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.

The Wires
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To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

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.

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

Page Links
Tuesday
Aug082023

HELP!!!

Marie: Here's a comment by Akhilleus, which I heartily endorse. Seriously, if you can't help out, I'm out. The link to the link code Akhilleus mentions is above; both Akhilleus and I tested it, and it works:

 

By Akhilleus

Pssst…

Just a word to all RCers, reg’lars, ‘ occasionalls, and tutti, (as classical composers might put it)…

Marie has agreed to continue this oasis of sanity on the condition that we all help out mit der linkensteins. Ja?

Soooo…she has provided a very useful, and amazingly wicked EZ to use link creator thingie, in hopes (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that we all will pick up the slack so she can concentrate on kicking the crap out of the morons constructing her domicile (why is the cellar upstairs?!?).

So here’s the thing. You don’t have to add much commentary type stuff if you don’t want to. Just check out what’s going on, do the one linky-dinky, two linky-dinky, (apologies to Lily Tomlin) and say “Hey kids, here’s something cool-stupid-outrageous-monstrous-weird-coked up-abusive-eight balled-Jiminy Cricketed-or otherwise useful to know thing”, add the link, and yer done. And we’re all the better for it.

If you’d like to include a mini, maxi, or apoplexy rant (which I never do…nevah…) go right ahead. It was so neat to hear from people who don’t normally post. Don’t keep those finely tuned, filigreed thoughts to yourselves. Let ‘er rip.

Tanks.

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Reader Comments (4)

An example of what I look at if I get overwhelmed by today's politics:
https://youtu.be/NluoquLr4W0

August 9, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria

At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna I think we are at last seeing the final days of this incredible fascist tide that has always been with us but has grown to tsunami proportions. The outrageousness of the right is no longer hidden and I believe the true “moral majority” of this country, not the misnamed right, is seeing the chaos that we are all facing. For example, the occasionally illegal rifle shot across the Rio Grande River has become underwater buzz saws out of a dystopian horror movie. The corruption of the Supreme Court has at last been revealed and I feel confident that more is to come as more members are scrutinized. Kavanaugh, for example, was never really investigated. The surface of a criminal, traitorous alliance between a top FBI agent and a Russian oligarch has barely been scratched. I used to say (about 50 years ago) that Republican scandals were about money and Democratic ones were about sex, but Republicans have far outstripped Democratics in both categories…as per Tony Lazzaro a GOP donor who was sentenced to 21 years for sex trafficking. https://crooksandliars.com/2023/08/gop-donor-sentenced-21-years-sex
I think two primary forces have brought this about, and I count Tdump as a secondary force and a symptom, not a main cause. First, the internet has made everything public. It is more difficult to ignore the injustice we swim in and most people dislike injustice. Basic indoctrinating institutions we took for granted have been held up to scrutiny i.e. Catholic Church, Boy Scouts, Southern Baptists, court systems, prisons, unfair voting restrictions, etc. Second, Citizens United has raised the political influence of billionaires who live in a world of digital money and produce nothing. A rich factory owner used to live near his factory but hedge funders don’t live near anyone. This fantasy world and ridiculous amounts of money are enough to drive anyone mad and I think a lot of big donors and billionaires in general are indeed more than a little mad. Making money at the expense of the rest of humanity has become a game. Corporate capitalism has entered a state where humans, who become the planet’s dominant species because of their instinct to cooperate, now need to be controlled as their resources are bled away.
I remember when people said there wasn’t a “dime’s worth of difference” between the Democrats and Republicans. Now things have finally gotten to the point where the mass of ordinary decent people must choose between two well defined outcomes The country is becoming less white, more inclusive, less patriarchal, less like the past and the unhinged repressive forces won’t stand for it. The Confederacy is finally dying. Religious fundamentalism which has been so important in gaslighting humanity is finally dying. At last we are beginning to question the unjust, antiquated, traditional methods of the past and it ain’t pretty. It will get worse because the reactionaries are losing. It is more violent because they are desperate. If nothing else, time and death will change things. I think we are at a tipping point.

Of course I have been saying this since Nixon. I comforted myself about Reagan’s election with the thought that things will get so bad (since there was a scandal every week) that the country will throw the crooks out. We all know how that went. But I remain an optimist. There are new forces in the world that give me hope.

August 10, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterDonna

I don't know how my remarks went to this space. I will try to repost them to the correct comments section.

August 10, 2023 | Unregistered CommenterDonna
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