Good morning. It is October 16th. It is a bright and still chilly morning in New York City. And this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

On the front of the morning New York Times, the lead story, just one column wide, so weigh it how you will, “U.S. tells Israel to increase flow of relief to Gaza. Military aid at risk. Netanyahu promises not to strike Iran nuclear or oil sites now.” That third headline sounds like the most substantive one. As the Times picks up the news, previously reported by the Washington Post, the Times notes, that “the Israeli government told the Biden administration that it would not strike Iran's nuclear enrichment and oil production sites when it responds to Tehran's recent missile attack on Israel.” That's extremely limited near-term good news. In that Israel, the Times notes, “could still hit Iranian missile launchers, storage depots, and factories that produce missiles and drones, as well as military bases and government buildings, according to two Israeli officials briefed on the planning process.” Side note on the copy, “missile launchers, storage depots, and factories that produce missiles and drones” is a phrase where the Times's benighted refusal to use a serial comma muddies things up for the reader. I think that the storage depots are separate from the factories that produce missiles and drones, even though there's no comma to indicate that fact. Although that reading makes it unclear exactly what would be stored in the storage depots. Ink is cheap, just stick a comma in there. Anyway, so there's still a list of things that Israel is perfectly happy to strike in Iran. And then the story notes that the Israeli officials say that the pledge to avoid nuclear and oil sites related only to its next attack against Iran, meaning that it could still hit more contentious targets in the future. Still, that's a concrete claim about war policy. As opposed to the main thrust of the story, which is, the Times writes, “the United States has warned Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian supplies into the war-devastated Gaza Strip within the next 30 days, or risk losing military aid.” The warning was delivered in a letter that the Times reports was posted by a reporter from Axios, but does not actually quote the letter itself on the Axios site. Demands that Israel must act on the following concrete measures, including “enabling a minimum of 350 trucks per day to enter Gaza through all four major crossings, as well as opening a new fifth crossing, instituting adequate humanitarian pauses across Gaza as necessary to enable humanitarian activities for at least the next four months. Other requirements include rescinding evacuation orders when there is no operational need, and reaffirming that there will be no Israeli government policy of forced evacuation of civilians from northern to southern Gaza.” All that sounds great, except for questions like what Israel will deem an “adequate pause” or how it will define an “operational need,” and of course the myriad other previous terms and conditions stipulated by U.S. policymakers or black-letter international law that Israel has been ignoring for the last year as the bodies pile up and the US government does absolutely nothing to impede the flow of military supplies. The main measurable thing that the letter seems to do is to punt the question of holding Israel accountable until after election day. 

In the meantime, speaking of things Israel wasn't supposed to do, according to the United States, the next story over on page one is “Lebanon's hospitals buckle amid an onslaught. Indiscriminate strikes overwhelm health system, UN says.” Once again, those darn militants are just so deeply embedded in the place that Israel is attacking that the Israeli military has no choice but to turn its weapons against the most canonically civilian targets in existence. The Times writes “the UN humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon Imran Riza, said this month that the targeting of health and relief operations is broadening, calling such attacks serious violations of international humanitarian law. Hospitals in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli military is conducting its ground invasion, have been particularly affected, at least three major hospitals in the region, once serving many thousands of people, have been shut because they were damaged or the staff had fled.” Maybe in 11 months we will also send Israel a sternly worded letter giving it 30 days to stop doing what it's doing in Lebanon the way we did with Gaza. 

Elsewhere on page one, the top left-hand headline is “Swift Rise Puts Trump Loyalist in the Spotlight. Bluster masks lack of experience, foes say.” Once again, we have a headline describing a headline. “Swift rise puts Trump loyalist in the spotlight,” says the spotlight. The story is about extremist wingnut Kash Patel, the type specimen of the scammy, combative dead-ender who rocketed toward the top of the first Trump administration at the very end in the bunker when everyone else was quitting. The reference to “foes” in the subhead makes it sound like there was some sort of partisan divide around the guy, but the people who hate him are people who were working with him as members of the Trump administration. So it's really a story about separating the chaff from the somewhat heavier chaff. But, this is who Trump would like to have running, say, the CIA, if he can get away with it. 

Down below that, there's a story about trouble for the Kamala Harris campaign. “With $1 billion in Harris coffers, it's not easy to appeal for more.” That's right. Kamala Harris has raised too much money. So much money that donors are wondering if they even need to give her any more. One more front page example from the Times of how the Harris campaign just can't win. 

Back to Trump. Above that is a news analysis piece. “Trump's ideas for the border, slim on detail,” in which the paper earnestly asks where in the world Donald Trump expects to get the 10,000 border patrol agents he's promising to hire, and how he could possibly handle the cost and logistics of rounding up millions of immigrants and deporting them. The Times writes, “when it comes to the former president's vision for border security, hyperbolic rhetoric, rather than substantive solutions, often wins out.” Right. The fact that he doesn't have a plan to make it work doesn't mean he isn't going to do it. Or at least do something that involves lots of law enforcement officials rounding up lots of immigrants. 

And, down in the index at the bottom of the page, there's a referral to a story on the front of the arts section. “Another treasure returned. The Met Museum has sent a second ancient cup back to Italy after investigators found it too had been looted.” It's a story that doesn't quite say the thing that it seems to be saying. It begins, “the restoration has been embraced as a remarkable testament to the skill of art conservators who identified disparate ancient pottery fragments and used them to recreate the treasures of antiquity. The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” the Times continues, “rebuilt two classical Greek drinking cups from random shards that arrived at the Met in small batches from various sources over more than 15 years, beginning in 1978. But the fragments from both cups, it turns out, had been gifted or sold to the museum by a nearly identical set of people, three of whom were later associated with the sale of looted antiquities.” So if the museum wasn't actually sent random shards of pottery, but shards of pottery that identifiably could be reconstructed to make two complete vessels, the most straightforward conclusion would seem to be that those vessels started off intact and got smashed for export. A pretty bleak scenario, conservation-wise. 

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 Socca-Ho. For the price each month of a simple, unbroken, everyday, contemporary coffee mug, you can buy a paid subscription to Indignity to keep us going. Just click the button on the podcast page. And if all goes well, we will talk again tomorrow.