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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.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Wednesday
Jan262011

Gail Collins: although weak gun control measures have little chance of passing the Congress, "in Salt Lake City, the State Legislature is considering a bill to honor the Browning M1911 pistol by making it the official state firearm.... A committee in the Utah House of Representatives voted 9 to 2 this week to approve [the] bill.... 'This firearm is Utah,' Representative Carl Wimmer, the Browning bill’s sponsor, told The Salt Lake Tribune." Meanwhile, State Sen. Mark Madsen suggested Browning Day be scheduled to coincide with Martin Luther King Day, and Utah's Republican Tea Party U.S. Senator Mike Lee told CNN, “There is abundant research suggesting in cities where more people own guns, the crime rate, especially the murder rate, goes down.”

Here's what I say (also see correction following the comment):


Martin Luther King, Jr. Day should coincide with Browning Day? Doesn't Sen. Madsen know Dr. King was shot to death? With, you know, a gun? Madsen's suggestion is appalling bordering on depraved. Maybe Madsen should ponder this: "... more than a million people have died from gun violence — in murders, accidents and suicides — since Dr. King was shot to death in 1968." -- Bob Herbert

Sen. Mike Lee, who operates in the Republican Fact-Free Zone, is blowing smoke with his claim that "There is abundant research suggesting in cities where more people own guns, the crime rate, especially the murder rate, goes down." According to Dr. Daniel Webster (no, not that Daniel Webster) of Johns Hopkins, "Cities that have gone the furthest to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people have the lowest homicide rates." Prof. Matthew Miller of Harvard says, "Where it’s easier to get guns, you have higher rates of lethal violence. That’s clear." Well, not to Sen. Lee.

And if gun enthusiasts like Mike Lee think guns protect them, there's this, also from Bob Herbert: "researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine estimated that people in possession of a gun at the time of an assault were 4.5 times more likely to be shot during the assault than someone in a comparable situation without a gun."

Where's Joe Wilson to shout "You lie!" at Mike Lee? Oh, right. Not long ago he was in South Carolina, touting the release of the "You Lie" AR-15 lower receiver. What's a "lower receiver"? It's an accessory that converts a semi-automatic assault rifle to an automatic assault rifle. *


* Correction: Times reader Fred G. writes,

Marie Burns wrote in the NYT:  "What's a 'lower receiver'? It's an accessory that converts a semi-automatic assault rifle to an automatic assault rifle."  From a factual perspective, this is just not correct. 

The lower receiver is simply a housing.  Whether an AR-15/M-16 is semi-automatic or full automatic is a function of the firing mechanism.  The firing mechanism is housed in the lower receiver, but most lower receivers (with a few exceptions) can accommodate semi- or full-auto firing mechanisms.  This is not a political or partisan issue, simply one of factual accuracy.  I usually like Ms. Burns comments quite a lot.  I thought this inaccuracy was worth pointing out.

CW: It's probably safe to assume Fred is right & I'm wrong. Thanks to Fred for the correction & for keeping me honest.

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