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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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Monday
Nov082010

The Commentariat -- November 9

                   The rich, the right and the white ...
                   Keep the fires of calamity burning bright.
                          -- Akhilleus, comment (#8) on Brooks

Dan Froomkin channels President Dubya in book tour mode: "if you don't like my non-answers on the teevee, buy the book (where you won't find the answers)."

Austrailia's Hamish & Andy interview Secretary Hillary Clinton -- pretty funny:

Winnie Hu of the New York Times: New Haven, Connecticut "city and school officials announced on Tuesday that a new program, called New Haven Promise, will offer to pay eligible students’ way through any public college or university in Connecticut. The program will also pay up to $2,500 a year to those who attend a private college in the state. The program — to cost $4.5 million a year, financed primarily by Yale University — is open to students who live in the city and have attended its public schools, including charter schools, since at least ninth grade, regardless of family income."

New York Times reporters on President Obama's visit to Indonesia, gay marriage & Conan:

Michael Scherer of Time: once again "humble housewife" Sarah Palin doubles down on one of her frequent misstatements of fact, proving -- even as she was insisting she could read -- that she can't read, lives in fact-free world, & looks down her nose at the "fancy" people who cite actual facts.

Gold Ain't as Golden as Glenn Beck Says. David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "Gold is at a record only if you fail to adjust for inflation. And you should almost always adjust for inflation."

Mike Schneider & Martin Crutsinger of the AP: "The nation's economic stress fell in September to a 16-month low, thanks to more hiring in New England, fewer foreclosures in the mid-Atlantic and declining bankruptcy filings in the Southeast, according to The Associated Press' monthly analysis of conditions around the country."

** Sharon Theimer of the AP:  "Despite knowing for decades that terrorists could sneak bombs onto planes, the U.S. government failed to close obvious security gaps amid pressure from shipping companies fearful tighter controls would cost too much and delay deliveries."

John Broder of the New York Times: "With energy legislation shelved in the United States and little hope for a global climate change agreement this year, some policy experts are proposing ... [to] include greenhouse gases under ... the Montreal Protocol [which] was adopted in 1987 for a completely different purpose, to eliminate aerosols and other chemicals...."

N. C. Aizenman of the Washington Post: it's the states who are reponsible to implement much of the new Affordable Care Act, and Republicans -- who made gains in governorships & state legislatures -- are likely to restrict the way the law is administered as much as possible.

Republican Hyposcrisy Watch -- Campaign Promises Edition. Nick Wing of the Huffington Post: "Kentucky's Senator-elect Rand Paul already appears to be making a rapid departure away from one of his campaign promises: an earmark ban that stood as a conservative cornerstone, a position Paul touted to indicate he was serious about tackling the reckless spending practices of Washington." ...

... Republican Hypocrisy Watch -- Big Spender Edition. Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "As governor, [Chris] Christie [of New Jersey]..., has pushed to cut government spending and waste, making him a rising star in the Republican Party.... [But] when he was a top federal prosecutor..., [he] routinely billed taxpayers for hotel stays whose cost exceeded government guidelines, according to a report the Justice Department released on Monday." Christie was one of five attorneys general who “exhibited a noteworthy pattern of exceeding the government rate and whose travel documentation provided insufficient, inaccurate or no justification for the higher lodging rates.”

President Bush isn't the only Republican out with a new book. Steven Levingston of the Washington Post reviews Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's Leadership and Crisis; the book's July release date was pushed back because of the oil spill. In this new version Jindal devotes "a significant portion of the book [to] disparaging the federal government’s response to the spill." He also has a section he calls, "Men Behaving Badly," in which he pouts about politicians involved in sex scandals; Levingston notes that Jindal conveniently forgot all about Louisiana's Sen. David Vitter & former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The Newt has written a lovely blurb for the book jacket.

No one cares if you smoke a joint or not. -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ...

Accuracy in Media/Polling -- There's a Concept. Mark Blumenthal in the Huffington Post: "A remarkable bi-partisan group of campaign pollsters released an open letter this afternoon that assailed the 'sometimes uncritical media coverage' of the 'proliferation' of public pre-election polls that fail to disclose basic information about how they are conducted and that "have the capacity to shape media and donor reactions to election contests." Includes pdf of letter.

And So Are You. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "On Friday, in an interview with an Australian newspaper, [Rupert] Murdoch ... divulged that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had described President Obama as the most 'arrogant man' he had ever met after playing his first and presumably last round of golf with the commander in chief."

In the News: Washington Post: "The Obama administration reiterated its support Monday for repealing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" law and policy as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) worked to strip language repealing the ban from the annual defense authorization bill."

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