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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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
Jun032011

The Commentariat -- June 4

I've posted an Open Thread for today's Off Times Square.

The President's Weekly Address:

Charles Blow has a pretty good column on Republican policy: "... the modern doctrine of a compassion-free conservatism that’s using the fog of the fiscal crisis to push a program of perverse wealth inequality as sound economic policy: The only way to jump-start the economy is to slash taxes on the wealthy and on companies; the only way to compensate for the deficits that those tax cuts exacerbate is to slash benefits to the poor and vulnerable. It would be comical if it weren’t so callous."

Binyamin Appelbaum & Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Almost 25 million Americans could not find full-time work during May, but their plight has not spurred Washington into a collaborative response.... Neither party has suggested that the issue deserves the kind of urgent response that might require ideological compromises. The Federal Reserve, charged with minimizing unemployment, has indicated that it intends to stand back.... The central bank is immobilized by the same political forces as Congress, with conservative members of the Fed board and outside critics demanding that it withdraw the money it has pumped into the economy, and liberals arguing for additional aid."

I  meant to post this yesterday, but better late than never:

... In fact, it was Donald Trump who reminded me:

Representative [Eric] Cantor, who I like, said we don't want to give money to the tornado victims. And yet in Afghanistan we're spending $10 billion a month. But we don't want to help the people that got devastated by tornadoes? Wiped out, killed, maimed, injured -- we don't have money for them but we're spending $10 billion a month in Afghanistan? -- Donald Trump

Paul Krugman writes a short & sweet comparison of Obamacare & Ryancare. I should make that "Ryan-'care.' There's not much "care" in Ryancare.

Mitt Romney Gets Real. Ross Krasny of Reuters: "Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy on Friday by saying he believes that humans are responsible, at least to some extent, for climate change." Jerk. He probably thinks Lexington & Concord are in Massachusetts, too, & has no idea Paul Revere clanged some bells to warn the British that Americans had the right to bear arms.

"Paul Ryan for President? Forget It." Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "Nominating Ryan would make the election an argument over the GOP’s least popular policy proposal, instead of a referendum on the economy, which would be the GOP’s best chance of winning."

CW: sorry for all the Palin stories. I don't like to cover Palin because I think she's a sideshow, but when she's dominating the news, I must. A reader called her a moron the other day, and I thought that was a little harsh. Now that I've had to read a bunch of stories about her, I think the reader's comment was an insult to morons everywhere.

** "Hubris & Humility: Dana Milbank: "... Robert Gates, defense secretary to presidents George W. Bush and Obama..., set off on a tour of Asia and Europe, where he is receiving the gratitude of soldiers and the acclaim of allies.... The week’s dueling tours of Gates and Palin show the best and worst in American public life. Both call themselves Republicans, but he comes from the best tradition of service while she is a study in selfishness. He’s self-effacing; she’s self-aggrandizing. He harmonized American foreign policy; she put bull’s-eyes on Democratic congressional districts and then howled about 'blood libel.'” ...

... William Browning, writing a Yahoo! News commentary, makes an interesting point: "Sarah Palin must be running for president.... Her 'One Nation' bus tour ... is funded by Sarah Palin's political action committee. Political action committees are regulated by the Federal Election Commission.... Palin has to use this money to do either one of two things. She has to contribute all of her fundraising efforts to candidates in federal elections or run for a federal position herself."

Right Wing World *

Glenn Kessler, the WashPo fact-checker, fact-checks an interview Sarah Palin gave to Greta van Susteren while on her "One Nation I Know Nothing About" tour. Kessler writes, "Much of the interview consisted of fluffy stuff, but every so often van Susteren diverted into asking about policy issues." Kessler calls her answers "absolute whoppers." This of course has nothing to do with Palin's complete rewrite of Paul Revere's ride. See yesterday's Commentariat for that not-to-be missed history lesson from Right Wing World; using Kessler's standards, Palin could have got at least 16 Pinocchios out of a single paragraph (not to suggest Palin speaks in paragraphs; she doesn't even speak in sentences).

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

AP: "British Apache and French attack helicopters struck targets for the first time in NATO's campaign in Libya, hitting Moammar Gadhafi's troops early Saturday near a key coastal oil city, the alliance said."

Reuters: "Senior al Qaeda operative Ilyas Kashmiri, regarded as one of the most dangerous militants in the world, was killed by a U.S. drone aircraft missile strike in Pakistan, an intelligence official and local media said on Saturday."

New York Times: "Alabama has passed a sweeping bill to crack down on illegal immigrants that both supporters and opponents call the toughest of its kind in the country, going well beyond a law Arizona passed last year that caused a furor there."

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