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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
Monday
Jan032011

The Commentariat -- January 4

Before we let Nino Scalia & Darrell Issa get us down, let us take a nonsense break:

Liz Goodwin of Yahoo News: "Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in a recently published interview that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment does not prohibit discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.... The equal protection clause states:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1971 that the clause protected women from discrimination." [CW: emphasis mine] Here's the California Lawyer interview of the supremely excrable Scalia.

Hypocrisy Watch. Peter Beinart in the Daily Beast: the tea party's complete disinterest in foreign policy conflicts with (1) their stated reverence for the Constitution, which they interpret to give the President & central government hardly any power, and (2) their hatred of the deficit & big government, inasmuch as military & security spending accounts for more than half of the federal budget.

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "The incoming Republican majority in the House is moving to make good on its promise to cut $100 billion from domestic spending this year, a goal eagerly backed by conservatives but one carrying substantial political and economic risks.... The reductions that would be required ... would be roughly 20 percent on average" for domestic programs. ...

... Michael O'Brien of The Hill: "The Senate's top Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), wrote incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday warning the new GOP House against advancing legislation that would undo the sweeping healthcare overhaul.... Democrats in the House, meanwhile, are already beginning to organize efforts to throw procedural wrenches into the repeal effort."

(1) Steve Benen: former House Majority Leader Tom "DeLay resigned in disgrace and was convicted on money laundering charges, but the new Republican leadership team has hired DeLay's old team to help run the chamber.... Corporate lobbyists have been brought on to shape policy; and the K Street project that Boehner swore to leave in the past is looking reconstituted. Given the spectacular failures of the last Republican majority, getting the old gang back together isn't exactly encouraging." ...

(2) ... Richard E. Cohen of Politico: "In another statement of the new House Republican majority’s commitment to the Constitution, aides to incoming Speaker John Boehner plan to take their oath of office Tuesday morning — a day before the same oath is administered to the 435 House members of the new Congress. At Boehner’s request, Chief Justice John Roberts will preside over the staff ceremony...."

(3) ... CW: so here you have the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court appearing to publicly endorse the continuity of Congressional Republican sleaze. Notice, too, how Cohen writes this little fluff piece about Boehner's "commitment to the Constitution" without irony.

Ken Vogel & Marin Cogan of Politico: incoming House freshman Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) will host a lavish fundraiser tonight from which some of the Repubican leadership is pretending to distance itself. Some conservatives are criticizing the event as inconsistent with stated Republican "austerity" goals. CW: no kidding.

Manu Raju of Politico: "The first day of the new Congress was supposed to mark the beginning of the end of how the filibuster has been regularly used to kill legislation on the Senate floor. But Democrats who have been complaining for two years about Republican obstruction are struggling to unite behind a single filibuster reform plan...."

Erik Wasson of The Hill: "Liberal groups say they are increasingly worried that President Obama will strike a [backroom] deal with Republicans on Social Security reforms in exchange for a 'yes' vote on increasing the nation's debt ceiling":

What I am really afraid of is another deal behind closed doors. At least with President Bush, he went around the country on a tour and presented his plan, and people didn’t like it. -- Nancy Altman of Social Security Works

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "President Obama’s legal advisers, confronting the prospect of new legal restrictions on the transfer of Guantánamo detainees, are debating whether to recommend that he issue a signing statement asserting that his executive powers would allow him to bypass the restrictions."

Julianna Goldman & John McCormick of Bloomberg News: "President Barack Obama is considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former U.S. Commerce secretary, to a high-level White House post, possibly as his chief of staff...." ...

... Ben Smith of Politico: "A Daley appointment would be an early signal of Obama's confidence that the party's left will ultimately have no choice but to show up and vote for him in 2012." ...

... Update. Howard Fineman: "President Barack Obama is in what appears to be the final stages of choosing a new White House Chief of Staff from among the following candidates, in approximate descending order of likelihood, according to a very highly placed administration source: Acting Chief of Staff Pete Rouse, former Clinton Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle and -- a dark horse candidate -- Agriculture Secretary and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack." CW: Vilsack would be a great choice: he can flash-fire people, then say he's sorry he acted precipitously.

Law Prof. Geoffrey Stone in a New York Times op-ed: "THE so-called Shield bill, which was recently introduced in both houses of Congress..., would amend the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it a crime for any person ... to disseminate ... classified information.... Although this proposed law may be constitutional as applied to government employees ..., it would plainly violate the First Amendment to punish anyone who might publish or otherwise circulate the information after it has been leaked."

On December 26, the editors of the New York Times wrote, "... the many who are struggling have no progressive champion. The left have ceded the field to the Tea Party and, in doing so, allowed it to make history. It is building political power by selling the promise of a return to a mythic past." ...

... Ralph Nader responds: "... have your public editor look into why flagrant, often bigoted right-wingers are given so much time and space compared with fact-based progressive leaders committed to the 'equality and welfare' that your editorial espouses."

Miguel Helft of the New York Times: "With its $500 million infusion from Goldman Sachs and other investors, Facebook ... [now has] the financial muscle it needs to compete with better-heeled rivals like Google.... The deal ... [gives Facebook] the ability to delay an initial public offering. That would allow it to remain free of government regulation and from the volatility of Wall Street. It would also allow Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, to retain near absolute control over the company he co-founded in a Harvard dorm room in 2004."

"All Politics Is Local"? Not Any More. Nate Silver: "... elections in the United States have become increasingly nationalized in recent decades."

"The Personality of an Oyster." Joshua Green of The Atlantic profiles Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in an article aptly titled "Strict Obstructionist." ...

... In case you just can't get enough of McConnell, here's an op-ed he wrote in the Washington Post advising Democrats to obey him or something. CW: I didn't read it.

Mark Thompson of Time remembers John Wheeler, a former Pentagon official & advocate for veterans, whose body was found in Delaware on December 31.

Michael Crowley of Time recommends Greg Jaffe's heartbreaking dispatch to the Washington Post on some troops fighting in Afghanistan. CW: instead of reading novels on his Hawaiian vacation, President Obama would have done better to read Jaffe's report on real life and death in Obama's war. Crowley also recommends the film "Restrepo" by Outpost Films. As part of the film project, this 14-minute video centers on the actions that led to Staff Sgt. Sal Giunta's receipt of the Medal of Honor. Giunta is the first living recipient since the Vietnam War:

... Read more about the Outpost documentary film, "Restrepo" by Sebastian Junger & Tim Hetherington.

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