CNBC: “Job growth proved better than expected in June, as the labor market showed surprising resilience and likely taking a July interest rate cut off the table. Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 147,000 for the month, higher than the estimate for 110,000 and just above the upwardly revised 144,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. April’s tally also saw a small upward revision, now at 158,000 following an 11,000 increase.... Though the jobless rates fell [to 4.1%], it was due largely to a decrease in those working or looking for jobs.”
Washington Post: “A warehouse storing fireworks in Northern California exploded on Tuesday,leaving seven people missing and two injured as explosions continued intoWednesday evening, officials said. Dramatic video footage captured by KCRA 3 News, a Sacramento broadcaster, showed smoke pouring from the building’s roof before a massive explosion created a fireball that seemed to engulf much of the warehouse, accompanied by an echoing boom. Hundreds of fireworks appeared to be going off and were sparkling within the smoke. Photos of the aftermath showed multiple destroyed buildings and a large area covered in gray ash.” ~~~
New York Times: “The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who emerged from the backwoods of Louisiana to become a television evangelist with global reach, preaching about an eternal struggle between good and evil and warning of the temptations of the flesh, a theme that played out in his own life in a sex scandal, died on July 1. He was 90.” ~~~
~~~ For another sort of obituary, see Akhilleus' commentary near the end of yesterday's thread.
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Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:
~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.
CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~
~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play.
New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.
Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts.
New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~
~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”
NPR lists all of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners. Poynter lists the prizes awarded in journalism as well as the finalists in these categories.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow
Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns
I have a Bluesky account now. The URL ishttps://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.
Monday
Jan102011
Mass Media Meet a Mass Murderer (And Are Totally Flummoxed, According to Our Mr. Brooks)
David Brooks opines on Jared Loughner's mental state & faults the media, including the New York Times, for blaming the tea party and Sarah Palin for the Tucson shooting rampage. The Times moderators have scrambled the comments again, so here's mine, which for once has some nuance:
Mr. Brooks, you have set yourself up as an expert in psychology or psychiatry. Not only are you able to diagnose Jared Loughner from afar, you imply you know a lot more than the rest of the media about psychology: you write, "We have a news media that is psychologically ill informed." Except for you, I guess. Okay, I'm going to buy your set-up argument.
I have no idea what Mr. Loughner's political views might be. A classmate cited by the Times saying Loughner was "a liberal." Others have linked him with tea party-type politics. For a while there was an attempt to associate him with a radical anti-Semitic group. To confound all the political-motivation theories, the Washington Post reports that Loughner was a registered independent who didn't vote in 2010.
We do know this. Loughner thought Gabrielle Giffords was "stupid" and "a fake" because she didn't properly answer a question of his in 2007. And among the evidence found by law enforcement officers was an envelope from her office on which he wrote the words "My assassination."
But we know something more important, something larger than a young man in Tucson. George Packer of the New Yorker put his finger on it: "... for the past two years, many conservative leaders, activists, and media figures have made a habit of trying to delegitimize their political opponents. Not just arguing against their opponents, but doing everything possible to turn them into enemies of the country."
There's a second element which I would add, one well-illustrated by Dick Armey when he went on the teevee Sunday supposedly to calm the waters. But he didn't do that. He stirred things up. Armey said during an ABC New roundtable that tea partiers must "continue to do their duty and defend our liberties." Defend our liberties? That is a loaded phrase that the is standard tea party code. "THEY" are going to take your "liberties" away. "THEY" are going to enslave you. "WE" must "defend" ourselves against this peril.
Here is where pop psychology and politics collide. Mainstream politicians tell the gullible & impressionable that the government is illegitimate and that this illegitimate government is going to take away their natural and Constitutional freedoms. (That's why the Republicans read an expurgated version of the Constitution on the House floor -- to establish THEIR legitimacy as defenders of the Constitution against -- the OTHERS.) You really don't need to be an unbalanced individual to be worried about that frightening scenario.
So whatever combination of psychological aberrations motivated Jared Loughner to murder and maim 20 innocent people, he did so, I would guess, at least partly because he lives -- as to the rest of us -- in a culture where a crackpot theory about THEM has achieved mainstream legitimacy. So he targeted one of THEM, one who had "failed" to understand him and therefore provided "proof" that the government was illegitimate.
As long as there are people like you, Mr. Brooks, who aid and abet, and therefore legitimize, the crackpot theory of an illegitimate government that seeks to deprive Americans of their natural rights, the nation's psychological landscape is not going to improve.
