All posts tagged: telling

The President’s Arsenal of Insults Has a Telling New Entry

The President’s Arsenal of Insults Has a Telling New Entry

Published by Sam Flores

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. Donald Trump, as a creator of insults, is not a poet. But he is prolific—no critic can doubt his commitment to his craft—and his body of work, whatever it may lack in artistry, is notable for its volume alone. Every time the president calls someone a “dog” or a “pig” or a “horseface,” he solidifies his status as the GOAT. As a result, whether the insults are personalized attacks (“Sleepy Joe,” “Shifty Schiff,” “Pocahontas”) or general ones (“crazy,” “nasty,” “dumb as a rock”), they form, together, a data set: a collection of text that can be categorized, analyzed, and mined for insights—not into the person being targeted but into the man who does the aiming. This week, a video went viral: a clip from an interview with the president conducted by the Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker. The clip owes some of its popularity to its oddness. The sit-down, filmed in Wisconsin, was set in a barn, …

Parents Say Grandparents Broke Trust By Taking Their 8-Month-Old On Road Trip Without Telling Them

Parents Say Grandparents Broke Trust By Taking Their 8-Month-Old On Road Trip Without Telling Them

Published by Jenni Sidey

Where in the world would some of us parents be without our children’s grandparents? They step in and step up to create a village — a support system for your child or children the leaves them feeling secure and loved. But there are times when grandparents make decisions about their grandkids without consulting their children, and, for some, that’s a huge boundary to cross. One man took to an online forum to share his dismay over his parents’ actions. They apparently told him and his wife a lie about what they would be doing with their 8-month-old baby one day and set in motion actions that would fracture the relationship for the foreseeable future. The grandparents took the 8-month-old on a road trip — without asking for permission first Getty Images / Unsplash+ His parents had been watching the baby while he and his wife worked during the week. One day, they notified their son and his wife that they would be an hour late dropping their grandchild off. The devoted dad was working from home, so …

12 Men Reveal The One White Lie They Still Feel Guilty About Telling Their Wives

12 Men Reveal The One White Lie They Still Feel Guilty About Telling Their Wives

Published by Jenni Sidey

Can we all admit that, no matter how honest some of us are, we are all guilty, at one point or another, of resorting to white lies? Tiny fibs save our loved ones’ feelings, save ourselves time and face, and often get us out of a lot more trouble than necessary. We exchange white lies in every relationship we encounter, from saying “I’m fine!” when a stranger asks how we’re doing to smiling and nodding when a child asks us if we still believe in Santa. Marriage is no different. We asked husbands to confess the white lie they still feel guilty about telling their partner. Men reveal the one white lie they still feel guilty about telling their wives: 1. ‘I love her ankle tattoo she has that supposedly matches one on her ex’ “She’s had it for 15 years, but every time I look at it, I feel like she’s been branded.” 2. ‘I like this current haircut of hers’ “I hate it, but she loves it, so there’s no reason to say …

Are You Telling the Wrong Story About Your Exhaustion?

Are You Telling the Wrong Story About Your Exhaustion?

Published by Jenni Sidey

I have always been fascinated by the stories and metaphors we use to describe our inner lives. Often things of beauty, they are also highly revealing. We reach instinctively for story and metaphor because what goes on inside us can be difficult to describe in plain language. Stories and metaphors allow us to translate sensations and moods into shared images. They help us communicate what is otherwise diffuse, slippery and elusive. They illuminate the shifting weather systems of our inland empires. But stories and metaphors don’t merely describe experience. They also shape it. This matters profoundly when it comes to exhaustion. Exhaustion Stories The stories we tell about our energy – what gives us energy, what drains it, and why we struggle to replenish it – are rarely neutral. Most of us inhabit one of several dominant exhaustion narratives, often without realising it. Many of us tell self-blaming stories. We tell ourselves that we are simply not productive enough — that we are inefficient, badly organised, lacking in discipline. We believe we are poor time …

What Your Pre-Race Nerves Are Telling You

What Your Pre-Race Nerves Are Telling You

Published by Jenni Sidey

The “taper crazies” are a well-known phenomenon among athletes in the days or weeks preceding an endurance event. You hyperfixate on the forecast, scrutinize the body’s sensations that could indicate injury or illness, toss and turn at night, triple-check your gear, invent impossible worst-case scenarios, and obsess over details that you cannot actually control. Even experienced athletes can be surprised by how psychologically unpredictable the days before a race can feel. When you are in the throes of this unique form of anxiety, it can feel distressing and uncomfortable. Many athletes may interpret these experiences as problematic or a sign of weakness. They start to feel anxious about being anxious. However, anxiety preceding any major event (particularly one involving uncertainty and performance pressure) is a normal psychological response. The more you have invested in the process, the more you care about the outcome. Instead of wrestling with pre-race anxiety, a more helpful starting point is to ask: What are these nerves trying to tell me? “This Matters to Me” Anxiety is often a sign that …

