The Ledes

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Washington Post: “ John Amos, a running back turned actor who appeared in scores of TV shows — including groundbreaking 1970s programs such as the sitcom 'Good Times' and the epic miniseries 'Roots' — and risked his career to protest demeaning portrayals of Black characters, died Aug. 21 in Los Angeles. He was 84.”

New York Times: “Pete Rose, one of baseball’s greatest players and most confounding characters, who earned glory as the game’s hit king and shame as a gambler and dissembler, died on Monday. He was 83.”

The Ledes

Monday, September 30, 2024

New York Times: “Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.”

~~~ The New York Times highlights “twelve essential Kristofferson songs.”

The Wires
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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Tuesday
Oct012024

The Conversation -- October 2, 2024

Presidential Race

New York Times reporters are liveblogging the vice-presidential debate, which airs on CBS & elsewhere, beginning at 9:00 pm ET.

Michael Gold of the New York Times: “In unfocused remarks that frequently veered into tangents..., Donald J. Trump responded on Tuesday to Iran’s launching a missile attack against Israel by insisting that the world was nearing global devastation, criticizing President Biden’s leadership and falling back on his frequent hypothetical that he would have prevented the crisis in the Middle East had he won in 2020.... Mr. Trump..., during a speech in Waunakee, Wis..., did not provide any details of how he might quell the war in Gaza or otherwise address the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran that has heightened tensions throughout the region. He falsely claimed Iran went broke under sanctions that were imposed while he was president....

“But Mr. Trump’s remarks about Iran’s attack against Israel were characterized more by his digressions than by his response to world events. As he insisted that he would restore global stability and criticized 'a nonexistent president and a nonexistent vice president,' Mr. Trump departed from his prepared remarks in order to criticize San Francisco, attack Vice President Kamala Harris’s response to Hurricane Helene, stoke fears around immigration, blast the prisoner swap deal with Russia that freed Brittney Griner, repeat his false claims of widespread election fraud and relitigate whether the 1987 film 'Full Metal Jacket' should have won Academy Awards.” ~~~

~~~ Marie: Hmm. Unless Kamala Harris weighs in with a specific, detailed analysis of the artistic merits & cultural impact of “Full Metal Jacket,” I don't think she has my vote.

So earlier Tuesday we learned this: ~~~

Libby Cathey of CBS News: "In a move intended to troll ... Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, ahead of the first and only vice presidential debate of 2024, the Democratic National Committee on Monday night is digitally projecting various phrases... onto Trump Tower in New York City. [Some of] the DNC's projections are ... aimed at the former president for saying he won't again debate Vice President Kamala Harris.... 'Trump is a chicken!' says [a] message...." ~~~

~~~ Now we hear this: ~~~

     ~~~ Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: “CBS News said on Tuesday that ... Donald J. Trump had declined to participate in an interview with '60 Minutes' that would have been broadcast during a prime-time election special next week. The election special, a quadrennial tradition for the program, will move ahead on Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, and feature interviews with Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. In a statement, the network said Mr. Trump had initially accepted an invitation to be interviewed by one of the show’s correspondents, Scott Pelley. But on Tuesday, CBS was told that Mr. Trump’s campaign 'has decided not to participate.'” Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Apparently the campaign has been paying attention to the sort of nonresponsive responses Trump gave in the interviews Jon Stewart highlighted in the clips embedded here yesterday afternoon. Trump's staff knows he's out of it, and they're trying to hide him away.


Katie Robertson of the New York Times: “Olivia Nuzzi, the star political writer for New York magazine who was placed on leave after she disclosed her personal relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has accused her former fiancé of a campaign of harassment and blackmail, according to court filings. In a complaint filed in Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Ms. Nuzzi accused the former fiancé, Ryan Lizza, a top political reporter at Politico, of hacking her devices and stealing a device to surveil her and collect materials to pressure her back into a relationship with him. She accused Mr. Lizza of bringing 'damaging information' to the attention of her employer and of distributing materials to the media that she said she believed to be doctored. She also claimed in the complaint that Mr. Lizza had threatened her with violence to coerce her into assuming his financial responsibility in a joint book contract, and 'explicitly threatened to make public personal information about me to destroy my life, career and reputation — a threat he has since carried out.'... Mr. Lizza said the allegations against him were not true.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is not the first time Ryan Lizza has found himself in trouble because of a relationship with a woman gone awry. In 2017, the New Yorker fired him because of allegations he had sexually harassed a woman. According to Lizza's Wikipedia entry, the New Yorker said "he engaged in 'improper sexual conduct.' Lizza called The New Yorker's characterization a 'terrible mistake' that had been 'made hastily and without a full investigation of the relevant facts.' His alleged victim['s] ... attorney ... said, '[I]n no way did Mr. Lizza’s misconduct constitute a "respectful relationship" as he has now tried to characterize it.'"

~~~~~~~~~~

Georgia. Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: “... the opinion [striking down Georgia's six-week abortion ban] by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, is worth paying attention to even if it is destined to be overturned. It offers one of the most compelling and straightforward defenses of the right to abortion that I have encountered in decades of writing about this issue.... As a legal matter, 'Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote,' McBurney wrote. 'Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.' As a practical matter, McBurney was even clearer about the implications of requiring women to 'serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability.'”  McBurney wrote,

It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could — or should.... When someone other than the pregnant woman is able to sustain the fetus, then — and only then — should those other voices have a say in the discussion about the decisions the pregnant woman makes concerning her body and what is growing within it. (Also linked yesterday.)

See also the New York Times report on McBurney's ruling linked under "Georgia" yesterday as well as Akhilleus's commentary in yesterday's thread. ~~~ 

     ~~~ Marie: Now compare McBurney's reasoned opinion with that of Donald Trump, who after repeatedly bragging about overturning Roe, realized the Alito-led decision was extremely unpopular. Trump then considered a 16-week national abortion ban because, “It’s even. It’s four months.” (It isn't. On average, 16 weeks is 3.68 months. Sixteen weeks is four months only if you count only Februarys that are not in leap years.)

Georgia. Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "Tens of thousands of Georgia voters updated their registration after Kamala Harris took over the Democratic campaign from president Joe Biden. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had removed thousands of voter registrations for a variety of reasons, but 40,000 voters have already updated their registration ahead of the Oct. 7 deadline – and about a fourth of those did so on the day Harris rallied in Atlanta, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of the voter roll." (Also linked yesterday.) 

Comment3 Comments

Reader Comments (3)

The word that came to mind tonight watching the debate regarding Vance - oleaginous. Is that an appropriate adjective?

October 1, 2024 | Unregistered Commenterunwashed

@unwashed: Absolutely.

October 1, 2024 | Unregistered CommenterRAS

Perhaps "slimey" is more accurate?

October 1, 2024 | Unregistered Commenterunwashed

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