Stephen Colbert weighs in on so-called Reps. Mike Fitzpatrick & Pete Sessions taking their oaths of office on the teevee:
Sudeep Reddy of the Wall Street Journal: "To an extent rarely seen in recessions since the Great Depression, wages for a swath of the labor force this time have taken a sharp and swift fall."
Ben Bernanke Is the Best Fucking Banker in the World. Felix Salmon of Reuters: "The Fed ... managed to earn net income of $80.9 billion in 2010. Which means that its return on assets was incredibly high at 3.3%, while its return on equity was an astonishing 143%. I think it’s fair to say that no bank in the history of the world has ever had income of anywhere near $80 billion in one year: that’s over $700 per US household. Somehow, the Fed is making roughly $60 per household per month, and remitting that money straight to the Treasury.... $80 billion is enormous — more than four times the Fed’s profit in 2004, for instance. And it’s a useful reminder of ... how monetary policy can make a serious dent in the funding-need side of fiscal policy."
John Schwartz of the New York Times: "With judges looking ever more critically at home foreclosures, they are reaching beyond the bankers to heap some of their most scorching criticism on the lawyers. In numerous opinions, judges have accused lawyers of processing shoddy or even fabricated paperwork in foreclosure actions when representing the banks."
A Work of Fiction by Joe Biden. Politico: in Afghanistan, Vice President "Biden was cordial with [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai, saying he 'did a great job in Lisbon” at a summit to talk about the future of Afghanistan. 'I think it's gotten us on the same page,' he said, according to the pool."
Sex News
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: William S. MacDonald, a man who was convicted of a felony violation of a sodomy law -- a Virginia law which is similar to the law the Supreme Court struck down in Lawrence v. Texas -- is still forced to register as a sex offender. MacDonald has asked the Supremes to hear his case.
Tamar Lewin of the New York Times: "The abortion rate in the United States, which has declined steadily since a 1981 peak of more than 29 abortions per 1,000 women, stalled between 2005 and 2008, at slightly less than 20 abortions per 1,000 women, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute.... Rachel Jones, the lead author, said the economy might have played a role":
Unintended pregnancy is increasingly concentrated among poor and low-income women, and for the 2008 survey, we were collecting data in the midst of a recession>. So there are more poor women in the survey, women who in better economic times might have decided to carry to term, but since they or their partner lost their job, decided they couldn’t.
Uh-Oh. NBC News: "Ted Williams, the formerly homeless man who became a viral sensation for his 'golden voice,' was detained with a daughter Monday night after police responded to a disturbance at a Los Angeles hotel, according to the Hollywood Reporter and Access Hollywood."
If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. -- Barack Obama, at a Philadelphia fundraiser, June 13, 2008
During a press availability with President Sarkozy, President Obama makes comments about the Tucson shootings:
President & Mrs. Obama observed a moment of silence to honor the Tucson shooting victims at 11:00 am ET this morning. White House press release. AP post-event story here:
Mark Kelly, the husband of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, released a statement late Sunday night which the Arizona Daily Star has published in full here.
Dr. Michael LeMole speaks at a press update this morning on Rep. Giffords' condition:
William Glaberson of the New York Times profiles Judy Clarke, "the capital-defense lawyer who will represent Jared L. Loughner.... [She is a well-known public defender who gets life sentences in cases that often begin with emotional calls for the death penalty. Ms. Clarke has helped a number of infamous defendants avoid death sentences, including Theodore J. Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Eric Robert Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympics bomber; and Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her toddlers. Over a legal career of more than 30 years, Ms. Clarke has become perhaps the best-known federal public defender in the country, with a reputation for taking on cases that seem impossible."
George Stephanopoulos speaks to Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. Suspect Jared Loughner has said, "not a word" to authorities:
... "From Day One, a Disturbing Presence in Class." New York Times reporters recount Jared Loughner's history of bizarre behavior, concentrating on incidents that resulted in his being suspended from Pima College.
Adam Nagourney of the New York Timespieces together how the assassination attempt and mass murder unfolded from accounts by eyewitnesses & authorities.
Jennifer Medina of the New York Times: "Sheriff [Clarence] Dupnik ... entered law enforcement five decades ago.... Since being elected sheriff in 1980, he has won re-election eight times [even though] ... he is a Democrat in a largely conservative part of the country. Sheriff Dupnik has been widely praised by local leaders for avoiding political grandstanding, but he certainly does not shy from the spotlight."
