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INAUGURATION 2029

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
Saturday
Jan012011

The Commentariat -- January 2

For Slate, Mark Fiore looks back over "The Year that Wasn't":

"The Constitutional Option." In a New York Times op-ed, former Vice President Walter Mondale, who was also a Senator & President of the Senate, says, "Fix the Filibuster." Mondale makes several suggestions, but he also explains why Majority Leader Reid & Minority Leader McConnell's little scheme to require a super-majority to change the filibuster rules in unconstitutional:

A long-standing principle of common law holds that one legislature cannot bind its successors. If changing Senate rules really required a two-thirds supermajority, it would effectively prevent a simple majority of any Senate from ever amending its own rules, which would be unconstitutional. Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution states: 'Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings.' The document is very explicit about the few instances where a supermajority vote is needed — and changing the Senate’s procedural rules is not among them. In all other instances it must be assumed that the Constitution requires only a majority vote.

The Rich Are Held to a Lower Standard. Charles Bagli of the New York Times: "While a homeowner who lost a house to foreclosure would find it difficult to borrow for years, developers who defaulted on enormous loans have still been able to attract money. The reasons, experts say, are that there is still plenty of money floating around and that the market has a very short memory."

New York Times: "President Obama took time out of his Hawaiian vacation on Sunday to sign into law one of the surprise accomplishments of the lame-duck Congress: a measure covering the cost of medical care for rescue workers and others sickened by toxic fumes and dust after the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center."

Imtiwaz Delawala of ABC News: "President Obama's top economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, warned today against 'playing chicken' with raising the country's debt ceiling, saying it would cause 'a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008.' ... Some conservatives in Congress, especially new Tea Party members, have said they will vote against raising the debt limit again, saying government should drastically cut spending instead." Here's Jake Tapper's full interview of Goolsbee:

     ... Even George Will agrees with Goolsbee., saying that voting against raising the debt ceiling would be "suicidal." With video. ...

... Bridget Johnson of The Hill: Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz & Anthony Weiner introduce new Republican pontificator Rep. Mike Kelly (Penns.) to the real world on "Face the Nation." CBS News story & video here.

Washington Post: Darrell Issa, "the Republican congressman who is taking over responsibility for congressional oversight, called President Obama's administration 'one of the most corrupt administrations' on Sunday and predicted that the investigations he is planning over the next two years could result in about $200 billion in savings for U.S. taxpayers."

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), incoming chairman of one of the House committees that oversees health policy, said undoing the Democrats' health reform law would be a top priority for the new GOP-controlled Congress. Upton said on 'Fox News Sunday' that he believes there may be enough opposition in the new House to reach the two-thirds majority required to override a presidential veto. Short of that, he said House leaders will 'go after this bill piece by piece.'"

Republicons Beware! Kate Zernike of the New York Times: "Just a month ago, Tea Party leaders were celebrating their movement’s victories in the midterm elections. But as Congress wrapped up an unusually productive lame-duck session last month, those same Tea Party leaders were lamenting that Washington behaved as if it barely noticed that American voters had repudiated the political establishment."

Julia Preston of the New York Times: Republican "legislative leaders in at least half a dozen states say they will propose bills similar to a controversial law to fight illegal immigration that was adopted by Arizona last spring, even though a federal court has suspended central provisions of that statute.... Legislators have also announced measures to limit access to public colleges and other benefits for illegal immigrants and to punish employers who hire them. Next week, at least five states plan to begin an unusual coordinated effort to cancel automatic United States citizenship for children born in this country to illegal immigrant parents. Opponents say that effort would be unconstitutional, arguing that the power to grant citizenship resides with the federal government, not with the states."

Norm Ornstein in a Washington Post op-ed: there are death panels, but they don't come from the Affordable Care Act. "They come from Republican administrations in states such as Arizona and Indiana.... The nightmares of conservatives bitterly opposed to health reform are coming true..., but with zero relation to the reform bill they opposed.... Things are about to get worse."

Daniel Gross of the Washington Post reviews All the Devils Are Here, a book the delves into "the hidden history of the financial crisis," by Bethany McLean & Joe Nocera. Gross concentrates on one of the devils -- a shady character named Roland Arnall, "the real subprime pioneer."

Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: the Mortgage Bankers Association, which successfully lobbied Congress last year to defeat a program to help foreclosure victims, "is once again standing in opposition to programs aimed at keeping families in their homes — this time by taking aim at what are known as mortgage mediation programs, which push banks to negotiate with borrowers before finalizing a foreclosure."

On Christmas Day, Pope Benedict XVI offered his "Thought for the Day," published in the Guardian, & recorded by the BBC; the link is to the transcript & video, the recording of which, the BBC notes, "followed months of negotiations between the BBC and the Vatican." Part of the pope's message:

And it was not a political liberation that he [Jesus] brought, achieved through military means: rather, Christ destroyed death for ever and restored life by means of his shameful death on the Cross.

     ... CW: sounds like standard Christian fare to me, but it got Richard Dawkins in a lather about the implicit message, a central Roman Catholic tenet, of original sin. Dawkins calls the pope "Ratzinger":

Ratzinger has much to confess in his own conduct, as cardinal and pope. But he is also guilty of promoting one of the most repugnant ideas ever to occur to a human mind: 'Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness' (Hebrews 9:22). -- Richard Dawkins

Local News

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is sworn in (for a second time) & delivers his inaugural address:

New York Times: during his inaugural address today, New York Gov. Andrew "Cuomo said he would unveil an emergency financial plan this week — a month before his first budget proposal is due — and push aggressively for stronger ethics enforcement in Albany." Here's the full text of Gov. Cuomo's speech.

Danny Hakim of the New York Times on former Gov. Mario Cuomo, father of new New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. ...

... Elizabeth Harris of the Times on the Cuomo governors' housing in Albany's Wellington Hotel, which was "sort of a dump" back in the day & is an empty shell now -- and in the governor's mansion. ...

... Thomas Kaplan of the Times: "Andrew M. Cuomo flung open the doors of the Executive Mansion on Saturday, saying he wanted people to feel connected once again to their state government. But for some visitors, the real draw was ... Mr. Cuomo's girlfriend, Sandra Lee, the Food Network star, who for a time greeted guests alongside him in the mansion’s cavernous receiving hall...."

Elizabeth Stevens of the New York Times: four retirees from Livermore Labs "... have brought [suit] against the Regents of the University of California. The retirees, who received U.C. paychecks for decades, say the university unfairly cast them out of its retiree health care system shortly after the federal Department of Energy, which owns the lab, turned management over to a private company in 2007."

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