Citizen Cartwright

Happy birthday, Walt Whitman!

The poet who’s called the “bard of democracy” and “poet of the people” was born May 31, 1819.

 

"Whitman is America’s world poet — a latter-day successor to Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare,” says the Poetry Foundation.

 

In "Leaves of Grass," he celebrates democracy, nature, love, and friendship, the foundation says. 

 

The collection of poems came out in straitlaced times and got lots of criticism. 

 

"His words might have passed between Adam and Eve in Paradise, before the want of fig-leaves brought no shame,” wrote Charles A. Dana in The New York Daily Tribune in an 1855 review. “But they are quite out of place amid the decorum of modern society, and will justly prevent his volume from free circulation in scrupulous circles.”

 

Well, I’m among the millions of people from families favoring “scrupulous circles” who have found Whitman’s sometimes near-giddy celebration of all aspects of our humanness to be revelatory.

 

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

  

Here is information on the Whitman birthday celebration in the nation’s capital.

 

And in New York.

Also in the news

Narendra Modi begins second term as India’s prime minister after crushing victory

North Korea executes envoy in purge after failed U.S. summit, South Korean newspaper reports

 

State Department to launch new panel on international human rights with focus on 'natural law'

 

Trump announces 5 percent tariff on Mexican imports to pressure the country to crack down on migrants to U.S.

 

House Republicans block $19.1 billion nationwide disaster aid bill for the third time

 

New Hampshire becomes 21st state to abolish the death penalty

 

Immigrant advocacy groups say U.S. census citizenship question was designed to influence elections

 

Reuters: As Trump rewrites public health rules, Pence’s evangelical Christian influence is seen

 

Vox: Why your dog can be vaccinated against Lyme disease but you can’t

 

Study: Genetically modified fungus rapidly kills 99 percent of malaria-spreading mosquitoes

 

Thad Cochran, Mississippi's 'quiet persuader' in Senate, dies at 81

Mueller speaks for 10 minutes. Then comes the spinning of what he said.

After special counsel Robert Mueller’s first public comments Wednesday, a New York Times analysis was headlined "Mueller delivered a message. Washington couldn’t agree on what it was.”

 

The analysis says President Trump heard “case closed” and his adversaries heard “time to impeach.”

 

So let’s go to the closest thing to “just the facts” reporting out there, from The Associated Press, to minimize the motion sickness of the spin cycle.

 

As I’ve mentioned, the AP wire service is used by media ranging from The New York Times to Fox News to small papers in Trump Country.

 

AP’s article titled "Mueller: No exoneration for Trump after Russia investigation” is the item used by the New Castle News, the paper in the Trump Country town in Pennsylvania where I was born.

 

I've checked another Trump Country paper, the Herald and News, in Klamath Falls, Ore. Again, same article.

 

The article leads off:

 

“Special counsel Robert Mueller said that charging President Donald Trump with a crime was 'not an option' because of federal rules, but he used his first public remarks on the Russia investigation to emphasize that he did not exonerate the president."

 

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” AP quotes Mueller as saying.

"The special counsel’s remarks on Wednesday stood as a pointed rebuttal to Trump’s repeated claims that he was cleared and that the two-year inquiry was merely a 'witch hunt.' They also marked a counter to criticism, including by Attorney General William Barr, that Mueller should have reached a determination on whether the president illegally tried to obstruct the probe by taking actions such as firing his FBI director.

 

"Mueller made clear that his team never considered indicting Trump because the Justice Department prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president."

“Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider,” AP quotes Mueller as saying during his televised statement.

"He said he believed such an action would be unconstitutional,” says AP.

 

"Mueller did not use the word 'impeachment' but said it was the job of Congress, not the criminal justice system, to hold the president accountable for any wrongdoing.”

 

Here is the full transcript of Mueller’s statement.

Also in the news

Israel faces new elections after Prime Minister Netanyahu fails to form a governing coalition

 

Trump energy officials call U.S. natural gas exports 'freedom gas' and 'molecules of U.S. freedom'

 

Democratic candidates chafe at high bar to make DNC presidential debates

 

Louisiana passes fetal heartbeat abortion ban, Democratic governor says he'll sign the bill

 

World Health Organization classifies work ‘burnout' an occupational phenomenon

 

British researchers say they’ve developed compound to battle antibiotic-resistant 'superbugs' in entirely new way

 

New brain cells form well into old age, even in people with mental impairments or Alzheimer’s, researchers say

 

Study: You probably don’t need 10,000 steps a day for longevity

Note to readers

I’m not coming across anything of note to summarize this morning. So I’ll just wish you a good day.