Laurie Merrill of the Arizona Republic: "Three men and a woman were instrumental in disarming and tackling the man suspected of killing six and injuring 14 in Tucson during a political event for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, according to Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. Dupnik identified the heroes as Patricia Maisch, Roger Salzgeber, Bill Badger and Joseph Zamudio." ...
... Sam Quinones & Jason Song of the Los Angeles Times relate the heroic act of 61-year-old Patricia Maisch who "saw Loughner reach for another ammunition magazine with his left hand and she took it from him, then helped subdue him by kneeling on his ankles." ...
... KTAR & AP: Giffords intern Daniel Hernandez, a college sophomore who aided the Congresswoman after she was shot, may have saved her life. With video.
Rob Stein & Shankar Vedantam of the Washington Post on Rep. Giffords' medical status: "Giffords ... has entered a crucial 48-hour period when swelling from the trauma of the bullet blast could cause as much damage to her brain as the initial wound, possibly triggering a major deterioration of her condition. The Arizona Democrat also faces many additional risks, including possible infections, more bleeding, and a long period of rehabilitation to limit permanent disabilities."
The New York Times has an interactive page featuring brief bios of each of those killed in Tucson Saturday.
Ashby Jones of the Wall Street Journal: Arizona judges reflect on their colleague Chief Judge John Roll.
Maeve Reston of the Los Angeles TimesprofilesPhyllis Schneck, a 79-year-old woman killed by the Tucson shooter. Her husband of 50 years, George Morris, suffered two gunshot wounds & is still hospitalized.
Richard Ruelas of the Arizona RepublicprofilesDorothy Morris, who was killed in Tucson.
Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "A great debate has begun to unfold about the conduct of politics in a climate of hatred and fear. No one can know at this point what the long-term effects of the tragic shootings will be, if any. At a minimum, they offer a reminder that elected officials deserve better than the routine demonization that has become so commonplace in politics today." ...
... Jeff Zeleny & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "Leaders in both parties sought Sunday to project a nonpartisan civility....President Obama's ... advisers were weighing the possibility of a national address. John A. Boehner replac[ed] a contentious health care debate on Wednesday with a bipartisan security briefing for lawmakers. Yet beneath that public sense of comity was a subtle round of jockeying — on cable news, blogs, Twitter and even Ms. Palin’s Facebook page — as both sides sought to gain the high ground...."
George Packer of the New Yorker: "... for the past two years, many conservative leaders, activists, and media figures have made a habit of trying to delegitimize their political opponents. Not just arguing against their opponents, but doing everything possible to turn them into enemies of the country.... The massacre in Tucson is, in a sense, irrelevant to the important point. Whatever drove Jared Lee Loughner, America's political frequencies are full of violent static." ...
... Paul Krugman: "Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: [the toxic rhetoric] is coming, overwhelmingly, from the right..., and there’s a market for anyone willing to stoke that anger.... The purveyors of hate have been treated with respect, even deference, by the G.O.P. establishment." ...
... Tim Egan of the New York Times: "Even if the gunman’s motives are never truly known, the splattering of so much innocent blood on a Saturday morning gives a nation as fractious as ours a chance to think about what happens when words are used as weapons, and weapons are used in place of words."
Andy Borowitz: "Calls for a reduction in violent political rhetoric have plunged the Fox News Channel into chaos, with a Fox spokesperson warning today that such a move 'would leave us with 24 hours to fill.'”
Jonathan Martin of Politico: "Whether [Sarah Palin] defends, explains or even responds at all to the intense criticism of her brand of confrontational politics could well determine her trajectory on the national scene — and it’s likely to reveal the scope of her ambitions as well."
Carl Hulse & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Members of Congress are used to threats and abuse from constituents, but now they are worried.... On Wednesday, the Capitol security agencies are to join the F.B.I. in conducting a joint security briefing for Republicans and Democrats, who acknowledge new worries about their safety — and that of their families and staff members." ...
... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "In the wake of the shooting that critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed one of her aides, a federal judge and four others, U.S. Capitol Police spent the weekend fielding calls from lawmakers with concerns over potential threats and questions about what more should be done to protect staffers and family members at home."
