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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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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.

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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Saturday
Oct162010

How to Win a Candidates' Debate

Gail Collins writes that candidates’ college years should not be fair game for discussion in a political race.

Since my comment again didn't make the moderators' cut, here it is:

Just as Wolf declared Christine O'Donnell the "winner" because she didn't run sobbing from the room, so Jon Ralston -- the dean of Nevada political commentators -- called Sharron Angle the winner of her debate with Harry Reid, for the same reason. Neither Blitzer nor Ralston cared that his anointed "winner" was operating in a fact-free zone. Neither cared that the "loser" was actually conversant with the issues, had sensible ideas & had proved, after a fashion, that he knew how to govern.

Evidently the easiest way to win a political debate is to be a complete ditz. So how low IS the bar for these not-ready-for-primetime candidates? (Speaking of not-ready-for-primetime, O'Donnell was very proud of having been the subject of an SNL parody, & happily accused Chris Coons of being "jealous" of her star turn as an object of ridicule.)

Here, I guess, are the New Rules for Low-Expectation Candidates: (1) Show up. As I recall, Ms. Collins attended a candidate event in which Alaskan Joe Miller didn't appear till about half-way through the session -- hard to win if you're not in the room. (2) Smile. Sharron Angle said she smiled all the time because she's upbeat just like Ronald Reagan. (3) Don't cry (unless you're a man, particularly a Republican man). (4) Memorize several talking points & catchy "gotcha" phrases, & when all else fails, toss 'em in, no matter whether or not they relate to the question & no matter whether or not this is the second or third time you've repeated the lines. (5) Make stuff up about your opponent that has a teensy-weensy little connection to some tenuous fact or old rumor.

Also useful: insist that Wolf Blitzer or some other CNN or Fox "News" personality be your moderator -- he won't be much smarter than you are & he won't know when you make bald-faced misstatements. And if you draw a complete blank, he will know how to fill dead airtime so he'll help you with the answer.


Blowing up Frogs. Be sure to read Karen Garcia's comment (#3). Karen, who is a friend of mine, makes the case that childhood habits & hobbies are predictors of adult behavior. She concludes,

There are youthful indiscretions, and there are sociopathic behaviors. We should know more about our candidates than their financial disclosure statements and ideologies. If they don't want to let us into their lives, we should shut them out of ours.

But read her entire comment. I think Karen got it right & Gail got it wrong.

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