Good morning. It is another extremely pleasant, cool, dry morning in New York City. Today is the 11th of September, but that fact doesn't seem to stop the clock like it used to. And this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

The news inescapably is last night's presidential debate. From starting with a scrupulously neutral headline about “fierce exchanges over a country's future,” the New York Times seems to have now settled on, “in fierce debate, Harris baits a defensive Trump.” The Wall Street Journal said nearly the same thing, minus the Times' comma -based backwards headline construction. “Harris baits Trump in fiery presidential debate.” The Washington Post has “Harris crisply attacks Trump, prompting retorts with fiery rhetoric.” Everyone seems to be trying to acknowledge what happened in the debate. That Donald Trump demonstrated that he can't organize his thoughts or control as emotions and his brain is filled with narcissistic trivia and right -wing insider memes, to the exclusion of any sort of message about what he would do if he were given the job of president again, but everyone is more comfortable writing about this as a matter of debate tactics in which Kamala Harris had the superior game plan and executed it better than they are acknowledging that Donald Trump presented as deranged and incapable because he is deranged and incapable. 

After the debate, Taylor Swift went on Instagram and endorsed the Harris -Tim Walz ticket, referring to herself as a childless cat lady, prompting Trump's most prominent and unavoidable supporter, drug -addled billionaire bigot Elon Musk, to post an offer to father a child with the pop star. There's your Republican presidential campaign, doing what it's here to do. 

In the paper edition of the Times, which had the bad or good fortune to go to press too early to cover the debate, the lead story is Tuesday's Israeli bombing of a humanitarian zone in Gaza. The attack on a civilian encampment killed at least 19 people and wounded 60 more. The Times cites the Israeli military saying that the strike had targeted three senior Hamas militants who had been involved in the October 7th Hamas -led assault on Israel. That means the most favorable account is that Israel chose to massacre more than six civilians for each militant they supposedly targeted, or more than 25 civilians per military target if you count the wounded. 

Next to that, there's a story about the ongoing attempt to spread 3D printed homemade guns around the world, and there's a follow -up story on the filthy Boars Head deli plant that's killed at least nine people with contaminated food “two years before a deadly listeria outbreak,” the Times writes, “US inspectors warned that conditions at a Boars Head plant posed an imminent threat to public health, citing extensive rust, deli meats exposed to wet ceilings, green mold, and holes in the walls. But,” the Times continues, “the U.S. Agriculture Department did not impose strict measures on the plant. In Jarrett, Virginia, which could have ranged from a warning letter to a suspension of operations. Since then, other inspections found that many of the problems persisted, but again, the plant continued to process tons of beef and pork products, including liverwurst.” It was the liverwurst that got caught killing people, but there is your USDA at work. 

Down the bottom of the page, the Times tells the story of how anti -trafficking activist Tim Ballard stands accused of sexual exploitation and assault. You have to take the jump before a single cryptic citation serves as the only credit or indication that this whole saga was already covered by Vice News and more recently by Wired, after Vice pushed out the Anna Merlan, Tim Marchman team who'd been systematically unmasking Ballard over months and months. Nice industry we've got here. 

Inside the paper on page A11, cholera is rampant around the world, having possibly killed more than 100 ,000 people last year, despite being entirely preventable and cheaply and easily treatable. The disease thrives on displacement and immiseration, and the world is generating more and more of that. 

Down at the bottom of that page, the Pakistani police raided parliament to round up lawmakers from the political party of the imprisoned former prime minister, Imran Khan. 

On page A16, Louisiana “battens down as Francine threatens to make landfall as a hurricane.” Right now, it looks like that landfall as a hurricane is imminent. 

Down below that, California wildfires are spreading, and back on the front of the paper, James Earl Jones gets a page one obituary. Among the incredible facts about his career and his life, besides the fact that he married two different Desdemonas that he acted with, The Times writes, “Under the artistic and competitive demands of daily stage work and heavy commitments to television in Hollywood, pressures that burn out many actors, Mr. Jones was a rock. He once appeared in 18 plays in 30 months. He often made a half dozen films a year in addition to his television work. And he did it for a half century, giving thousands of performances that captivated audiences, moviegoers, and critics. 

That is the news. Thank you for listening. The Indignity Morning Podcast is edited by Joe MacLeod. The theme song is composed and performed by Max Scocca-Ho. Please subscribe to Indignity to keep us going. And if all goes well, we will talk again tomorrow.