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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

Sunday
Jan122025

The Conversation -- January 12, 2025

"Five Presidents and a Funeral." Maureen Dowd of the New York Times reflects on the éminences grises who attended President Carter's funeral, including, well, the star of the show. It's worth a read even though, MoDo being MoDo, she cannot help speaking ill of the dead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Family Photos. Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "Former President Jimmy Carter's funeral on Thursday brought together five current and former presidents. But photos of the group later shared to social media by Vice President Kamala Harris and the Carter Center left one of them out of frame: ... Donald J. Trump.... The Carter Center, a nonprofit started by Mr. Carter after leaving the White House, shared a different photo on Thursday of the funeral scene.... It shows the attendees seated, with the president and vice president and their spouses clearly visible in the front row. In the second row, Mr. Clinton, Laura Bush and Mr. Obama are visible. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr. Bush are partly obscured, and the Trumps cannot be seen at all."

White House: "Today [Saturday], President Biden spoke with His Holiness Pope Francis and named him as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation's highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors. This is the first time that President Biden has awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction." (Also linked yesterday.) A New York Times story is here. An AP story is here.

Mike Ives of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump offered fresh criticism early Sunday of the officials in charge of fighting the Los Angeles wildfires, calling them 'incompetent' and asking why the blazes were not yet extinguished.... His post did not mention any officials by name.... He has renewed a longstanding feud with California's governor, Gavin Newsom, who in turn has accused Mr. Trump of politicizing the fires." MB: This should go under the heading of "Trump Doesn't Know How to Behave, Ctd." While there may be reason to investigate officials' actions, the time to do it is not during a massive crisis in which people are dying. Moreover, calling the officials "incompetent" is in no way constructive. It's just schoolyard name-calling.

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "The wave of self-congratulation that followed the certification of the 2024 presidential election on Monday was premature in the extreme.... We have no evidence that Trump would have honored [the election results] had he lost.... Until [a Democrat wins a presidential election], all we can say about the integrity of the peaceful transfer of power in the United States is that it's an open question." See also Jeanne's commentary in yesterday's thread, as well as what's going on in a North Carolina state supreme court election (story linked yesterday). (Also linked yesterday.)

Glenn Thrush & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two failed federal prosecutions against ... Donald J. Trump, resigned this week, according to a footnote buried in court papers -- a remarkably muted conclusion to a fight that redefined the nation's legal and political landscape. Mr. Smith ... left his offices in Washington on Friday, according to a senior law enforcement official. His departure was expected. Mr. Smith had signaled his intention to leave before Mr. Trump, who had threatened to fire and punish him, took office on Jan. 20. In the end, Mr. Smith made no formal announcement. His spokesman had no comment." Politico's report is here.

DOJ to Judge Aileen: MYOB. Eric Tucker of the AP: "The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to move swiftly in reversing [Judge Aileen Cannon's] order that had blocked the agency from releasing any part of special counsel Jack Smith's investigative report on ... Donald Trump. The emergency motion late Friday is the latest back and forth in a court dispute over whether any portion of Smith's report can be made public before Trump takes office Jan. 20. The push to release it before Trump's inauguration reflects concerns that the Justice Department under the Trump administration, which will include members of his personal legal team in key leadership roles, would be in position to prevent the report from coming to light.... The filing noted that in addition to temporarily blocking the release of the election interference report, Cannon's action also prevents officials from sharing the classified documents report privately with the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees. Cannon's order is 'plainly erroneous,' according to the department's motion. 'The Attorney General ... is vested with the authority to supervise all officers and employees of the Department,' the Justice Department said. 'The Attorney General thus has authority to decide whether to release an investigative report prepared by his subordinates.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: "F.B.I. officials briefed the top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee late Friday afternoon on the findings from their background check of Pete Hegseth..., Donald J. Trump's pick to serve as defense secretary, according to two people aware of the briefings. Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi and the chairman of the armed services panel, and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, its top Democrat, each huddled separately with F.B.I. officials on Friday for over an hour.... Since the results of the F.B.I.'s probe have not been shown to other members of the committee, several Democrats on the panel expressed concerns that they might not have relevant information for Mr. Hegseth's confirmation hearing on Tuesday.... Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut..., [said] that the fact that senators had not been promised access to Mr. Hegseth's background check gave the 'appearance of a cover-up.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

