Weekend Beacon 2/9/25

In case you haven’t noticed, the late-night talk shows are getting clobbered. Ratings for “top-rated” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert are down 32 percent from five years ago, pulling in a 9 percent share of TV audiences in its time slot. (Maybe it’s the lousy skits? Or politics?) Contrast this with The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which in its

Carson’s Century

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Johnny Carson, the late-night television talk show host and, at his peak in the 1970s and ’80s, probably the most famous and best-paid entertainer in the USA. To celebrate the occasion we have this just-published fanboy biography, Carson the Magnificent. The book has had a

AI in the Crosshairs

Perhaps the best that can be said for Gary Marcus’s new book sounding the alarm about the dangers of artificial intelligence is that it comes from a good place. A decorated AI developer, a renowned neuroscientist and psychologist, and a highly successful entrepreneur, Marcus notes at the outset of Taming Silicon Valley, his polemic against

Love, Virtually

Twenty-two-year-old Haliey Welch, who went viral for coining the phrase “Hawk Tuah,” launched the most recent iteration of the dating app this year: Pookie Tools, which coaches individuals on how to interact with each other virtually instead of pairing matches like a regular dating app. The AI-driven program can analyze dating app profiles and rank

The Historical Case for Trump’s Riviera

Much of the international condemnation of Donald Trump’s “Riviera” plan for Gaza rests on the assumption that the Palestinians retain sovereignty over the territory, despite all the events that have taken place since their incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023, and that they also continue to have the right to choose their own government.

Trump Scraps Three Schools’ DEI Grants, Former Firefighters Smoke Out Newsom, and Anti-Israel Groups Plot ‘Unbranded’ NYT Ad

On the first day of his second term, Donald Trump issued an executive order directing all federal agencies to terminate “equity-related” grants. Institutions of higher education will now suffer the fallout. The Department of Education on Friday scrapped $15 million in federal grants for diversity programs at California State University, Los Angeles, Virginia Commonwealth University,

Trump Traces Nixon’s Path

President Trump. Now More Than Ever? L: Richard Nixon in the Oval Office (White House Archives) R: Trump signing executive orders (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Most presidents want to start with a bang. Donald Trump is looking to outdo them all. Over the weekend, the administration made important progress in the Western Hemisphere, bringing hostages back