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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
Oct182010

The Commentariat -- October 19

Republican Tea Party Legal Scholars 

As the attorney general of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, I'm always amused to get a lecture on constitutional law from a self-certified ophthalmologist. -- Jack Conway, in his debate with Rand Paul

You're telling me that's in the First Amendment? -- Christine O'Donnell, responding to opponent Chris Coons, who said in a debate yesterday that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion ...

... This video of the clash between Coons & O'Donnell is stunning. O'Donnell could not pass 9th-grade civics class. O'Donnell has repeatedly promised that when she becomes Senator, she will let the Constitution guide her decisions. What Constitution? --

     ... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The audience at the law school can be heard breaking out in laughter.... The reaction of the audience suggests that they thought Ms. O’Donnnell’s [sic.] comments appeared to indicate that she did not know, or did not believe, that the separation of church and state -- a bedrock principle in constitutional law -- was derived from the First Amendment."

Artwork by David G. Klein for the New York Times.Economics Prof. Robert Frank in the New York Times: Rising economic inequality "is ... a bad thing" and we should "try to do something about it." ...

... AND like clockwork, Bob Herbert reminds us again that Republicans have done nothing but exploit the economic crisis but "Democrats are in trouble because they have not been nearly aggressive enough in confronting this profound economic crisis facing so many millions of ordinary Americans." ...

... AND Paul Krugman writes a devastating short post on the Obama Administration's response to every economic crisis it faces: "... the administration has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And soon there won’t be any more opportunities to miss." ...

Ian Katz & Simon Kennedy of Bloomberg: "For U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, a weaker dollar may now be in the national interest.... Companies from Costco Wholesale Corp. to Deere & Co. have credited the weaker dollar for giving their earnings a boost, and the currency’s slide has helped propel the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 11,000 for the first time since May. Higher stock prices in turn are bolstering consumer and business confidence." ...

... Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee with an economics history lesson:

... On a less serious note, Michael Scherer of Time reminds us of Goolsbee's first-place-winning performance at this charity event held last fall:

Uncle Sam Wants (to Watch) You! Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, citing lapses in compliance with surveillance orders, are pushing to overhaul a federal law that requires phone and broadband carriers to ensure that their networks can be wiretapped, federal officials say."

Steven Aftergood in Foreign Policy: "... there is one issue that nearly everyone in Washington agrees on: The overclassification of information in the name of national security has run amok."

This Just In! Mark Sherman of the AP: Justice Samuel Alito won't be attending next year's State of the Union address because he doesn't want to be forced to sit silently "like the proverbial potted plant." Last year he took heat for muttering "not true" when President Obama criticized the Court's Citizens United ruling.

** No Wonder Democrats Are Losing. Ben Smith of Politico details President Obama's "surrender to outside spending." Smith is a smart observer of the inside game, & the evidence he cites is compelling. That is, unlike every other President before him, Obama decided to take the "principled" high road & (1) dismantle his fundraising network, (2) discourage liberal groups from fundraising & (3) shun big donors.

Spitzer Lite, in an elephant suit. -- the Murdoch-owned New York Post's description of Republican Carl Paladino. The Post unenthusastically endorsed Democrat Andrew Cuomo

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "The first — and possibly last — debate in the New York race for governor unfolded as 90 minutes of political theater verging on farce Monday night.... Kristin Davis, a former prostitution madam, made frequent brothel jokes. Jimmy McMillan, the candidate of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, responded to a question about same-sex marriage by declaring “If you want to marry a shoe, I’ll marry you.” And Carl P. Paladino, the Republican candidate, startled those watching by accidentally walking off stage during the closing statements, in search of the men’s room." ...

Alaska Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller wants the U.S. to be more like the communist totalitarian state of East Germany where border guards shot people trying to cross the border illegally. CW: I'm not making this up:

Joe Miller is a Liar Who Pushes around Little Kids. Alaska Dispatch: "A Valley woman who [said she had been a staunch Miller supporter & who] witnessed the incident involving Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller and the editor of Alaska Dispatch on Sunday says the journalist, Tony Hopfinger, did not threaten Miller and that the whole thing should never have escalated into a police matter." CW: unless the witness, named Lolly Symbol, is a plant or a liar, Joe Miller is a serious horrible human being.

James Kirkup of the (London) Telegraph: " One of the [British] Navy’s new £3 billion aircraft carriers will never carry aircraft and will sail for only three years before being mothballed and possibly sold, ministers will announce on Tuesday.... The decision on the new carriers has been at the heart of tense and prolonged Whitehall negotiations over the future of the Armed Forces."

... AND Mark Thomson of Time notes that this three-year-old, uh, interview was "amazingly prescient":

New York Times: "China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted shipments of some of those same materials to the United States and Europe, three industry officials said on Tuesday. The Chinese action, involving rare earth minerals that are crucial to manufacturing many advanced products, seems certain to further ratchet up already rising trade and currency tensions with the West." See Paul Krugman's also amazingly prescient column about this possibility -- which he wrote for yesterday's New York Times.

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