The Ledes

Thursday, July 10, 2025

New York Times: “Twenty-seven workers made an improbable escape from a collapsed tunnel in Los Angeles on Wednesday night by climbing over a large mound of loose soil and emerging at the only entrance five miles away without major injury, officials said. Four other tunnel workers went inside the industrial tunnel after the collapse to help in the rescue efforts. All 31 workers emerged safely and without significant injuries, said Michael Chee, the spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. The Los Angeles Fire Department said that no one was missing after it had dispatched more than 100 rescue workers to the site in the city’s Wilmington neighborhood, about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.” 

The Wires
powered by Surfing Waves
Help!

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

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

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.

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.

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

Saturday
Sep242011

The Commentariat -- September 25

Whether you can win or not in a fight that’s worth fighting, get caught trying. -- Bill Clinton

Activist Sally Kohn offers up some ideas in this Washington Post op-ed that are pretty impractical, but some of you-all will like them. Most of her ideas are do-able and reasonable.

... I've posted a comments page for Kohn's op-ed on Off Times Square.

Frank Bruni of the New York Times never really answers his own question, but he gives you reason to answer it for yourself: "HAS American political life become a carnival so invasive, indiscriminate and sometimes even crude that it repels some of the best potential officeholders and almost guarantees that the most important business of the country won’t be properly done?

As Karen Garcia noted in a blogpost some months ago, if you want to find out about protests in New York City, you'll have better luck going to Al Jazeera than to the New York Times. On today's front page, the Times has teeny links to two blogposts about the protests (both linked under today's Ledes), one of which has a glaring error -- at least at this writing the post embedded the same video twice, although the caption accompanying one of the videos refers to another one, which was not posted. But wait! The Times front page does link to a "real" article (as opposed to a blogpost) about the protesters by one Ginia Bellafante, who devotes her report to documenting how few, how clueless & how disorganized the young protesters are. See, they're as dumb as teabaggers.

Ross Douthat argues that Troy Davis's death sentence was a real boon for him, because if he'd received a lesser sentence, his case would not have got all that public attention. Douthat doesn't dwell on the fact that part of Davis's good fortune included being executed for a crime in which it turned out there was plenty of reasonable doubt of his guilt. Instead, Douthat argues, "Abolishing capital punishment ... would tell the public that our laws and courts and juries are fundamentally incapable of delivering what most Americans consider genuine justice. It could encourage a more cynical and utilitarian view of why police forces and prisons exist, and what moral standards we should hold them to. And while it would put an end to wrongful executions, it might well lead to more overall injustice." In other words, capital punishment is a good thing because it "sends a message" that our justice system works, and we should have confidence in it.

Really? In a comment, Gemli from Boston responds. Read Gemli's whole comment, & recommend it, please:

When I was young and innocent, and didn't know the difference between liberals and conservatives, I read a quote that said as far as criminal justice was concerned, 'Conservatives prefer unfairness to disorder.' I always thought that was an exaggeration just to make a point. Who could be so lacking in human empathy that one could punish someone, even put them to death, with a cloud of innocence hanging over them? But here is an entire column making that case.

** "The Fraying of a Nation's Decency." Anand Giridharadas of the New York Times highlights the Morning Call story we linked last week on Amazon.com's Allentown, Pennsylvania, sweatshop (If you haven't read the Morning Call story, it's here, and it's horrifying.). "Amazon.com, the books-to-diapers-to-machetes Internet superstore, is a perfect snapshot of the American Dream, circa 2011.... And what the story revealed about Amazon could be said of the country, too: that on the road to high and glorious things, it somehow let go of decency....Far beyond official Washington, we would seem to be witnessing a fraying of the bonds of empathy, decency, common purpose.... It doesn’t feel like one nation when a company like Amazon, with such resources to its name, treats vulnerable people so badly just because it can.... People who run companies like Amazon operate as though it never occurred to them that it could have been them crawling through the aisles.... What is creeping into the culture is simple dehumanization, a failure to imagine the lives others lead."

