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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

Page Links
Sunday
Nov142010

The Commentariat -- November 15

Candorville by Darrin Bell at Candorville.com. Via my old friend John L. Click on cartoon to see larger image.** "The Establishment President." David Bromwich in the London Review of Books assesses Barack Obama's presidency: "Obama acted on the assumption that the establishment is one and irreplaceable, and must be served in roughly its present form."

Paul Krugman: the odds are not good that the President will find it within himself to take a stand against the GOP, China & other bad actors in the international community.

Jackie Calmes & David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: President Obama returns from Japan to the kabuki theater of the lame duck session. Oh, how will it all end? Not with a bang but a quack.

Ha! Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is stepping down from the conservative organization she founded last year. Ms. Thomas plans to resign as CEO of Liberty Central, a group designed to be a clearinghouse for conservative activists and the Tea Party movement...." CW: judicial ethics are so annoying.

Kilroy Was Here. Sam Stein: "A coalition of progressive lawmakers, labor unions, and soon-to-be-former members of Congress [like Mary Jo Kilroy {D-Ohio}] are demanding that the Democratic Party hold an up or down vote on a tax cut package that extends rates for the middle class while letting those for the wealthy expire.... Even as the White House is signaling its willingness to cut a deal extending the top brackets for an additional few years, progressive lawmakers and the AFL-CIO have begun imploring the party to partake in a veritable game of chicken. Make Republicans vote against a package that included just tax cuts for the middle class as the deadline for all rates to be reverted closes in."

New York Times: "The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a longtime defender of the Congressional authority over federal spending, said on Monday that he would support a proposed ban on earmarks, the lawmaker-directed spending items, in the next Congress." ...

... Jay Newton-Small of Time comments on Mitch McConnell's reversal & capitulation on earmarks. CW I've commented on Newton-Small's post.

Dana Milbank: Eric Cantor walks back his treasonous remarks without walking back his treasonous remarks. You people just got it wrong! (See Milbank's update down the page.)

He Was against It before He Was (Secretly) for It: Lee Fang of Think Progress: though Sen. John Ensign vehemently opposed the Affordable Healthcare Act & has refashioned himself as a teabagger, he wasn't above soliciting (& receiving) a near-$1 million grant under the act for the University of Nevada School of Medicine. CW: wonder if he sent a thank-you note. Plus, how come Fang had to go to the trouble to obtain documentation though an FOIA request? Letters from Senators concerning the expenditure of federal funds should all be on-the-record.

Noam Levey in the Los Angeles Times: "With their eyes on the 2012 election, Republicans are preparing to maximize conflict with Democrats over healthcare in the new Congress and minimize potential compromises, according to GOP strategists, lawmakers and lobbyists.... Republican leaders and strategists think a renewed battle over healthcare will help the party expand its electoral gains and drive President Obama from the White House."

Elizabeth Kolbert of The New Yorker: "House Republicans and their Tea Party allies reject even the idea of concern. Not content merely to ignore the science, they have decided to go after the scientists."

Roxana Tiron of The Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) may not be able to secure enough votes to pass the [defense authorization] bill because of language repealing the ban on gays in the military.... But abandoning the effort to repeal the 'Don’t ask, don’t tell' policy would be a political disaster for President Obama...." ...

... Here's an update from Joe Sudbay of AmericaBlog. ...

... The Human Rights Campaign urges you to call your Senators & ask them to repeal DADT NOW.

... NEW. Three Amigos Disagree on DADT. Joe Lieberman "strongly" favors repeal.

Secretaries Hillary Clinton & Robert Gates in a Washington Post op-ed: "Before this session of Congress ends, we urge senators to approve an arms control treaty that would again allow U.S. inspectors access to Russian strategic sites and reduce the number of nuclear weapons held by both nations to a level not seen since the 1950s."

The Wall Street Journal identifies the year's ten highest-paid CEOs. The top-paid CEO, Gregory Maffei of Liberty Media Corp. pulled down $87.1 million. CW: Liberty Media owns QVC, Expedia, Starz,  the Discovery Channel & a bunch of other stuff, including large chunks of enterprises like Time Warner Cable & Sirius XM Radio. Remember, Republicans think these CEOs should get a tax break.

James Surowiecki of The New Yorker on "greedy geezers": in the midterm elections, seniors, especially older seniors, voted heavily Republican. mostly apparently because of their opposition to health reform. "There’s a colossal irony here: the very people who currently enjoy the benefits of a subsidized, government-run insurance system are intent on keeping others from getting the same treatment.... In hard times voters get more selfish."

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones debunks the "uncertainty meme" -- the notion popular among pundits that the reason businesses aren't growing is that they don't know what the future holds. BTW, the "PPACA" that Drum refers to is the Affordable Care Act a/k/a the healthcare reform act. ...

... Steve Benen remarks that "uncertainty" is a Republican cover invented because "they can't blame the economy on tax increases, since taxes have gone down not up, and they can't blame the recession on Bush since they still support his economic policies..., so 'uncertainty' becomes a convenient catch-all. But it's still ridiculous. Businesses have been reluctant to hire because they need more customers. It's really not a mystery."

American "Justice" -- Just Another Wall Street Scam. Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: "Large banks, hedge funds and private investors hungry for new and lucrative opportunities are bankrolling other people’s lawsuits, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into medical malpractice claims, divorce battles and class actions against corporations — all in the hope of sharing in the potential winnings." ...

... The New York Times provides a timeline that describes "the legal path to lawsuit lending," which indeed used to be illegal.

Steven Mufson of the Washington Post profiles my hero, Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

David Kocieniewski of the New York Times: "After two years of investigations and political recriminations, [Rep. Charlie] Rangel [D-NY] is scheduled to appear before a hearing of the House Ethics Committee on Monday to formally rebut charges that his fund-raising and personal finances violated Congressional rules." ...

... Ashley Parker of the New York Times profiles R. Blake Chisam, the staff lawyer who will present the cases against Rangel & Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cal.).

After learning that George W. Bush plagiarized chunks of Decision Points, Andy Borowitz asked his readers to "come up with the best plagiarized first line[s] for the book." Here are a couple:

They were betterer times, they were worserer times.

My momma always said life was like a jar of fetus.

[Bill] Clinton and I are buddies. -- George W. Bush. Clip & extended transcript are here. If you really want to, you can watch more of Candy Crowley's interview of George W. & Jeb Bush here.

Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: despicable hit man James O'Keefe smears an exemplary teacher this time; Republican Gov. Chris Christie, untroubled by a complete distortion, piles on.

It's Always Something. Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "Reports have trickled in about reusable [grocery] bags, mostly made in China, that contained potentially unsafe levels of lead.

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