Oklahoma. Audra Burch of the New York Times: "The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, in which a prosperous Black neighborhood in Oklahoma was destroyed and up to 300 people were killed, was not committed by an uncontrolled mob but was the result of 'a coordinated, military-style attack' by white citizens, the Justice Department said in a report released Friday. The report, stemming from an investigation announced in September, is the first time that the federal government has given an official, comprehensive account of the events of May 31 and June 1, 1921, in the Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood. Although it formally concluded that, more than a century later, no person alive could be prosecuted, it underscored the brutality of the atrocities committed." The Guardian's report is here. The report, which includes an executive summary, is here, via the DOJ. (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

New York Times: "Beleaguered firefighters in Los Angeles were working on Sunday to contain mammoth fires that have raged over parched hillsides for nearly a week, killing at least 16 people, turning entire neighborhoods to ash, and lending a bleak, surreal feel to daily life. The biggest fire, the Palisades, expanded even as firefighters made progress containing its spread in some areas. By late Saturday, the blaze's momentum toward a road of multimillion-dollar homes in Mandeville Canyon, a section of the Brentwood neighborhood, had largely been stopped, fire officials said."

Reader Comments (8)

For your reading (dis?) pleasure:

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/01/11/their-kind-of-indoctrination/

January 12, 2025 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Aren't we lucky that "An unpaid group of billionaires, tech executives and some disciples of Peter Thiel ...are preparing to take up unofficial positions in the U.S. government in the name of cost-cutting....seek[ing] to cut costs like Mr. Musk did at X, his social media platform."
Theodore Schleifer and Madeleine Ngo, in Tne New York Times, report Inside the Plans for DOGE
After Inauguration Day, the group of Silicon Valley-inflected, wide-eyed recruits will be deployed to Washington’s alphabet soup of agencies. The goal is for most major agencies to eventually have two DOGE representatives as they seek to cut costs like Mr. Musk did at X, his social media platform....People involved in the operation say that secrecy and avoiding leaks is paramount...“The cynics among us will say, ‘Oh, it’s naïve billionaires stepping into the fray.’ But the other side will say this is a service to the nation that we saw more typically around the founding of the nation,” said Trevor Traina, an entrepreneur who worked in the first Trump administration with associates who have considered joining DOGE....“The friends I know have huge lives,” Mr. Traina said, “and they’re agreeing to work for free for six months, and leave their families and roll up their sleeves in an attempt to really turn things around."

January 12, 2025 | Unregistered Commenterlaura hunter

A weekend sermon dealing with mammon.

Financial Literacy....


The Columbian editorial (in the January 4th Skagit Valley Herald) calling for schools to teach financial literacy reminded me of what I asked my high school seniors to do a quarter century ago.

I had them create what I called a McDonald’s budget. Considering the typical $6.25 minimum wage paid McDonald’s employees in 2000, could someone working at a McDonalds afford a car and live on his or her own? How could one even afford to eat three meals a day when one Big Mac then cost about $2.60? We calculated that five Big Macs a day would run to nearly 400 dollars a month, hardly a healthy diet for a budget—or a body.

We also looked at the cost of renting a small apartment and other common expenses. Overall, I think it was an eye-opening exercise for most students, some of whom were already working somewhere for minimum wage, but working or not, most were still living with their parents. Were they to become suddenly responsible for all their living expenses while working for a minimum wage, the prospect was grim at best. At a gross income of about $1500 a month, living on one’s own was near impossible. I think most got the point.

So yes, I’m all for teaching financial literacy. From The Columbian’s piece, I learned that while Washington State requires school districts to “offer access” to financial education, it doesn’t define what that training should mean or require students to access it. As support for its concern, The Colombian cited the immense and growing credit card debt carried by Americans (it’s now $1.17 trillion) and the number of younger people who are not saving for retirement. The Columbian could have gone further. Nearly one half of American households have no retirement savings at all (usafacts.org).

Where I think The Columbian’s good advice falls short is in its exclusive focus on personal finance. Just as critical to financial literacy is knowledge of the larger financial world in which we live. To comprehend our place in the economy, we must also understand how the policies and practices of government and large corporations affect our pocketbooks. They set the rules we live by, most beyond our personal control.

The current talk of tariffs is a case in point. Why is Trump so excited about them, since applying tariffs on imports would further raise the high prices that propelled him back into the White House (apnews.com)? Now that the election is over, he obviously never did care that much about high prices. Bringing them down would be “hard,” he says, abandoning his campaign promise to lower them (nbcnews.com).

