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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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Monday
Sep202010

The Commentariat -- September 20

Cheer Up! Chris Bowers, writing in the Daily Kos, argues that, despite the right-wing backlash, the country is really moving to the left. Via AlterNet.

Jackie Calmes & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "White House and Congressional Democratic strategists ... see openings to exploit after a string of Tea Party successes split Republicans in a number of states, culminating last week with developments that scrambled Senate races in Delaware and Alaska." ...

... BUT Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post: voters don't like either party.

... AND Politico Update: "The White House is pushing back hard against a New York Times report that the president's political team is considering a national ad campaign that would cast the GOP as taken over by tea party extremists. The story is '100 percent inaccurate,' a White House official told Politico." CW: the Times has since drastically modified their story, linked above.

David Herszenhorn & Carl Hulse of the New York Times: does the Republican party have any room for moderates like Olympia Snowe & Susan Collins of Maine? "Senator Jim DeMint ... made it clear in the aftermath of the Delaware upset [of Republican moderate Mike Castle] that he would prefer losing a seat to Democrats than having Republican colleagues who stray from the conservative line and erode party unity and image by voting for policies supported by the Obama administration."

Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "Even after taxpayer bailouts restored bankers’ profits and pay, the great Wall Street money machine is decelerating.... The activities at the heart of what Wall Street does — selling and trading stocks and bonds, and advising on mergers — are running at levels well below where they were at this point last year...."

Neil King, Jr. & Janet Adamy of the Wall Street Journal: "Eyeing a potential Congressional win in November, House Republicans are planning to chip away at the White House's legislative agenda—in particular the health-care law—by depriving the programs of cash."

They Have No Shame. Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: when a GM auto engines plant held a reopening ceremony in Spring Hill, Tennessee, "Sens. Bob Corker, Lamar Alexander, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn [attended]. Ironically, all three ... opposed the plans to save General Motors and other U.S. auto companies. This didn’t stop Corker from taking credit for the federal rescue, anyway.” The auto workers booed Corker.

Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "The recession officially ended in June 2009, according to the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of such dates. As many economists had expected, this official end date makes the most recent downturn the longest since World War II. This recent recession, having begun in December 2007, lasted 18 months." ...

... Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "... because it will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the economy’s recent pace, many of these older [over-50] people may simply age out of the labor force before their luck changes." ...

... Conor Dougherty of the Wall Street Journal: "It's not only that the college educated earn more, but that they are far more likely to keep their jobs when times get tough."

Melissa Taylor & Warren Strobel of McClatchy News: the U.S. Agency for International Development continues to award defense contracts to U.S. firms it knows or suspects have defrauded the government of huge sums, & the Justice Department aids & abets the contractors.

James Warren in the New York Times: a newly-released audio tape of President Kennedy, Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen & Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield is a good example of how the parties used to work together to solve national problems.

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