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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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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Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Friday
Oct082010

The Commentariat -- October 9

Dana Milbank: "why [Glenn] Beck is dangerous: because his is the one voice in the mass media that validates conspiracy theories held by the unstable.... It's not that Beck is directly advocating violence but he's giving voice and legitimacy to the violent fringe." ....

Rich Iott, third from left, in a Nazi SS uniform. Iott in the Republican nominee for Congress in Ohio's 9th District.... GOP Congressional Nominee: I'm Not a Real Nazi, but I Play One on Weekends. Joshua Green of The Atlantic: "Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio's 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite..., for years donned a German Waffen SS uniform and participated in Nazi re-enactments. Iott, whose district lies in Northwest Ohio, was involved with a group that calls itself Wiking, whose members are devoted to re-enacting the exploits of an actual Nazi division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, which fought mainly on the Eastern Front during World War II. Iott's participation in the Wiking group is not mentioned on his campaign's website, and his name and photographs were removed from the Wiking website.... Historians of Nazi Germany vehemently dispute" the Iott organization's "sanitized, romantisized view" of the SS Wikings . Historian Charles W.Sydnor, Jr. says, "re-enactments like the Wiking group's are illegal in Germany and Austria." Iott said he joined the Wikings "as a father-son bonding thing." ...

... CW: this is jaw-dropping & stomach-turning. Will the GOP demand Iott withdraw his candidacy? Minority Leader John Boehner is an Ohio Congressman. He had to know about this guy. Here's a recruitment video Iott's SS re-enactment group produced that is beyond shocking:

... Steve Benin: despite "a disclaimer noting that they 'do not embrace the philosophies and actions' of the Nazis..., Iott's little troupe also said it exists in part to 'salute' the 'idealists' and 'front-line soldiers of the Waffen-SS' and their 'basic desire to be free.' It also characterizes Wiking volunteers as 'valiant men...." Benin notes that Iott is a Republican "party favorite," not a fringe candidate. ...

     ... Update. Young Mausers. Stephen Webster of the Raw Story: "Iott was a member of the National Republican Congressional Committee's so-called 'Young Guns' program, but a GOP-owned domain dedicated to America's 'future leaders' appears to have scrubbed his name from a list of 'contenders'. ...

... It sends a chilling message to all Americans, especially to veterans and to those of the Jewish faith that John Boehner and the Republican leadership in Washington would actively seek out candidates like this and embrace them. -- Ryan Rudominer, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

     ... ** Update: Mediaite has video of Joshua Green telling the Rich Iott story on Bill Maher's "Real Time."

Peter Yost of the AP: "Before President Barack Obama picked him to be his next national security adviser, Tom Donilon was a lobbyist for mortgage giant Fannie Mae and fought off congressional attempts to impose new regulations. As Fannie Mae's legal counsel and top strategic thinker in the late 1990s to the middle of this decade, Donilon left his sizable imprint on the company long before its takeover by the government amid the wreckage of the housing market." ...

... Josh Gerstein & Abby Phillip of Politico have more on Donilon's tenure at Fannie Mae. Yost implies Donilon left before Fannie Mae got in big trouble; Gerstein & Phillip give you a picture of how close Donilon was to Fannie Mae's problems -- one of their sources calls Donilon "an enabler." They also note that he doesn't have much foreign policy experience. ...

... BUT Fred Kaplan of Slate writes that "Donilon has been de facto national security adviser for many months now, while [former advisor Jim] Jones has been, to a startling degree, a West Wing wallflower."

Peter Bacon of the Washington Post: "... in what could be a preview of Washington in 2011, two men are engaged in an almost daily debate about the [Republican Pledge to America] and what it means: President Obama and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).... Many Republican candidates haven't even read" it.

Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "The long-simmering feud between Democrats and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has erupted into a full-scale war. The chamber, one of Washington's most influential lobbying groups, emerged from the background of the midterm elections this week, spending millions of dollars on ads to help Republicans and fending off Democratic allegations that the effort may include money collected from foreign firms." You can play through some of the Chamber's anti-Democratic ads here.

Urban Planning. The United States of the twenty-first century should start to look more like an archipelago of cities in a sea of open landscapes. -- Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior

CW: Thursday I questioned the legality of the President's pocket veto of a bill that would facilitate foreclosures since the Senate was technically in session & the House had "agents" in place to "receive messages." Later, other bloggers raised the same issue. The President (or his legal staff) got the message:

To leave no doubt that the bill is being vetoed, in addition to withholding my signature, I am returning H.R. 3808 to the Clerk of the House of Representatives, along with this Memorandum of Disapproval. -- Barack Obama

Good political commentary from Bill Maher during an appearance on CNN:

Paul Krugman recommends Mike Konczal's post on foreclosure fraud. With charts!

We have all the junk in the world.... I mean, you can gain 15 pounds in a hurry. -- a Bloomberg employee ...

... Fun Hypocrite of the Day (it's early -- there may be more). Anemona Hartcollis of the New York Times reports that "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wants to prohibit poor New Yorkers from using food stamps to buy sugary sodas like the ones that are available free to his business’s employees.... He is known for negotiating voluntary reductions in salt by food companies, and putting salt on his own saltine crackers; for fighting rising obesity among his constituents, and for serving comfort food like grilled hot dogs and ice cream sundaes at his town house."

When I speak to God, it is called prayer. When God speaks to me, it is called paranoia. Mental illness is not absent when it is covered with religious words. -- Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong on Christine O'Donnell's assertion that it was "God's plan" for her to campaign & win the Delaware Senate seat

Commentary from RepublicanLand:

Paul Craig Roberts, a Reagan Treasury appointee & a former Wall Street Journal editor, on "America's Third World Economy" & yesterday's jobs report:

Part of [last month's] loss of 159,000 government jobs was offset by 64,000 new private sector jobs. Where are the new jobs? They are in nontradable lowly paid domestic services: 32,000 were in health care and social services, and 33,900 were in food services and drinking places. There you have it. That is America’s 'New Economy.'

Jack Goldsmith, who as head of the Office of Legal Counsel under George W. Bush, withdrew the infamous Torture Memoes (& shortly thereafter resigned), writes an op-ed in the New York Times arguing for military detention of terrorists instead of trials. CW: I'm not saying I agree with Goldsmith, but his POV is worthy of a hearing.

Former First Lady Laura Bush writes an op-ed in the Washington Post urging that peace negotiators in Afghanistan embrace women's rights: "Offenses against women erode security for all Afghans -- men and women. And a culture that tolerates injustice against one group of its people ultimately fails to respect and value all its citizens."

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