iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Alex Galbraith

Salon.com @salon.com · 23/09/2026

Nikole Hannah-Jones' New York Times Magazine essay about her daughter's schooling has generated lots of discussion. The big question: Are progressive parents hypocrites for wanting the best for their kids? @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social argues the debate misses the point.

salon.com

Wanting the best school for your kid doesn't make you a hypocrite

Nikole Hannah-Jones' controversial essay asks if you can fight for a better world while accepting the one you have

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Reposted by Alex Galbraith

Douglas Moran @dougom.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

@alexwgalbraith.bsky.social Private equity is a cancer on our economic system. It needs to be stopped. Any time I read about a well-known company going downhill , I always check to see if they were bought by private equity, & the majority of times they have been. www.salon.com/2026/09/25/t...

salon.com

The private equity backlash could start at the drive-thru

The places Americans once loved for being cheap are a lesson in what buyouts do

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Ed Sheeran deserves all the hate he's getting right now. I'll add more to it when my story goes live later today. But I won't stand for saying he's a bad artist. You all just have no respect for schmaltz. He's great at exceedingly tender and overwhelmingly corny music. It's not easy to make!

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I CANNOT AGREE STRONGLY ENOUGH IT DRIVES ME ABSOLUTELY OUT OF MY MIND THAT PEOPLE LEFT-OF-CENTER CITE THIS MOVIE SO CASUALLY BUT IT IS A TIME-SAVER TO HAVE SHORTHAND FOR “OH I SEE I AGREE WITH YOU BUT HATE YOUR GUTS”.

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Reposted by Alex Galbraith

Amanda Marcotte @amandamarcotte.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

My colleague @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social is getting grief for this piece, but he's right. I hate to say, but Mike Judge may have got right wing-curious around this time. He was buddies with Alex Jones. I think he's come back around, but the movie is reactionary. www.salon.com/2026/09/06/i...

salon.com

"Idiocracy" is still a worthless artifact 20 years later

The film's smirking, know-it-all pose was tired when it released. It’s useless now

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

"Idiocracy" turned 20 this month, and like a lot of mean-spirited mid-'00s culture, it's not worth remembering. A rewatch does Mike Judge's nastiest film no favors.

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Seeing George Santos' name back in the news, I can't help but feel like my commentary from this weekend holds. Nobody fades away in an era where sustaining attention has never been easier. For @salon.com:

salon.com

Why don't celebrities go away anymore?

From Donald Trump to Taylor Swift, the same names still run culture and politics

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Dolly Parton was one-of-one in music history. You've read about that by now, if you didn't know it already. But Parton's apolitical politics also can't be replicated www.salon.com/2026/08/27/d...

salon.com

Dolly Parton blazed a path that modern country stars can’t follow

Parton's outwardly apolitical, quietly radical balancing act can't be repeated in the social media age

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

BrooklynVegan hadn't had its rowdy comments section for a decade, but its demise got me thinking about websites where people used to gather. We're losing the last of the spots that people swung by everyday to take the temperature of their fellow online enthusiasts.

salon.com

The internet is losing its third places

Does anyone know where to hang out online anymore?

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

The trans panic in professional sports is so imaginary that conservatives had to create their own threats to the integrity of women's competition. Despite what Sophie Cunningham might think, the biggest threat to her league is people like Enes Kanter Freedom.

salon.com

Conservatives find their fighter in Sophie Cunningham

The anti-trans movement in sports needed a face. It found one in the WNBA player

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Gillian Welch's "Time (The Revelator)" just turned 25. The standout track "Everything Is Free" worried about a world in which people expect to be entertained for nothing. We've lived in that world for decades. It's worse than she thought.

salon.com

Gillian Welch's “Everything Is Free” warned us all along

Her 2001 song on piracy predicted who'd get rich — and who'd be left behind

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

If the last few days have proved anything, it's that politicians need to hang it up much sooner. Lindsey Graham's death may have been sudden, but it can hardly be called a surprise when a septuagenarian dies. For Crash Course from @salon.com, I wrote about our congressional age crisis.

salon-crashcourse.beehiiv.com

McConnell health truthers are missing the point

It’s not the cover-up, it’s the crime.

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Maybe it was the looming promise of fireworks and day drinking, but Crash Course for @salon.com was uncharacteristically cheerful last week. Inadvertently, my daily essays kept circling the praiseworthy bits of MAGA media and Trumpworld.

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I need all progressives fretting over Donald Trump intervening on behalf of the USMNT to consider "it's cool when my guys do it" thought. It's been the Republican worldview for at least a decade. Free yourself.