** David Rothkopf of Foreign Policy: "... no society that holds itself up as an example to the world should, as the United States does, brazenly shrug off what are clearly deep national character flaws when it comes to our love of guns or our celebration of hate politics. Tragedies like that which unfolded in Arizona this weekend not only wound the victims, but also America's ability to lead and to advance our interests and values worldwide.... We are not talking about the aberrant behavior of a lone gunman here. Instead we should see that what we are discussing are grossly uncivilized aspects of American society, aspects of ourselves that we ought to change not because we fall below international norms, but because we fall so short of doing what is right, moral, or sensible." Read the whole post.
It Was All Perfectly Legal. Tom Steller of the Arizona Daily Star: "When Jared Loughner went to the Sportsman's Warehouse near his home Nov. 30, there was nothing to stop him from buying the gun authorities say he used in Saturday's shooting rampage. He didn't fit any of the categories of 'prohibited possessors' defined in federal or state law. He passed an instant federal background check and was on his way with a Glock semiautomatic pistol that sells for around $550.... Federal law establishes two categories of people who can be prohibited from buying a gun because of their mental incompetence, said Tucsonan Charles Heller, co-founder and secretary of the Arizona Citizens Defense League, a pro-gun-rights group. They are:
• Those who have been incarcerated in a mental health facility against their will.
• Those who have been accused of a crime and found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
Otherwise, in Arizona, there is little to stop even an adult who seems mentally unstable from buying a gun. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Loughner's purchase was corroborated by store receipts and video, among other evidence, according to a search warrant return released Sunday.... The gun used in Saturday's shooting is the same type of gun that Giffords said in a 2008 election campaign that she owned." ...
... Nathan Thornburgh of Time: "The most pressing questions now: Who else knew of Loughner's mental illness? What obligations did his college have, and which ones did they fulfill, to report Loughner to other agencies? ... Why is Arizona (along with other states) so far behind in reporting disqualifying mental illness to the federal background-check system? If there is anything that both sides should be able to agree on, it's that unstable individuals should not have access to any kind of weapon, much less the so-called fourth-generation semiautomatic Glock 19 that Loughner bought. This time, the price for bureaucratic torpor was too high."
... Gail Collins: "... we should be able to find a way to accommodate the strong desire in many parts of the country for easy access to firearms with sane regulation of the kinds of weapons that make it easiest for crazy people to create mass slaughter. Most politicians won’t talk about it because they’re afraid of the N.R.A., whose agenda is driven by the people who sell guns and want the right to sell as many as possible."
News Stories
Arizona Republic: "The Federal Public Defender's Office in Phoenix has recommended that San Diego attorney Judy Clarke take [Jared] Loughner's case." Clarke represented the 'Unabomber,' the Atlanta Olympics bomber and Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her two children by driving her car into a lake. "She will appear with [Loughner] at his initial court appearance and ask to be appointed as Loughner's attorney." ...
... Arizona Daily StarUpdate: "The judge ordered Loughner held without bail. Throngs of reporters and television news crews lined up outside the federal courthouse [in Phoenix], where the hearing was moved from Tucson. The entire federal bench there recused itself because Roll was the chief judge." Washington Post story here. ...
... Wall Street Journal: "Arizona shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner was turned away from a Walmart store when he tried to buy ammunition, but was sold the bullets at another Walmart nearby, hours before the rampage, according to people familiar with the matter. Federal investigators probing the shooting are focusing on the sequence of Mr. Loughner's actions as they try to establish that he was acting with some planning despite his apparent mental-health issues...." ...
... New York Times: "Jared L. Loughner wanted change back from a $20 bill that he used to pay for a taxi ride to the Safeway store..., according to the manager of the taxi company. His demeanor was so unremarkable that the driver thought nothing of walking into the store with Mr. Loughner to get change, and did not know that a shooting rampage occurred at the scene until many hours later." The driver, John Marino, did not know the police wanted to talk with him until the next day "when security camera images of him ... became part of the police investigation." ...
... Washington Post: "... Jared Lee Loughner ... registered to vote on Sept. 29, 2006, identifying himself as an independent. Records show he voted in the 2006 and 2008 elections but is current listed as "inactive" on the state's voter roles -- meaning that he did not vote in November." ...
... Arizona Republic: "FBI agents working on the Gabrielle Giffords shooting encountered trouble gaining entry to the suspect's family home Monday morning. Family members of Jared Loughner apparently had put on 4-by-4 double-thick plywood that blocked access to the front porch of their north Tucson home."
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