Vanessa Trump shares telling post about relationship with Tiger Woods amid diagnosis

Vanessa Trump shares telling post about relationship with Tiger Woods amid diagnosis

Published by Daniella Wilson

Vanessa Trump has opened up about the support her partner, Tiger Woods, has given her following her breast cancer diagnosis. The 48-year-old took to Instagram to share a photograph of herself and Tiger Woods alongside a heartfelt message. In the image, Vanessa is seen hugging Tiger as the pair soaked up the sunshine outdoors, both wearing matching sunglasses. “My strength through it all! Family and the closest people to me,” she penned. The post was set to the song “Unstoppable” by Sia. Vanessa also shared a picture of herself and her five kids – Kai, Donald III, Tristan, Spencer, and Chloe – whom she shared with her ex-husband, Donald Trump Jr. © InstagramVanessa shared the post on Instagram On May 20, Vanessa announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was receiving treatment to combat the disease. “I’ve recently been diagnosed with breast cancer,” she wrote on Instagram. “While this isn’t news anyone expects, I’m working closely with my medical team on a treatment plan.” “I would like to thank my doctors for …

The Voice Telling Me to Do More Is Wearing Me Out

The Voice Telling Me to Do More Is Wearing Me Out

Published by Jenni Sidey

You should have gotten up earlier. You shouldn’t have procrastinated. You should have put it in the calendar. You should have followed up. You should have checked in. You should have reached out. You should have circled back. You should have planned ahead. My mind offers these little reprimands all day long, like an anxious middle manager pacing the halls of a failing corporation. I scold myself because I think the scolding will improve future performance. Somewhere deep down, I believe that if I sufficiently shame myself for today’s failures, tomorrow’s version of me will magically become organized, focused, energetic, and alert. Tomorrow’s Maggie, having absorbed the lecture, will rise at dawn glowing with initiative, alphabetizing spices while replying to emails with military precision. But what if that’s not true? What if the constant self-reprimand doesn’t sharpen us but depletes us? What if the voice endlessly reviewing our failures is not a wise mentor but an energy leak? Lately, I’ve started wondering whether this habit is less about growth and more about superstition—a kind of …

Telling new mothers to build a village just gives them something else to fail at

Telling new mothers to build a village just gives them something else to fail at

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more As a single parent I’m a one-person show a lot of the time. Although I don’t feel isolated, I haven’t managed to call my best friends for a chat for weeks. I’ve lost touch with exactly how I feel, and whether or not I’m feeling overwhelmed, is lost in the day-to-day juggle, which at times feels like a marathon. I’m lucky to have a core group of mum friends at my children’s west London primary school, who I can rely on. But I don’t have “fun” uncles and aunts popping in to entertain my offspring because I’ve fallen out with my family over my late dad and his will. Sadly, both my parents are dead, and the children’s only surviving grandmother is immobile in …

I’m not comfortable telling my kids they don’t have to share. Here’s why

I’m not comfortable telling my kids they don’t have to share. Here’s why

Published by Sam Flores

As a child, I remember gawking at a classmate’s Crayola collection during art class. I had perfectly serviceable Pentel crayons, but having previously seen the glossy, bright Crayola boxes only in American TV shows, I yearned to try them. I also thought my Colleen twin-head colour pencils were cool until I saw a 60-piece Faber-Castell colour pencil set for the first time. “Can I borrow your colour pencil?” was usually met with a generous “yes” – albeit sometimes with certain conditions, such as time limits of a few minutes for each use, or having to close my eyes while using the borrowed item. (The indisputable logic of eight-year-olds.) Looking back, we were learning to set our own boundaries among ourselves. We shared our resources with each other, but with our own rules, limitations and options. The difference was that those rules were set by us. When a parent steps in and speaks for a child who is assumed to be too young to voice their own “terms” of sharing, the dynamic inevitably changes. Often, I’ve …

AI Chatbots Telling Cancer Patients to Try Useless Woo-Woo Treatments Instead of Chemotherapy

AI Chatbots Telling Cancer Patients to Try Useless Woo-Woo Treatments Instead of Chemotherapy

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech AI chatbots will recommend that cancer patients try unproven alternatives to chemotherapy and offer up other unscientific medical claims, researchers found. While AI’s proneness to giving bad information is well known, it’s a particularly alarming finding given that it could be putting lives at risk by leading patients to try cancer treatments that don’t work, with tens of millions of Americans already using chatbots for health advice. In the new study published in journal BMJ Open, the researchers tested the accuracy of the free versions of leading AI chatbots including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, xAI’s Grok, and the Chinese model DeepSeek.  The tests involved asking questions on health topics that are notoriously rife with misinformation: cancer, vaccines, nutrition, athletic performance, and stem cell treatments. The queries were worded to “strain” the model towards giving questionable advice, a strategy that safety researchers use to stress test their safeguards. AI companies argue that these kinds of questions push their chatbots …