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I was the first person in my family (on either side) to graduate college, but no amount of book learning can fully bleach the North Florida from my bones. That’s my excuse, in any case, for dedicating part of my politics newsletter to the joys of Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff.”

Borland switches to a squealing, ratcheting riff that gets tighter and tighter as Durst threatens to peel the skin off your body with power tools. The band ends this breakdown by coming to a dead stop as Fred threatens to “break your f**king face tonight.” The next 25 seconds are groovy, freewheeling chaos. Durst demands the listener hand over something he can snap in half over a bed of screeching turntables and pinballing guitars. It’s stupid, it’s violent, it’s awesome.

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

It's fun to watch a D-tier talent like JD Vance get clowned on the world stage, but even a skilled negotiator would have trouble getting a win out of the Iran negotiations. salon-crashcourse.beehiiv.com/p/this-is-wh...

salon-crashcourse.beehiiv.com

This is what losing looks like

The United States should probably get used to bad deals.

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Reposted by Alex Galbraith

Erin Keane @erinkeane.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

"We’d count ourselves lucky if most of Trump’s screwups could be remedied with a bit of bleach," writes @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social in Crash Course, @salon.com's free morning newsletter (not a Substack!) that you can and should sign up for here: salon-crashcourse.beehiiv.com/p/trump-s-pe...

salon-crashcourse.beehiiv.com

Trump’s peroxide presidency

The president has spent much of his second term cleaning up his own messes.

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Reposted by Alex Galbraith

Erin Keane @erinkeane.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

In which I open Crash Course to read about the Iran ceasefire and learn @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social is a crafter. "I took trash and turned it into something I could use." salon-crashcourse.beehiiv.com/p/iran-cease...

salon-crashcourse.beehiiv.com

Iran ceasefire is worth doing poorly

Trump’s deal will likely be worse than what was in place before. That doesn’t matter.

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

This idea that AI is here forever and we have to come to grips with it drives me insane. Generative AI needs an incomprehensible amount of resources to work and produces nothing but garbage. Cut the money off and watch it die!

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

The chorus to this song feels like it takes 700 years to get through. What an unlikely hit and an awful slog

youtube.com

Tame Impala, JENNIE - Dracula (JENNIE Remix - Official Lyric Video)

YouTube video by tameimpalaVEVO

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Reposted by Alex Galbraith

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

I love Wemby so much.

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

I’m gonna lose it when the NBA Finals goes to break over a montage of Wemby dunks and blocks set to this classic youtu.be/VAI1aMEurSM?...

youtu.be

(Hey Baby) Que Paso

YouTube video by Texas Tornados - Topic

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Spent yesterday thinking about the Enhanced Games and how our bar for what constitutes a scandal have been immeasurably lifted by the constant outrages of the Trump years. For my @salon.com newsletter, Crash Course, I framed our new inability to get upset through the career of Barry Bonds.

A photo of Barry Bonds and the quote "My records aren't going anywhere."

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Reposted by Alex Galbraith

Russell Payne @rpaynereport.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

A lot of people have already commented on this ruling out of Delaware, allowing corporations to vote in some elections there, and it is pretty troubling. I, however, have a completely different point I'd like to discuss below, and yesm it is about Star Wars 🧵

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

I spent yesterday on here gathering together all my previous thoughts on AI and dignity. [Big Freedia voice] You already know [/BFV] I was working on something about the pope's first encyclical. Check it out below. If you like it, sign up for my @salon.com newsletter!

salon-crashcourse.beehiiv.com

Pope Leo is hard on AI, soft on Gandalf

The church leader quoted “Lord of the Rings” in a letter calling for the “disarming” of AI.

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Pope Leo is correct about AI, of course. The only defensible position for a faith leader on a machine that seeks to replace humanity -- made in God's own image, per Jewish and Christian tradition -- is to stand against it

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Listening to Drake's new trio of albums, I couldn't shake the feeling that it sounded like everything nowadays: overlong, unrequested and mad about winning.

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Democrats are big mad about the fund for Capitol rioters

“This is pure fraud and highway robbery. No one can be both plaintiff and defendant in the same case,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. shared in a statement. “But Trump’s DOJ is not arguing any of this because it is in on the scam. This case is nothing but a racket."

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

A fun reminder that New Orleans is different from everywhere else: my phone is convinced that all photos of me in my Carnival outfits must be from a concert.

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Alex Galbraith @alexwgalbraith.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I edit @salon.com’s (hopefully essential) morning newsletter, Crash Course. Every weekday, I send a round-up of Salon’s political analysis, along with an essay hoping to make some sense of the news. But, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I never intended to write about politics. (1/6)

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