The Ledes

Monday, June 30, 2025

It's summer in our hemisphere, and people across Guns America have nothing to do but shoot other people.

New York Times: “A gunman deliberately started a wildfire in a rugged mountain area of Idaho and then shot at the firefighters who responded, killing two and injuring another on Sunday afternoon in what the local sheriff described as a 'total ambush.' Law enforcement officers exchanged fire with the gunman while the wildfire burned, and officials later found the body of the male suspect on the mountain with a firearm nearby, Sheriff Robert Norris of Kootenai County said at a news conference on Sunday night. The authorities said they believed the suspect had acted alone but did not release any information about his identity or motives.” A KHQ-TV (Spokane) report is here.

New York Times: “The New York City police were investigating a shooting in Manhattan on Sunday night that left two people injured steps from the Stonewall Inn, an icon of the L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement. The shooting occurred outside a nearby building in Greenwich Village at 10:15 p.m., Sgt. Matthew Forsythe of the New York Police Department said. The New York City Pride March had been held in Manhattan earlier on Sunday, and Mayor Eric Adams said on social media that the shooting happened as Pride celebrations were ending. One victim who was shot in the head was in critical condition on Monday morning, a spokeswoman for the Police Department said. A second victim was in stable condition after being shot in the leg, she said. No suspect had been identified. The police said it was unclear if the shooting was connected to the Pride march.”

New York Times: “A dangerous heat wave is gripping large swaths of Europe, driving temperatures far above seasonal norms and prompting widespread health and fire alerts. The extreme heat is forecast to persist into next week, with minimal relief expected overnight. France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are among the nations experiencing the most severe conditions, as meteorologists warn that Europe can expect more and hotter heat waves in the future because of climate change.”

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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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Friday
Dec262014

The Commentariat -- Dec. 27, 2014

Another Slow Gnus Day.

 

 

 

 

Getting Away with Murder. Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "... the scathing report the Senate Intelligence Committee delivered this month is unlikely to significantly change the role the C.I.A. now plays in running America's secret wars. A number of factors -- from steadfast backing by Congress and the White House to strong public support for clandestine operations -- ensure that an agency that has been ascendant since President Obama came into office is not likely to see its mission diminished...."

Just When We Don't Need Bipartisanship. David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Obama is preparing a major push on a vast free-trade zone that seeks to enlist Republicans as partners and test his premise that Washington can still find common ground on major initiatives. It also will test his willingness to buck his own party in pursuit of a legacy-burnishing achievement. Already, fellow Democrats are accusing him of abandoning past promises on trade and potentially undermining his domestic priority of reducing income inequality.

German Lopez of Vox: "Given the wave of protests and attention they received, it seems 2014 may end up a crucial turning point in discussions about race and the criminal justice system." ...

... Ryan Cooper of the Week: "Pat Lynch, the president of the Patrolman's Benevolent Association..., and Co. might try just respecting basic democratic legitimacy. It turns out that people have a First Amendment right to protest. And elected political leadership ought to have control over the exercise of state violence." ...

... Factoid via Cooper: "Being a cop is not even in the top ten most dangerous professions.... A fisherman is over six times more likely [than is a cop] to die on the job -- and a logger 7.5 times more likely."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Steve M. Politico notices -- again -- that President Obama doesn't often attend church services. Somehow they never notice that the same was true of Dubya, & according to Steve, Reaganus Maximus never went to church (and he's been sainted!). But we do want to know in this season of Christian joy that the current POTUS is a heathen. ...

... Charles Pierce remarks on the same Politico article, but you'll have to cursor down to it because the link to the post doesn't work.

The Yahoo! News team picks the weirdest political stories of 2014.

CSI, Dog Shit. Karen Heller of the Washington Post: "Among the great unresolved conflicts between neighbors is determining the provenance of unwanted, unseemly and often unwittingly trampled dog detritus.... PooPrints, a self-described 'dog poop DNA matching service,' is the most successful product of BioPet Vet Lab in Knoxville, which specializes in canine genetic testing. Launched in late 2010, the company has on record the DNA of more than 30,000 dogs from Canada and 45 states, including Maryland and Virginia, and recently signed a deal to launch in Great Britain.... Currently, PooPrints is used only in multi-unit properties, although municipalities including Dallas; Hoboken, N.J.; and Gaithersburg, Md., have expressed interest." CW: I told you it was a slow news day.

Presidential Election

"The Smart Brother." Jason Millman of the Washington Post: Jeb Bush was against implementing the Medicaid expansion in Florida even though he had no idea how greatly it would have benefitted he state. He now has made a bundle of dough on it, but he's running away from that deal as fast as he can to burnish his nutball creds. CW: I guess he thinks from his gut just as his brother does. Great.

News Ledes

AP: "A protester who advocated for peaceful demonstrations in Ferguson was charged Saturday with setting fire to a convenience store in a neighboring suburb. A St. Louis County jail official said Joshua Williams, 19, of St. Louis, was being held on $30,000 bond. He is charged with arson, second-degree burglary and stealing less than $500.... Court records said Williams confessed in a videotaped interview, and that his actions were captured by surveillance video and by news media."

