing and not being a partisan hack.
How can we explain then CBS being in talks for a deal with Katie Miller whose podcast has no viewers? If that actually goes through, how can you make an honest case that the leaders involved aren't all just doing pay-to-play partisan hackery to please the current administration.
Isaac had a nice piece focused on all the Trump corruption. But the corruption money needs to come from somewhere. I could see an interesting story focused on how big tech or corporate media have been happy to participate in the corruption to further their financial interests
Hi Tangle Readers,
I've been a subscriber for about two years and am having trouble justifying continuing to read Tangle. I really want to believe that this can somehow reduce partisanship or make me better understand the opposing side, but I don't think it's working.
For context, I'd consider myself pretty progressive, probably democratic socialist would be the closest common term. I've spent a lot of time in the past reading conservative sources and commentary on that work and the conservative intellectual tradition because I wanted to try and understand why America is the way that it is.
I work in and around municipal government and housing and transportation policy, and I've really come to notice how fundamentally misinformed most people I interact with are. Just a baseline ignorance of how our institutions function. When I read media coverage about these issues, it usually would make the problem worse rather than better because the reporters themselves also don't understand the issue that well. It's made me really jaded and cynical. Even if the NYT writes a really great article on transportation policy (which they usually don't), most Americans aren't reading it.
It made me think about all the issue areas I don't work in and don't have as much experience in, and that I'm probably not getting a good understanding of these by reading general-purpose media, which Tangle unfortunately is. You pretty much just get a surface pass of every topic and the left/right breakdown, which they'll admit is not always a valid axis from which to understand an issue. I find I pretty much always know exactly what "The Right" is going to say, and there's usually just a completely unbridgable gulf between what I believe and what The Right says in these pieces. Reading Tangle hasn't made me more "moderate" or anything. I also don't feel closer to my fellow Americans. If anything, I feel more alienated.
I don't listen to the podcast, because I find the kind of half-baked discussions between pundits to be really exhausting. Doesn't feel like I'm getting smarter or more informed. If I care about an issue a lot, I can do the aggregation myself by surveying the sources I know or even using Google Scholar to look at academic journals. I'm also struggling with the idea that the independent media Tangle is a part of is mostly a bunch of journalists talking to each other on Twitter and there's not a lot of ground-truthing going on. Tangle's not doing an interview with someone who worked at USAID to talk about their programs, right? They're not sending a reporter to Minneapolis for a month to ride-along with ICE watch, right?
This is rambling because I didn't know who else to talk to about this. Does anyone have a good perspective on what they're getting out of Tangle? Has anyone else felt these too and found a way past them? Tangle is the only paid news subscription I have at the moment.
I felt like I should deliver something of a (low-stakes) take, because I was surprised that nobody brought this up during SotR! This is about their discussion of the "get your cotton-picking hands off of Virginia" radio host.
I agree with the gang: there was practically no tangible harm from this turn of phrase, and there's surely a possibility that this is just a universal expression this radio host likes. I also don't think the politician he was ranting to came out looking bad.
However, I think it's fair to hold it against him. One would expect a radio host to be familiar enough with his country's history to understand why something would invite racial tension, whether or not it was intended. It's especially obvious because of the even more literal phrasing ("cotton-picking hands") and its direct parallel to an industry historically associated with slavery. It does reflect negatively on him that he either didn't realize this, or didn't have enough empathy to at least clarify that it wasn't about his race.
Perhaps this is the argument for the "woke" position, I dunno. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else felt similarly.
Alright folks, it’s time. Consider this your open mic, your therapy session, your personal Festivus.
Got a boss who thinks “urgent” means every single email? A neighbor who mows the lawn at 7 a.m. on Saturdays? A phone that autocorrects “ducking” when you clearly meant something else?
This is the spot to unload. Big or small, petty or profound — if it’s gnawing at you, drop it here. Rant. Rave. Roast.
Rules are simple:
• No personal info.
• Keep it cathartic, not cruel.