The real reason for imposing tariffs is how they work. Tariffs act as an indirect flat tax on consumers. The government collects tariff revenue while consumers subsidize the government by paying higher prices for goods. Viewed that way, tariffs provide a revenue stream to replace money lost to tax cuts, and consumers pay the freight. For a president and a political party that promise more tax cuts for the rich and don’t wish to be seen as raising income taxes on anyone, the hidden cost of tariffs would seem the perfect solution.

Tariffs are just one more way Republicans can move money to the already rich. The Reagan, George Bush, and Trump tax cuts, which primarily benefitted the wealthy, contributed to the inflation we’ve experienced, but inflation does not treat all people equally. The value of assets, like real estate and stock holdings, keeps pace with inflation. That’s one of the reasons home prices are so high. But those without significant assets get hurt as their paychecks’ purchasing power declines. Even worse, inflation serves as cover for businesses to increase their prices and profits far beyond their expenses, a practice estimated to have comprised over half of our recent bout of inflation (groundworkcollaborative.org).

Looking back on it, I see the financial literacy lessons I offered my students omitted many important things. Among others, we didn’t talk about how our state’s sales tax further widens the gap between the rich and the poor, how lowering the top marginal income tax rate or the federal estate tax has contributed to a nation where the top 50% now possesses 97 cents of every dollar (usafacts.org). We certainly didn’t talk about whether it makes more sense to increase the national debt to (just for instance) help families during a pandemic or to cut more taxes for the rich.

Still, I hope my students learned something from the McDonalds’ budget exercise. I did. When I go to McDonalds, I’m still a Dollar Menu guy.

January 12, 2025 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Brian Beutler

"Poke The Bear
Donald Trump is a lame duck (not a bear)—an unusually weak one, in some ways—and he knows it.

After two months of watching American corporate and opposition-party officials “obey in advance” or, worse, choose to align with Donald Trump for selfish reasons, it’s nice to see leaders in foreign countries recognize something that hasn’t really sunk in among U.S. elites: Donald Trump is a lame duck.

He’s weak in the ways every lame-duck president is, and, to an under-appreciated extent, his efforts to menace and extort concessions out of domestic and international rivals is a form of rebellion against his own expiration date, his looming irrelevance.

But he’s still a lame duck. An unusually old, tired, and manipulable lame duck. At some level he realizes there’s no next referendum on his time atop the heap. I suspect this is why he and his fellow trolls suggest he may seek an unconstitutional third term—it’s not just to trigger the libs, it’s also to paper over this definitional vulnerability."

January 12, 2025 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Climate

"California's Fires Show How Climate Will Destabilize Our Politics and Daily Life
Climate has long been a tech and economic problem—it's about to be a political one"
Garrett M. Graff

January 12, 2025 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

RAS: While Trump is a lame duck he certainly doesn't seem to think of himself as one. Looking back four years to see his actions when he was in the role, doesn't give me much confidence for him when appearing in a repeat performance.

January 12, 2025 | Unregistered CommenterBobby Lee

@Bobby Lee: I think you're right. If Trump is still alive in 2028 and thinks he wants to remain president*, various things could happen.

He could decide to run for re-election, but I think some Republicans who aren't afraid of him will run against him. It's possible that many states, especially those that are run by Democrats, will not allow his name on the ballot, which would of course give his primary competitors an edge. However, would the Supremes step in, as they did last year, and decide for Trump over the Constitution? This is a more clear-cut case against Trump, but that doesn't seem to matter to these Supremes.

But let's say Trump does get primaried and one way or another he loses the nomination. Then he could declare some national emergency (there always is one -- maybe Greenland, Denmark & the EU are saber-rattling), impose martial law and announce he's going to stay in office till the "emergency" is over.

This next four years may be the most fraught in American history since the Civil War. This is excitement we could all do without.

January 12, 2025 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Well, folks, apparently Kamala (remember her?) posted a photo today of the VIP section at the Jimmy funeral, and, wonder of wonders, the couple sitting at the end has been cropped off the photo. I wonder if K opted to do this, or someone else? Regardless, it was an inspiration, and a genius move. They, the couple of weirdos, are to blame for massive lies (especially to a stupid electorate) and the losing of the election, so I say, good for whomever cropped this photo. Mr. and Mrs. Liar are not welcome on anyone's wall or in anyone's album. The more we put them in a corner, the better.

January 12, 2025 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne
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