New York Times: "The turnout [for the funeral today of NYPD Officer Rafael Ramos] was extraordinary. Though no reliable count was made, it appeared that more than 20,000 police officers came to Queens, from as far away as Wisconsin and California and England, some driving through the night to make it.... Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., dispatched by President Obama, spoke movingly of the courage of policing." Many officers turned their backs when NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke. ...

... ABC News: "Hundreds of police officers turned their backs on a screen showing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as he spoke at the funeral of one of two officers killed last week in what has been called an 'assassination.'" ...

... New York: "In the week since the murders of Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, people from New York and across the United States hav[e] been working to make sure that the NYPD officers' families are taken of financially."

NBC News: "North Korea's Internet and 3G mobile networks were paralyzed again on Saturday evening, China's official Xinhua news agency reported, with the North Korean government blaming the United States for systemic instability in the country's networks."

AP: "A leader with the Islamic extremist group al-Shabaab who had a $3m bounty on his head has surrendered in Somalia, a Somali intelligence official said on Saturday. Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi surrendered to Somali police in the Gedo region, said the intelligence officer, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press.

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Reader Comments (5)

A sloooooow gnus day?

Gray Lady sez; "All the gnus that's fit to print."
The Fox sez: "Our gnus are fair and balanced (unless swallowed by a crock, errr-r croc)."
Whadda wanna hear first? The good gnus or the bad gnus?
No gnus are good gnus.

Sorry!

December 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

Re; "Come on down sweet Virginia, come on down, you got it in ya; got to scrape that shit right off your shoes" Rolling Bones, Sweet Virginia. As an owner of four dogs; I say;
For the love of god man, pick up your dog's poop, will ya? I'm so tired of seeing it on the beach, in the parks and on the playgrounds. It's part of owning a dog in a urban area, get use to it.
I do like the cartoon of the big Husky dog watching his owner pick up poop and the dog saying; "Jez, just sniff it, don't bag and bring it home."
Your dog is no different than a baby, you don't leave baby shit all over, do you? Oh wait; look at all the baby diapers blown in the wind. Never mind. Slobs.
I'd like to see a new political ad featuring Hill Clinton picking up dog shit in Central Park and talking about banking regulations.
"It still stinks but without dog shit there'd be no dogs; big dogs, like my friends at Goldman-Sachs, not little dogs like you poodle mixes or worse Chiquaquas."

December 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

Politico has a good example of blind journalism, walking in circles around a subject but never coming to its real conclusion. Note the title, too: "GOP learns lessons from Sam Brownback's tax scare."

Yeah, learning GOP style. Throw out the facts and contort everything to fit into your desired mold.

The article is all about how every elected GOPer these days is backpedaling furiously from Brownback's revolutionary Red Model faster than your neighbor's dog can lay a log in your yard and sneak back across the fence. Everyone even claims how "hesitant" they were with Brownback's ambitious goal of sinking his state faster than anybody else..... Right before he was eyeing the Presidential field with Conservative pundits swooning over his leadership and vision and Politico, of course, busy blowing hot air up ass.

The basic narrative seems to confirm that cutting taxes down to the bare bones equals a deteriorating social model without the funds to deliver even basic social services, so all the other GOPers have woken up to reality and are now backing off from their Grover Norquist marriage, right? NOPE! ..... I know, couldn't even see that one coming.

Instead, they all agree that they've got the right approach, limiting taxes until it's only the poor who pay and hoping charities and churches pick up the tab, but their lesson "learned" is that they need to do it slowllllyyyy. They claim giving the strategy time is more reasonable...but they're working towards the same ends. A preference for a slow, painful death instead of just a quick, violent one. One of those "thousand cuts" to slowly bleed away, like their approach to the ACA I suppose. If they do it slow enough, they can somehow blame it on everyone else because how COULD it be their fault, things were going so well until Liberals!

Another reason this slow suicide is important for the nation to watch with horror? Because Brownback has always insisted on fudging the budget numbers, à la Paul Ryan, to convince everyone and himself that the current numbers showing the cratering revenue are mistaken, because they don't take into account all the astonishing growth that's just around the corner, over there, hiding behind the grim reaper alongside the confidence fairy.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/gop-learns-lessons-from-brownbacks-tax-scare-113806.html?hp=t3_r

December 27, 2014 | Unregistered Commentersafari

In furtherance of slow gnus: http://time.com/3647686/jennifer-lawrence-top-grossing-actor/?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true. What do the Rush Limbaugh free marketeers say about Sony paying Bradley Cooper more than JLaw? I'm thinking an aversion to transparency is in the norm too many places "free" markets are ascendent. And have the/will the talking heads addressed the sexism of Amy Pascual paying a male star more than the "top-grossing" star who's a woman? Amy seems to have closed the hatch behind herself on her way above the glass ceiling.

December 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterCitizen625

"Who funds and runs the Politico?" http://www.salon.com/2007/05/04/politico_funding/. Do you know how to say Riggs Bank, Pinochet loving, Bush family enablers? Does it surprise anyone that Bush family supporters who interfered with Terry Schivo would busybody themselves with the church attendance record of Obama?

December 27, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterCitizen625
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