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In today’s edition:
WpGet the full experience.Choose your planArrowRight- Haley’s un-super conclusion and Trump’s desperate need to win
- Thank Alabama for spotlighting fetal personhood
- A chance for in-your-face nutrition facts
- AI can save the bureaucracy (after pruning it)
Super Tuesday blues
“If you feel like the country is stuck on a train” — yes, absolutely — “careening toward a repeat of disputed election results” — 100 percent — “and the type of violence we saw on Jan. 6, 2021,” — I am certainly beginning to worry! — “[Nikki] Haley did everything she could to pull the emergency brake.”
Jim Geraghty, writing the above on Wednesday morning, described Haley’s efforts in the past tense because, although the GOP presidential candidate had not called it quits at publication time, Jim saw she hadn’t had “a super Tuesday, or even a good Tuesday” and knew what was coming.
Indeed, Haley suspended her campaign shortly afterward. Jim applauds her effort and thinks the rest of us ought to as well: “[Donald] Trump will be the nominee, but Haley has proved that the GOP isn’t quite the Trump ‘cult’ that Trump fans embrace and Trump critics fear.”
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Now, a competitor-less Trump can turn his attention to the general election (as if he hadn’t already), which Matt Bai writes is a very different beast from his first go-round in 2016.
Back then, Trump seemed ambivalent about winning the presidency after a campaign that Matt maintains was mostly meant to boost his personal brand. Now, Matt writes, Trump is “running as if his survival depends on winning back the White House — because, in a very real sense, it does.” He likely needs a win just to keep himself out of prison.
And odds are good he’ll get one. As Charlie Sykes muses, “we must consider the very real — and infuriating — possibility that Donald J. Trump is the single luckiest politician who ever lived.”
Chaser: What is with American Samoa?! Democrat Jason Palmer (who?!) got the most votes in the party’s contest there this cycle, after Mike Bloomberg did the same in 2020 and “uncommitted” won in 2016! A report from the local Samoa News on Palmer’s campaign sheds at least a little light.
The praxis of personhood
The theory behind fetal personhood makes a certain amount of sense to Ruth Marcus. It’s true: The moment of fertilization is the point from which all subsequent development occurs to create a genetically unique person.
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This thinking carries, Ruth writes, an “intellectually consistent clarity compared with the unscientific and arbitrary line-drawing by abortion rights opponents who point to stages such as the detection of a fetal heartbeat or, later in pregnancy, the asserted capacity to feel pain.”
It’s at all of these later points, she argues, where things fall apart.
In a particularly thorough column, Ruth picks apart the fetal personhood argument logically, legally, practically, philosophically, even spiritually. It’s compelling.
She also analyzes how the Alabama Supreme Court’s opinion boosting the theory backfired — and how amenable the U.S. Supreme Court might be to this line of thinking.
Chaser: Ann Telnaes cartoons the continuing ethical problem that Justice Clarence Thomas refuses to address.
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Crystal-clear labels
In Chile, nutrition labels really jump out at you, as unmistakable as an advertisement for Cerveza Cristal beer spliced into the country’s dub of “Star Wars.”
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High in calories
High in sugar
High in sodium
High in saturated fat
Well-known symbol stands out against packaging
High in calories
High in sugar
High in sodium
High in saturated fat
Well-known symbol stands
out against packaging
High in calories
High in sugar
High in sodium
High in saturated fat
Well-known symbol stands
out against packaging
The United States, with its hard-to-parse nutrition labels (and boring commercials), is far behind. Back-of-the-package info boxes stuffed with gram and milligram measurements make eating smart more difficult, write health policy experts Christina A. Roberto, Alyssa Moran and Kelly Brownell.
But other countries’ uses of “symbols, colors and simple language, front-of-package labels,” they say, “have educated people about what’s in their food, helped them make healthier choices and even encouraged companies to reduce salt and sugar in their products.”
Recent FDA action gives the United States a chance to catch up. Roberto, Moran and Brownell want to make sure we do it right. Look through their op-ed for good examples from abroad as well as for tips on how the FDA can best help Americans bring balance to The Diet.
Advertisement
🎶 CERVEZA CRISTAAAAAAAAL. (Alto en calorías.) 🎶
Around 2003 in Chile, when the original trilogy of Star Wars began airing on television there, they did this funny thing to avoid cutting to commercial breaks. They stitched the commercials into the films themselves. Here is one of them, with the English dub added in. pic.twitter.com/wC7N2vPNvv
— Windy 🛸 (@heyitswindy)
March 2, 2024 More politics
In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first president to utter the word “astronaut” in a State of the Union address, dreaming — modestly, by today’s standards — of “orbital flight.” On Thursday, President Biden will be the first to say “artificial intelligence,” and, like Ike, he’ll be thinking small.
With AI, though, there’s a whole universe out there, Josh Tyrangiel writes. He thinks it can save government.
Josh’s essay is a blueprint for just that, informed by conversations with the man who harnessed AI to get coronavirus vaccines to the entire country — as well as with the oft-maligned company that made the feat possible.
One roadblock: “To get the maximum reward from AI,” Josh writes, “the country must first go through an unprecedented vegetable-eating exercise to clean up its bureaucracy.”
Ironically, the best tool Josh sees for doing that pruning is … AI.
Smartest, fastest
- We have a new podcast coming! Beginning March 20, “Impromptu” will invite you to eavesdrop on our columnists as they talk through the things they can’t stop thinking about.
