It is October 2nd. There's a mix of clouds and sun over Manhattan right now. And this is your Indignity Morning podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, back from a visit with the vocal rehab therapist and trying to work on compensatory airflow strategies as we take a look at the day and the news. 

The vice presidential debate was last night. JD Vance was smooth and assured and unwilling to say that Donald Trump have lost the 2020 election. There should be more about that over on Defector later today. Newspaper production timetables still being newspaper production timetables. All that the debaters got on the front of this morning's New York Times is a pair of little out of register photographs down at the bottom with a note directing readers to NYTimes.com. 

The lead story on page one would probably have been the lead story on page one, regardless. Two columns wide, “Israel is attacked as Iran launches waves of missiles. Air defenses appear to blunt barrage. Tehran's reprisal escalates strife.” 

Next to the story of how Iran escalated the conflict in the Middle East yesterday, the other four columns at the top of the page are occupied by a photo of a field of twisted rubble with heavy equipment working amid a tangle of rebar and shattered concrete, a real scene of horror and devastation. The caption for which is, “Rescue workers searched the rubble on Tuesday after an Israeli bombing in Ain El Delb, Lebanon, where at least 45 people died.” 

Contrast that with the urgent news story right next to it about the Iranian attack. “A 38-year-old Palestinian man was killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank by falling shrapnel from the missile barrage, the local governor, Hussein Hamayel, said. Two other people were slightly wounded by shrapnel in Tel Aviv, according to Israel’s emergency service. There were no other immediate reports of deaths or serious casualties.” Yes, new things that happened are news, and it's certainly a big new thing that happened for Iran to have struck directly at Israeli territory in response to Israel's bombing of its allied forces in Lebanon and Gaza and the assassination or maiming of Iranian officials by Israeli forces, but still their relative proportions in the storytelling seem a little bit off, especially when below the photograph of the aftermath of Israeli bombing, the headline is, “As the Crisis Builds, Lebanon's Government Cannot Be Found,” a story about the mystery of how this country found itself in a state of continual dysfunction with the Hezbollah militia effectively operating as a rival form of government. 

Inside the paper, on the page facing the jump, there's a historical look at previous invasions of Lebanon by Israel, which supplies a bit of helpful context about the specific situation and larger general patterns. “Israel has invaded Lebanon three times before,” the Times writes. “On each occasion, it said its aim was to secure its northern frontier and stop militants from launching attacks across the border. And each time, the invasion had unforeseen consequences and achieved less decisive results than Israel's military planners and political leaders anticipated.” For instance, the story recounts that Hezbollah was formed as an insurgent group fighting against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon after Israel had gone in to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organization. One might almost suspect that repeated military assaults and occupations promote violent insurgencies rather than eliminating them. At least one might think that if one weren't in charge of establishing Israel's strategic military policy. 

Apologies for the sound quality, but someone has started running heavy equipment nonstop outside the Indignity Morning Podcast studio, and it shows no signs of stopping or even pausing while we still have any morning left. 

Back on page one, the hurricane disaster is right on the fold. “Asheville sees sense of safety washed away.” Inside the paper, there's a two-page spread complete with maps, and the horrifying story of a 75 year old man who clung to a tree in Marshall, North Carolina, calling for help for hours on end to family members and rescuers who couldn't reach him until he fell in the water and was swept away. The most recent death toll from the hurricane is up to 160. 

Also on page one, there's a story trying to reckon with Donald Trump's increasingly apocalyptic rhetoric from the campaign trail as the Times scoots ever closer to addressing the fact that the Republican presidential campaign is overtly fascist now. 

And inside the paper on page 17, there's a well-chosen and well-done story about Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso and his consternation on following Eric Adams into that office after Adams was elected mayor, at receiving a deluge of gifts and offers of gifts from foreign officials and having his schedule filled up with requests for foreign flag-raisings over Burrow Hall. Once Turkey sent him a gold-plated tea set, he returned it and then consulted with the FBI. He also turned to the Mayor's Office of International Affairs for advice about the flag-raisings and was informed that it's actually against the law to hoist foreign flags over Burrow Hall and that Adams had simply been ignoring the law. 

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 Mack Scocca-Ho. 

Implementing these strategies for strengthening the voice is clearly going to be a long-term project. Please subscribe to Indignity to keep us going. And I'll be on the road tomorrow morning. So if all goes well, we will talk again on Friday.