• Upvote the stuff that makes you nod and say “YES, SAME.”
Let the grievances fly.
Yes, this is a bit of a shitpost, but I am curious how Tangle decided on this pronunciation. In the past they've written in detail about e.g. President and former President, DoD and Department of War, etc. How does this work for pronouncing acronyms?
I'm curious what this actually was. Somebody (Ari perhaps?) had ranted about the albuterol situation and mentioned that a listener clued him in to some alternative.
I did some quick searching and the only alternatives I found otc were epinephrine which has worse side effects.
Americans always like to think of themselves as rebels who stand up for themselves and who'll fight when the chips are down, but when I look at the United States these days I only see tiny pockets of genuine resistance such as in Minneapolis, or the way black representatives in South are standing up after the gutting of the VRA. The vast majority of the country seems to prefer to lie down and take it (such as the VA democrats who meekly accepted their court defeat) or just meekly wait for the next election to vote someone in and hope they'll solve the problem.
It really feels to me like the United States just flat out doesn't have the stomach to fight for its democracy. Between the unprecedented levels of corruption, the attacks on clean energy, the unjustified and illegal wars, and the gross economic mismanagement, I'd have expected a lot more popular anger and political activity. Instead, most people just seem to be keeping their heads down and hoping to ride it out.
Why is that?
The lipoma should be removed. It’s about what’s best for Cali, her comfort, and her quality of life. She is not thinking about the surgery done to repair the torn ACL and subsequent recovery. What she knows is that right now her foot brothers her. After the lipoma is removed she will only know that her foot still bothers her, but not why. When her foot is healed she will know that nothing is wrong and won’t think about why she feels better. What she will always know is that you love her and always take care of her and do what is best for her.
Having owned 10 dogs over many years, I have needed to deal with and make decisions about many medical situations, some extremely serious. As difficult as it always is with situations affecting my dogs, I have to constantly remind myself that it’s worse for me because I know what’s going on and think about it from the perspective as if I were in the situation. Dogs are lucky that they don’t have this thought process. They only know when something is wrong or if everything is good. They can only rely on us to take care of them and make the best decisions for them.
In other news about retaliation against anyone who opposes gerrymandering…
Let me start off by saying that, just because I'm depressed, does not mean this is a critique.
I feel desperate about our information landscape. I got off Facebook because I couldn't stand to see how mean people were to each other and what horrible sources of information were flying around.
Last Friday, I felt desperate in the way of "Yes, in my soul I deeply know none of this is remotely ok, but what can I do about it?" This week, though, was a different and worse desperation. It reminded me of why I'm off Facebook. Being reminded that people are outsourcing all critical thought to a machine that has been sold to them as the "greatest invention of all time" made me realize that we're seemingly careening into an even worse information landscape. Worse, though, people see the corruption and truly don't care. They make wild excuses like we're just mad because Trump is doing corruption better than any of us could or people who are dumb enough to fall for crypto, deserve to lose it.
I am thankful that the Tangle is staying in the conversation. I make a monthly donation to their non-profit but feel desperate for what else I can do. I think I was holding out hope that there might someday soon (like maybe an off ramp starting in November?) be an end to this complete insanity and we could maybe reel the Overton window back in a little bit and maybe go back to chipping away at "insanity as usual". Thursday's piece about Indiana and Friday's piece have me feeling worried this might go on for so much longer than I can stomach.
I live in California, our primary election is racing at me, and I'm having difficulty keeping track of it all. Usually I use isidewith.com to help me find a candidate that aligns well with my values. I think that's Katie Porter in this case (87% match), but it's tough because California has the sad situation of an open primary which only lets two candidates through, but without Ranked Choice Voting, the danger of splitting the vote enough to get two Republicans into the general election is real. So, I've seen it said that we should watch the polls and vote for the one who is winning there so that the vote is not split, and we'll have a Democrat to vote for in the general election.
But, I'm having difficulty finding a steady source for those polls. What web resources do you all use to keep track of that kind of thing?
