The Ledes

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

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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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

Marie: Sorry, my countdown clock was unreliable; then it became completely unreliable. I can't keep up with it. Maybe I'll try another one later.

 

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.

 

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Wednesday
Jan262011

Gail Collins: although weak gun control measures have little chance of passing the Congress, "in Salt Lake City, the State Legislature is considering a bill to honor the Browning M1911 pistol by making it the official state firearm.... A committee in the Utah House of Representatives voted 9 to 2 this week to approve [the] bill.... 'This firearm is Utah,' Representative Carl Wimmer, the Browning bill’s sponsor, told The Salt Lake Tribune." Meanwhile, State Sen. Mark Madsen suggested Browning Day be scheduled to coincide with Martin Luther King Day, and Utah's Republican Tea Party U.S. Senator Mike Lee told CNN, “There is abundant research suggesting in cities where more people own guns, the crime rate, especially the murder rate, goes down.”

Here's what I say (also see correction following the comment):


Martin Luther King, Jr. Day should coincide with Browning Day? Doesn't Sen. Madsen know Dr. King was shot to death? With, you know, a gun? Madsen's suggestion is appalling bordering on depraved. Maybe Madsen should ponder this: "... more than a million people have died from gun violence — in murders, accidents and suicides — since Dr. King was shot to death in 1968." -- Bob Herbert

Sen. Mike Lee, who operates in the Republican Fact-Free Zone, is blowing smoke with his claim that "There is abundant research suggesting in cities where more people own guns, the crime rate, especially the murder rate, goes down." According to Dr. Daniel Webster (no, not that Daniel Webster) of Johns Hopkins, "Cities that have gone the furthest to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people have the lowest homicide rates." Prof. Matthew Miller of Harvard says, "Where it’s easier to get guns, you have higher rates of lethal violence. That’s clear." Well, not to Sen. Lee.

And if gun enthusiasts like Mike Lee think guns protect them, there's this, also from Bob Herbert: "researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine estimated that people in possession of a gun at the time of an assault were 4.5 times more likely to be shot during the assault than someone in a comparable situation without a gun."

Where's Joe Wilson to shout "You lie!" at Mike Lee? Oh, right. Not long ago he was in South Carolina, touting the release of the "You Lie" AR-15 lower receiver. What's a "lower receiver"? It's an accessory that converts a semi-automatic assault rifle to an automatic assault rifle. *


* Correction: Times reader Fred G. writes,

Marie Burns wrote in the NYT:  "What's a 'lower receiver'? It's an accessory that converts a semi-automatic assault rifle to an automatic assault rifle."  From a factual perspective, this is just not correct. 

The lower receiver is simply a housing.  Whether an AR-15/M-16 is semi-automatic or full automatic is a function of the firing mechanism.  The firing mechanism is housed in the lower receiver, but most lower receivers (with a few exceptions) can accommodate semi- or full-auto firing mechanisms.  This is not a political or partisan issue, simply one of factual accuracy.  I usually like Ms. Burns comments quite a lot.  I thought this inaccuracy was worth pointing out.

CW: It's probably safe to assume Fred is right & I'm wrong. Thanks to Fred for the correction & for keeping me honest.

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