The Ledes

Thursday, July 17, 2025

New York Times: “Connie Francis, who dominated the pop charts in the late 1950s and early ’60s with sobbing ballads like 'Who’s Sorry Now' and 'Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You,' as well as up-tempo soft-rock tunes like 'Stupid Cupid,' 'Lipstick on Your Collar,' and 'Vacation,' died on Wednesday. She was 87.” 

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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

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Wednesday
Oct132010

The Commentariat -- October 14

Young people discuss the issues with President Obama. Aired live Thursday afternoon on BET, CMT & MTV. Extended clip:

     ... To see the entire session, go to this MTV page; subsequent clips will load automatically. Related New York Times story here.

Jonathan Chait in The New Republic: in his "Daily Show" interview, Eric Cantor came close to admitting the real Republican agenda: "to decrease the degree to which government burdens the rich." With video clip.

Being Dick Cheney Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry. Paul Fahri of the Washington Post writes a long article based on an interview with Harry Whittington, the man Dick Cheney shot in 2006. I didn't think it was very important, but it's getting a lot of play in the blogosphere, so here it is. The big takeaways: Whittington's injuries were much more severe than initially reported, he's still suffering from them & Cheney apparently never apologized.

Felicity Barringer of the New York Times: a new Yale University study found htat 52 percent of Americans would flunk Climate Change 101. CW: I think I'd flunk.

The New York Times Editorial Board endorses Democrat Richard Blumenthal for Senate in Connecticut & Democrat Dan Malloy for Connecticut governor.

Nicholas Kristof: "As the United States relies on firepower to try to crush extremism in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, it might instead consider the lesson of the remarkable Arab country of Oman." Forty years ago Oman was backward in the extreme, "but in 1970, Oman left that fundamentalist track ... and started a stunning modernization built around education for boys and girls alike. Visit Oman today, and it is a contemporary country...."

Waiting for Obama. John Schwartz of the New York Times: "Each side of the controversy over the 'don’t ask, don’t tell' law that restricts openly gay men and women from serving in the military waited on Wednesday for the Obama administration to reveal its next move in court."

Stephen Colbert debates government fiscal policy with chief White House economics advisor Austan Goolsbee:

Return of the Gaggle. Peter Baker of the New York Times: Robert Gibbs has reinstated a tradition from earlier administrations -- the gaggle -- an informal, off-camera briefing of reporters.

Chris Matthews & Richard Trumka see a message to Republican tea partiers in the rescue of the Chilean miners:

... Tales from the Crypt. Alexei Barrionuevo & Simon Romero of the New York Times: "As the miners were rescued in a pageant that moved their worldwide audience ... to tears and laughter, glimpses of their personalities, their struggles to maintain their spirits during their subterranean ordeal and even the life that awaited them back on the surface began to emerge as well."

"It could be 2008 all over again." Ariana Eunjung Cha & Jia Lynn Yang of the Washington Post: "For more than a decade, big lenders sold millions of mortgages around the globe at lightning speed without properly transferring the physical documents that prove who legally owned the loans. Now, some of the pension systems, hedge funds and other investors that took big losses on the loans are seeking to use this flaw to force banks to compensate them or even invalidate the mortgage trades themselves." CW: will the taxpayer again ride to the rescue of banks?  ...

... Eric Dash & Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "even when banks did begin hiring to deal with the avalanche of [mortgage] defaults, they often turned to workers with minimal qualifications or work experience, employees a former JPMorgan executive characterized as the 'Burger King kids.'” Oh, and "... the federal program aimed at helping homeowners modify their mortgages to reduce what they owed, had actually contributed to the mess." CW: fire Donovan. Please. ...

... Making a Difference. Tony Pugh of McClatchy News: two "civilian sleuths," Lisa Epstein & Michael Redman, left their jobs "to pursue their passion for helping others and exposing injustice in the foreclosure industry.... Equal parts agitators, activists and advocates, Redman and Epstein have made their presence felt in Florida and nationally through their respective websites, 4closureFraud.org and foreclosurehamlet.org.

Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade had a history of "aggressive, divergent" practices. Now five of its men are accused of killing Afghans for sport. There is evidence that officers in the unit covered up the men's crimes.

Ben Smith of Politico has more details on Rand Paul's college crew: "Issues of the newsletter published by Paul's secret society, the NoZe Brotherhood, during his time at Baylor reveal a ... specific political problem for the Kentucky Republican: The group's work often had a specifically anti-Christian tone, as it made fun of the Baptist college's faith-based orientation." CW: this is an example of straight reporting that can't help but be an enjoyable read.

Palinized. Like her mentor Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell could not name a single recent Supreme Court decision with which she disagreed:

     ... CW: nevertheless, O'Donnell recovered in a stressful debate with more finesse than Palin did in a sit-down interview. Here's the transcript of the entire debate. The video is here. ...

... PLUS. Andy Barr of Politico: O'Donnell is "baffled" as to why the Republican money machine isn't helping her. Nothing to be baffled about: it's SOP to direct resources toward candidates who have a chance of winning; O'Donnell is down by as much as 19 points against her Democratic opponent Chris Coons. ...

... BUT Jim Fallows thinks Christine O'Donnell is more dangerous that Sarah Palin because O'Donnell, a talk-show veteran, "comes across as a perfect, unflappable product of the talk-show culture."

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