REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - Word of the Year (for the Turd of the Year)

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.

The Wires

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To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

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OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

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.”

Page Links

Monday

Nov272017

Word of the Year (for the Turd of the Year)

By Akhilleus

Dictionary.com has come out with its word of the year. And no, it isn't "asshole", although that, along with "pernicious" and "dick" would have been perfectly fine choices. I'd have thought it would be "collusion", but no, it's "complicit", which describes the entire Trump clan and everyone on his execrable cabinet of clowns and confidence schemers.

Complicit: "'Choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act' and 'having partnership or involvement in wrongdoing.'"

That pretty much describes Trump World, don't it?

But if that word doesn't suit you, you can go here and try your hand at selecting a word to describe the little king hisself, apart from his milieu. But don't select "arrogant", "idiot", "orange", "asshole", or "president" (yeah, I know, no asterisk). They're the top vote getters, over 10,000 a piece.

Scroll down and you do run across some unusual, but accurate choices:

wazzock: (English, dialect) a foolish or annoying person
bunghole: self explanatory
flaccid: one of my favorites.

And hey, santorum got 16 votes!

Some are just odd: Tomato, prune, wax, lobster, mong? Baka? Dillhole? Enoch?

Two people suggested "word" which I suppose is a bit waggish since the exercise is called "trump in one word". Ha-ha, very clever, kids.

Only two picks for "jejune" which I found surprising.

"Cockgobbler" is in there (which I found not surprising--along with scads of similarly sexual turns of phrase).

"Mugabe" gets a knowing head nod.

Then there's "Pajero", which, I discovered, means 'He who fiddles with himself for sexual gratification'. Check.

"Turdburglar"? Why not?

Twelve selected "savy" which could mean they're not very savvy themselves. But at least they're all Confederate illiterates.

Several people suggested "antidisestablishmentarianism", which tells me they either wanted to show off their spelling chops or haven't read much in the way of 19th C English history.

Things get really interesting when you scroll down to the entries with a single submission.

Arrogantaur, asswipemotherfuckinpieceofrac (that's all that fit), tchump, FartBlossom, and Antechrist (he came before Christ?), onionhead, and Dick-Cheese. Ladyweoutof was good, as was colonscope and Dunderpate; but I liked the comprehensiveness of Omnibuffoon. One anatomically confused entry was VaginaBallsack. Covers the waterfront, I guess.

PIck out your own faves. Open the Thesaurus. It's hard to go wrong.