CW: Several readers have asked me privately about the White House "We the People" petition facility, which allows citizen to post petitions to the Obama administration. Any petition that receives at least 5,000 signers will receive "consideration" from White House staff. As Karen Garcia reports, "The winner and undisputed champion on the White House's new citizen petition webpage is the legalization of marijuana." Read Garcia's post, which I think is about right. In today's Off Times Square Kate Madison highlights another petition to recognize the Wall Street protesters. IMHO, the so-called petition capability is a way to shut you up by giving you the satisfaction you've "done something" for the causes that interest you. Since the site also requires you to provide basic information about yourself in order to sign a petition (which is SOP) & provides you the "opportunity" to get e-mails from the White House, obviously "We the People" is also a tool for the re-election campaign. Expect a fundraising letter in your inbox. But heck, maybe President Obama will get into the weed.

When I was a kid, I inhaled frequently. That was the point. -- Barack Obama, ca. 2006

Right Wing World

"Nice Try." Maureen Dowd: "[Rick] Perry is proving to be [Mitt] Romney's best asset." ...

... Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Martin of Politico: "With the party’s front-runner sagging, Chris Christie is reconsidering pleas from Republican elites and donors to run for president in 2012.... The New Jersey governor has indicated he is listening to big-money and Republican influence-makers, and will let them know in roughly a week whether he has moved off his threat-of-suicide vow...."

News Ledes

New York Times: "In his first speech since returning to Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh confirmed on Sunday that his deputy remained authorized to sign a transfer-of-power agreement that would lead to early presidential elections, but he did not make any new concessions."

New York Times: "King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Sunday granted women the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, the biggest change in a decade for women in a puritanical kingdom that practices strict separation of the sexes, including banning women from driving."

AP: "After eight months of contract-wrangling and negotiations that dragged past a strike deadline, supermarket workers in Southern California will stay on the job.... Members of the region's United Food and Commercial Workers voted to ratify a new contract with three major grocery chains..., averting a strike of more than 60,000 workers that could have crippled the industry and left shoppers scrambling."

AP: "Pakistan's army chief will convene a special meeting of senior commanders Sunday following U.S. allegations that the military's spy agency helped militants attack American targets in Afghanistan, the army said."

Reuters: Pope Benedict said on Saturday the Catholic Church could not accept gay marriage and urged young people to root out evil in society and shun a 'lukewarm' faith that damages their Church. The 84-year-old pope ended the third day in his homeland with a rally for more about 30,000 young people at a fairground outside the southern city of Freiburg, a Catholic area where he received the warmest welcome of his trip so far."

CNN: "Two American hikers freed last week from an Iranian prison are expected to arrive in the United States on Sunday. Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer were released by Iran on Wednesday and were flown to Muscat, Oman's capital, where they enjoyed several days of freedom after more than two years in prison." ...

... New York Daily News: Actor & activist "Sean Penn played a real-life role in the mediation that secured the release of two American hikers who were held captive in Iran for more than two years. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged his ally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to release the hikers after the South American leader was lobbied by pals in U.S. 'intellectual circles,' Reuters reported. One of those Americans was Penn, who flew to Venezuela to meet with Chavez and push him to talk to Ahmadinejad."

AP: "About 80 people were arrested Saturday as demonstrators who were camped out near the New York Stock Exchange marched through lower Manhattan, police said. The 'Occupy Wall Street' protest is entering its second week. Demonstrators said Saturday they were protesting against bank bailouts and the mortgage crisis; some also held signs decrying Georgia's execution of Troy Davis.... At Manhattan's Union Square, police tried to corral the demonstrators using orange plastic netting.... Activists posted the videos online. One video appears to show officers using pepper spray on women who already were cordoned off." New York Times item here. Two videos here. Al Jazeera video above. ...

... Firedoglake has a liveblog here.

Guardian: "Police have been accused of heavy-handed tactics after making 80 arrests on Saturday when protesters marched uptown from their makeshift camp in a private park in the financial district. Footage has emerged on YouTube showing stocky police officers coralling a group of young female protesters and then spraying them with mace, despite being surrounded and apparently posing threats of only the verbal kind":

     ... The Times post -- linked above -- makes reference to this video, but does not embed it.

     ... CW Note: this video is of the full speech to the CBC. I had posted a clip earlier.

AP: "In a fiery summons to an important voting bloc, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and 'put on your marching shoes' to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity. And though he didn't say it directly, for a second term, too."