- Vietnam is lying to its friends, the Editorial Board writes. A secret document proves it.
- George Will reviews the autobiography of Rob Henderson, a “troubled boy” who almost got lost in the foster-care system. His resilience, George writes, “is a tribute to the U.S. military.”
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
Diet irony:
Box stats on packages’ backs
Make square meals rarer
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
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You’re reading the Today’s Opinions newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox.
In today’s edition:
“If you feel like the country is stuck on a train” — yes, absolutely — “careening toward a repeat of disputed election results” — 100 percent — “and the type of violence we saw on Jan. 6, 2021,” — I am certainly beginning to worry! — “[Nikki] Haley did everything she could to pull the emergency brake.”
Jim Geraghty, writing the above on Wednesday morning, described Haley’s efforts in the past tense because, although the GOP presidential candidate had not called it quits at publication time, Jim saw she hadn’t had “a super Tuesday, or even a good Tuesday” and knew what was coming.
Indeed, Haley suspended her campaign shortly afterward. Jim applauds her effort and thinks the rest of us ought to as well: “[Donald] Trump will be the nominee, but Haley has proved that the GOP isn’t quite the Trump ‘cult’ that Trump fans embrace and Trump critics fear.”
Now, a competitor-less Trump can turn his attention to the general election (as if he hadn’t already), which Matt Bai writes is a very different beast from his first go-round in 2016.
Back then, Trump seemed ambivalent about winning the presidency after a campaign that Matt maintains was mostly meant to boost his personal brand. Now, Matt writes, Trump is “running as if his survival depends on winning back the White House — because, in a very real sense, it does.” He likely needs a win just to keep himself out of prison.
And odds are good he’ll get one. As Charlie Sykes muses, “we must consider the very real — and infuriating — possibility that Donald J. Trump is the single luckiest politician who ever lived.”
Chaser: What is with American Samoa?! Democrat Jason Palmer (who?!) got the most votes in the party’s contest there this cycle, after Mike Bloomberg did the same in 2020 and “uncommitted” won in 2016! A report from the local Samoa News on Palmer’s campaign sheds at least a little light.
The theory behind fetal personhood makes a certain amount of sense to Ruth Marcus. It’s true: The moment of fertilization is the point from which all subsequent development occurs to create a genetically unique person.
This thinking carries, Ruth writes, an “intellectually consistent clarity compared with the unscientific and arbitrary line-drawing by abortion rights opponents who point to stages such as the detection of a fetal heartbeat or, later in pregnancy, the asserted capacity to feel pain.”
It’s at all of these later points, she argues, where things fall apart.
In a particularly thorough column, Ruth picks apart the fetal personhood argument logically, legally, practically, philosophically, even spiritually. It’s compelling.
She also analyzes how the Alabama Supreme Court’s opinion boosting the theory backfired — and how amenable the U.S. Supreme Court might be to this line of thinking.
Chaser: Ann Telnaes cartoons the continuing ethical problem that Justice Clarence Thomas refuses to address.
In Chile, nutrition labels really jump out at you, as unmistakable as an advertisement for Cerveza Cristal beer spliced into the country’s dub of “Star Wars.”
High in calories
High in sugar
High in sodium
High in saturated fat
Well-known symbol stands out against packaging
High in calories
High in sugar
High in sodium
High in saturated fat
Well-known symbol stands
out against packaging
High in calories
High in sugar
High in sodium
High in saturated fat
Well-known symbol stands
out against packaging
The United States, with its hard-to-parse nutrition labels (and boring commercials), is far behind. Back-of-the-package info boxes stuffed with gram and milligram measurements make eating smart more difficult, write health policy experts Christina A. Roberto, Alyssa Moran and Kelly Brownell.
But other countries’ uses of “symbols, colors and simple language, front-of-package labels,” they say, “have educated people about what’s in their food, helped them make healthier choices and even encouraged companies to reduce salt and sugar in their products.”
Recent FDA action gives the United States a chance to catch up. Roberto, Moran and Brownell want to make sure we do it right. Look through their op-ed for good examples from abroad as well as for tips on how the FDA can best help Americans bring balance to The Diet.
🎶 CERVEZA CRISTAAAAAAAAL. (Alto en calorías.) 🎶
Around 2003 in Chile, when the original trilogy of Star Wars began airing on television there, they did this funny thing to avoid cutting to commercial breaks. They stitched the commercials into the films themselves. Here is one of them, with the English dub added in. pic.twitter.com/wC7N2vPNvv
In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first president to utter the word “astronaut” in a State of the Union address, dreaming — modestly, by today’s standards — of “orbital flight.” On Thursday, President Biden will be the first to say “artificial intelligence,” and, like Ike, he’ll be thinking small.
With AI, though, there’s a whole universe out there, Josh Tyrangiel writes. He thinks it can save government.
Josh’s essay is a blueprint for just that, informed by conversations with the man who harnessed AI to get coronavirus vaccines to the entire country — as well as with the oft-maligned company that made the feat possible.
One roadblock: “To get the maximum reward from AI,” Josh writes, “the country must first go through an unprecedented vegetable-eating exercise to clean up its bureaucracy.”
Ironically, the best tool Josh sees for doing that pruning is … AI.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
Diet irony:
Box stats on packages’ backs
Make square meals rarer
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
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