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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.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

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Monday

Jan242011

Decoding the State of the Union

Peter Nicholas of the Chicago Tribune: "President Obama will call for a five year freeze on non-security discretionary spending in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, White House officials said, in a bid to help reduce the deficit and counter public perceptions that he spent too freely in his first two years in power."

Ezra Klein on "Competitiveness": "Framing the global economy as a competition rather than a shared enterprise preys on our fear of rising powers such as China and India. But, to the White House, it's for a good cause: It gets America's competitive juices flowing, helping galvanize us into making the changes and investments needed to secure our own future. The true competition that the White House is setting up is not between the economic models of China and the United States, but between the economic policies of Democrats and Republicans."

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... advisers say Mr. Obama will lay out his case for investment in education and infrastructure, while tempering his call for new initiatives with an acknowledgment of the country’s long-term fiscal challenges."

Michael Crowley of Time adds his two cents: "This will, in effect, be Obama's opening pitch for re-election in the 2012 presidential campaign."

Perry Bacon, Jr. of the Washington Post: "Now, the president is expected to offer a series of proposals that don't fall on sharp ideological lines as last year's health care bill did, but will still test the two parties' ability to work together. He is expected to tout deficit reduction, but the two sides don't agree on how to get there. Republicans largely favor spending cuts, Democrats a combination of cuts and tax increases."

Marching Orders for Talking Heads (Picture That). Jake Tapper: "A cavalcade of Democratic talking heads were beckoned to the White House to be briefed on the president’s State of the Union address by White House senior advisers David Axelrod and Stephanie Cutter and communications director Dan Pfeiffer."

Decodng the Rebuttal. Richard E. Cohen of Politico: "In rejecting [President] Obama’s planned call for 'targeted investments'—which Republicans contend is a metaphor for more stimulus spending—[Rep. Paul] Ryan reportedly will respond that the 'spending binge' of the past two years failed to stem historic unemployment and the nation’s largest deficits. Instead, he will emphasize the need to cut federal spending in order to boost job creation." CW: what a surprise.

AND for the subtext of Michele Bachmann's rebuttal to the rebuttal, she has released her own budget proposal which involves stuff like eliminating the Department of Education & raising revenues by leasing "leasing land in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas companies." The sub-subtext of course is Bachmann for President.

Seating Arrangements (Con'd.)

Jennifer Epstein of Politico: "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will be honored Tuesday night with an empty seat in the House chamber during the State of the Union address. Jeff Flake, a Republican, and Raul Grijalva, a Democrat, plan to sit together for the speech and keep a seat open for Giffords...." Here's a related Arizona Republic story.

Some Seating Arrangement Are Written in Stone. We know Justice Alito won't show up for the State of the Union address, as he "is taking advantage of a perfectly timed speaking engagement in Hawaii to avoid the event at which he became a reluctant player last January." We don't know what other Supreme's will skip the SOTU, but we do know where they sit on the Court. Click on the picture below to take a fun interactive quiz to see if you can put the members in their seats on the Court:

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