The Ledes

Thursday, July 3, 2025

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 into Wednesday 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.” ~~~

The Wires
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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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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

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Saturday
Jan222011

The Commentariat -- January 23

Art by Barry Blitt for the New York Times.Frank Rich: "True Grit' has unalloyed faith in values antithetical to those of the 21st century America so deftly skewered in 'The Social Network.'” Rich was the Times film critic some while back, & in this column he returns to his forte. ...

Keith Olberman. New Yorker artwork.... CW: Rich has put in the mood to take a more cinematic look at the news, & Peter J. Boyer of the New Yorker obliges in his comment on Keith Olbermann's divorce from MSNBC: "His critics (and even some of his friends) had always imagined a Howard Beale ending for Keith Olbermann, and in his MSNBC farewell Olbermann more or less obliged." ...

... Here's Boyer's June 2008 profile of Olbermann, also in the New Yorker. ...

... Paul Farhi of the Washington Post on the difficult Mr. Olbermann.

CW: here's a new low for the odious Mitch McConnell -- on Fox "News," he likens President Obama to communist leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Politico liveblog: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says Tuesday's State of the Union will serve as President Barack Obama's 'trust-but-verify' moment on whether he's serious about reducing federal spending." The term "trust but verify" is one that good Republicans know the demigod Ronald Reagan applied to Gorbachev in arms treaty negotiations. There was nothing wrong with the Reagan policy; there's plenty wrong with using the same terminology when referring to the President of the United States.

** Constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley in a Washington Post op-ed on celebrity justices: "If justices come to personify political movements, the law appears to be merely an extension of the personalities -- and the politics -- on the bench.... Monday's [Michele] Bachmann-convened summit featuring Scalia magnifies this problem.... The principle of judicial neutrality should not be compromised for a legal seminar." This is really a must-read, start to finish.

Spy Story. Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "Duane R. Clarridge parted company with the Central Intelligence Agency more than two decades ago, but from poolside at his home near San Diego, he still runs a network of spies.... Over the past two years, he has fielded operatives in ... Pakistan and ... Afghanistan. Since the United States military cut off his funding in May, he has relied on like-minded private donors to pay his agents to continue gathering information about militant fighters, Taliban leaders and the secrets of Kabul’s ruling class.... For all of the can-you-top-this qualities to Mr. Clarridge’s operation, it is a startling demonstration of how private citizens can exploit the chaos of combat zones and rivalries inside the American government to carry out their own agenda."

Glenn Greenwald reports on Amnesty International's efforts to assure better treatment for alleged WikeLeaks leaker Bradley Manning, who is imprisoned in Quantico. Then he adds this: "... the ACLU has obtained new documents which shed more harsh light on the 190 War on Terror detainees who died in American custody. Specifically, many of these documents ... show that at least 25 to 30 of those cases were 'unjustified homicides,' i.e., murder."

Peter Baker has a long, informative article in the New York Times Magazine about President Obama & his economic team's search for jobs. The article includes a lot of insider-bickering dirt, too. Bottom line, tho -- no great ideas. Best quote, among many -- this one about Larry Summers:

He’s much better at telling you why you’re stupid than creating a system that can produce usable policy solutions. -- Anonymous Insider, of course

The President must not be seduced into believing — and must not allow the public to be similarly seduced into thinking — that the well-being of American business is synonymous with the well-being of Americans. -- Robert Reich ...

... Paul Krugman on Obama's "competitiveness" meme (mostly a crock), Jeffrey Immelt (ditto), & Robert Reich (above, gets it right).

Ken Auletta of the New Yorker: "Was Eric Schmidt pushed [out as Google CEO] or did he jump? Both." The backstory -- New York Times, January 21: "Google made the biggest management shake-up in a decade on Thursday, handing the reins of the company to one of its co-founders in an effort to rediscover its start-up roots.... Larry Page, its 38-year-old co-founder, would take over as chief executive from Eric E. Schmidt, a technology industry veteran who was brought in a decade ago to provide adult supervision, as Silicon Valley calls it. Mr. Schmidt, 55, will remain executive chairman of the company...."

CW: if you want to know what life will be like for women seeking abortions after state legislatures -- & likely the Supreme Court -- chip away at abortion rights, here's an example: Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times reports on an appalling clinic in Philadelphia, run by Dr. Kermit Gosnell, that responsible agencies failed to investigate for more than 16 years despite multiple deaths, lawsuits & complaints. Here's a more detailed report by Marie McCollough of the Philadelphia Inquirer. ...

... A pdf of the complete grand jury report is here. The Inquirer warns that it contains grusome pictures. The pictures aren't nearly as bad as the testimony.

... Philadelphia Inquirer Editors: "Antiabortion forces will likely use this horrific case to call for further restrictions on the medical procedure. But Gosnell is charged with acts that violated abortion laws already on the books. What's needed, beyond prosecuting Gosnell, is to ensure all women have access to safe and high-quality medical care that is regulated diligently."

What Could Possibly Be Wrong with This? Tim Hoover of the Denver Post: "Less than two weeks on the job, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler says the $68,500 a year salary doesn't pay enough. That's why Gessler, a Republican, says he is going to be moonlighting as a lawyer for his old law firm -- a firm known for representing clients on elections and campaign law issues, the very areas Gessler is now charged with policing as secretary of state." CW: glaring conflict-of-interest aside, didn't the little snake check on what the AG's salary was before he ran for office? ...

... BUT, local politics being what it is, Ben Smith finds a story to top Gessler's crassness: Gabrielle Giffords' 2010 general election challenger, Republican Tea Party candidate Jesse Kelly -- you know, the guy who ran a campaign event in which he invited supporters to join him in shooting a "fully automatic M-16" to "Get on target for November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office" -- is working behind the scenes to "find out how the seat would be filled if Giffords couldn’t serve."

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