In the news

Trump envoys Kushner, Greenblatt in Mideast to seek support for peace plan

 

Disaster aid bill again blocked in House by a Republican conservative

 

Trump's tax law had a small effect on economy and wages, says Congressional Research Service report

 

Supreme Court's compromise on Indiana abortion law keeps issue off its docket

 

KHN: What closure of Missouri’s last abortion clinic will mean for neighboring states

 

Federal Reserve report shows how hard it is for gig economy workers to make a living

 

Wired: 'MacKenzie Bezos and the pitfalls of tech philanthropy'

 

Vox: The intersectionality wars, or how a relatively obscure legal concept went viral

 

Researchers: Cancer drugs approved quickly often don't show clear benefits in more careful follow-up trials

What’s in the pill you’re taking?

The U.S. drug supply these days is 90 percent generic and mostly made overseas — and American doctors are questioning the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to police overseas manufacturing plants, says an article in The Boston Globe.

 

The writer, investigative reporter Katherine Eban, has just published a new book titled “Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom.”

 

This issue isn’t new. For years, I’ve been running items on concerns about U.S. drugs made overseas.

 

Decades ago, most pills consumed in the United States were made here. "But like other manufacturing operations, drug plants have been moving to Asia because labor, construction, regulatory and environmental costs are lower there,” said The New York Times back in 2009.

 

"Drug labels often claim that the pills are manufactured in the United States, but the listed plants are often the sites where foreign-made drug powders are pounded into pills and packaged," the article said.

 

“The FDA inspects all brand-name and generic manufacturing facilities around the world which manufacture product for the US market to confirm they meet FDA’s requirements for manufacturing process,” the agency recently said. But the FDA inspects domestic plants far more often than foreign ones, media routinely report.

 

A newly launched non-profit drug manufacturer that's headquartered in Utah, Civica Rx, aims to manufacture drugs in short supply in the United States and disclose its manufacturing locations on patient dispensing labels, says the Boston Globe article.

 

So what can you and I do? The review of Eban’s book in the Times says: "Eban quotes inspector after inspector saying that they themselves fill only the most essential prescriptions — and will pay anything to avoid taking a drug made overseas."

Also in the news

Green parties’ gains in elections for European Parliament could boost action on climate change

 

Austrian parliament sacks conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz as video sting crisis rolls on

 

Malaysia is the latest Asian country to reject foreign plastic waste (that people in rich countries think is being recycled)

 

Trump in Japan: Differences over North Korean missile tests, trade

 

Trump bypasses Congress to push through arms sales to Saudis, United Arab Emirates

 

Judge blocks Trump from building key sections of his border wall

 

Trump's orders to Barr to disclose information on Russia probe worry intelligence professionals

Trump administration moves to revoke transgender health protection

 

NYTimes: 'Trump administration hardens its attack on climate science'

 

AP: Even if Roe v. Wade were overturned, women have 'unprecedented options and control over fertility'

 

First state trial of the opioid epidemic begins in Oklahoma

 

In Baltimore and beyond, stolen NSA tool wreaks havoc

 

Fed survey: Nearly 40 percent of Americans would struggle to cover a $400 emergency

 

NYTimes annual survey: CEO pay continues to rise

Note to readers

I’m going to take off for the Memorial Day holiday early, to enjoy the visit of the person whose friendship I’ve enjoyed the longest — since she was five and I was eight. See you on Tuesday, May 28. 

Ads targeted to our emotions

Even as The New York Times is running a months-long project on internet privacy, it’s targeting ads to us based on our emotions.

 

The Times has created a list of 30 commonly experienced emotions — 18 of which are available for sale to advertisers, says Vox, citing an article in AdWeek that unfortunately only can be read by subscribers.

 

“Sadness” ads are popular with “socially responsible brands targeting women,” Vox says, quoting AdWeek.

 

Digiday, an online trade magazine for online media, reported last fall that the Times, ESPN and USA Today had rolled out ad products that they said could match ads to people in certain moods.

 

ESPN has been pitching a tool to target sports fans on its digital properties based on their changing emotional state during a game, says Digiday.

 

“We were trying to find any scalable way to deliver the right message at the right time,” says Vikram Somaya, senior vice president for global data and ad platforms at ESPN. “Sports, there’s a lot of potential messages around it. The fact is, we’re in the emotion-generating business. We have a lot of first-party data we can use with a lot of transactions with the consumer; why wouldn’t we do it?”

“It’s something a lot of media planners have been trying to do for years,” says Chris Wexler, senior vice president and executive director of media and analytics at the ad agency Cramer‑Krasselt. “It’s an exciting frontier because we’re looking for people who are open to our message, and emotional state is a key part of it. Demographics based targeting is better than no targeting. Behavior-based is better than demographics. If you put it in order of importance, mood is above behavioral.”

 

Here, from the Times, is an article from last fall on the way the paper is trying to predict the emotional resonance of its articles for better ad placement.