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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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July 24, 2022

Annie Karni & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... in a series of revelatory hearings that have focused on issues of democracy, the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power, another, less-discussed theme has emerged: the gender dynamics that have been a potent undercurrent. In the course of exposing Mr. Trump's elaborate effort to overturn the 2020 election, the House select committee has relied on the accounts of several women who came forward to publicly tell their stories. Their statements, and the attacks that ensued, laid bare how women often still pay a higher price than men for speaking up.... Many of the witnesses who have emerged most prominently have been women, with [Rep. Liz] Cheney as their defender.... While male witnesses have received some criticism from the right..., the attacks have not been at the same volume or intensity, or of the same degree of personal nastiness, as those against [witness Cassidy] Hutchinson in particular.... ~~~

"Before Sarah Matthews, a former deputy White House press secretary, even opened her mouth to testify on Thursday before the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, the House Republican Conference attacked her on Twitter as a 'liar' and a 'pawn' of Democrats. The group did not mention the man seated beside her, Matthew Pottinger, the former deputy national security adviser, who was also there to issue a scathing indictment of ... Donald J. Trump's behavior on the day of the riot. Nor did Mr. Trump himself mention Mr. Pottinger when he lashed out hours later with a statement calling Ms. Matthews a fame-seeker who was 'clearly lying.'"

Gaetz: Women's Rights Advocates Are Too Fat & Ugly to Get Pregnant. Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "Unattractive women ... shouldn't complain about losing abortion rights because they;re the 'least' likely to get pregnant, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said in a jaw-dropping speech to college students at a conservative conference in Florida on Saturday. 'Have you watched these pro-abortion, pro-murder rallies?' Gaetz asked the crowd at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa. 'The people are just disgusting. Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions?... These people are odious from the inside out,' the congressman continued. 'They're like 5′2', 350 pounds, and they're like, "Give me my abortions or I'll get up and march and protest."'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So women who are fat, old, ugly, whatever -- unlike the underaged hotties Matt reportedly dates -- do not deserve basic human rights.

Marie: The GOP has long been a party of misogynists. Donald Trump just gave them permission to be more open about it. But in fairness, Republicans despise all liberals, not just the female ones. ~~~

~~~ Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "In both swing states and safe seats, many Republicans say that liberals hate them personally and may turn rioters or a police state on people who disobey them.... In many [campaign ads,] the candidates are brandishing firearms while threatening harm to liberals or other enemies.... The arrests of hundreds of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has frequently been cited by Republican candidates as proof of a government war on its people."

Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta area district attorney, has been leading the investigation [into attempts to overturn the 2022 presidential election results] since early last year. But it is only this month, with a flurry of subpoenas and target letters, as well as court documents that illuminate some of the closed proceedings of a special grand jury, that the inquiry's sprawling contours have emerged.... Whether [Donald] Trump will ultimately be targeted for indictment remains unclear." The article examines areas of interest to which Willis has led the grand jury.


Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: "For the second time in two years, the World Health Organization has taken the extraordinary step of declaring a global emergency. This time the cause is monkeypox, which has spread in just a few weeks to dozens of countries and infected tens of thousands of people. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.'s director general, on Saturday overruled a panel of advisers, who could not come to a consensus, and declared a 'public health emergency of international concern,' a designation the W.H.O. currently uses to describe only two other diseases, Covid-19 and polio."

Beyond the Beltway

Mississippi Is Still Mississippi: One Big Corrupt Swamp. Richard Fausset & Rick Rojas of the New York Times: "A lawyer working for a Mississippi state agency and trying to recoup tens of millions of dollars in misused welfare funds was fired on Friday after he issued a subpoena that could turn up details about the involvement of prominent Mississippians -- including the former Governor Phil Bryant and the retired football star Brett Favre -- in one of the ugliest scandals to shake the nation's poorest state in recent years. The lawyer, J. Brad Pigott, a former U.S. attorney, had been working for the Mississippi Department of Human Services, the agency that distributes Mississippi's federal welfare block grants. A state audit in 2020 found that as much as $94 million in federal funds may have been misspent in Mississippi. Instead of going to poor families, the audit found, much of the money ended up in the pockets of prominent Mississippians, including Mr. Favre, a Mississippi native, who was paid $1.1 million for speaking engagements he did not attend." Bill Clinton, BTW, selected Pigott as U.S. attorney. The Mississippi Today story, which first broke the news of Pigott's firing, is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Times reporters do some analysis down the page, & they put much of the blame for misuse of federal funds on the federal government's switch in 1996 from directly paying beneficiaries to giving states block grants. The reporters don't say so, but this change/invitation-to-corruption was the brainchild of Newt Gingrich and his "Contract on America."

New York. Ana Ley of the New York Times: "A man accused of using a sharp weapon to confront Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for governor of New York, on Thursday night has been arrested on a federal assault charge, officials said.... [The defendant] will be held pending a detention hearing on July 27...." A CNN report is here.

Oklahoma. Claire Woodcock of Vice: Oklahoma's Metropolitan Library System (MLS), the largest library system in the state, sent workers a memo of "instructions to avoid using the word 'abortion' and not to help patrons locate abortion-related information on either library computers or their own devices. Workers were warned that they could be held legally liable and face penalties under the state's abortion laws. 'If a staff member gives any information on how to obtain an abortion, then that person may be found personally liable and will also make MLS liable,' says a memo..... Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, said that ALA stands firm in opposing any effort to suppress access to information about abortion...." One Oklahoma librarian noted that the MLS board is comprised of local yokels without degrees in library science. The director of the MLS, Larry White, does hold a degree, and he subsequently sent out advice to librarians to "provide factual information" about abortion, but "should not offer opinions surrounding the law" or "actively assist anyone in breaking the laws of Oklahoma." MB: IOW, it sounds as if some of the yokels jumped the gun with their original scary memo. Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Before the Supremes & their cronies in state legislatures began turning this country into a replica of the nation in Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, a librarian could have gone to the Supremes if s/he was subjected to any blowback for defying the state law or the instructions in the MLS memo. Now, I have no confidence that the Supreme Court would side with the librarian.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's "live briefing" for Sunday is here: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned Saturday's missile attack on the port of Odessa, which took place less than 24 hours after the signing of a deal with Russia to allow for the export of blockaded grain supplies. Four Russian Kalibr missiles were fired at the port, the Ukrainian military said. Here's the latest on the war and its ripple effects around the world.... Zelensky, accusing Russia of 'barbarism' after the attack on Odessa, joined a chorus of condemnation from Western leaders.... Two Americans were killed in Donbas, a State Department spokesperson told The Washington Post, without providing further details. A Ukrainian commander, Ruslan Miroshnichenko, on Sunday identified the men as Luke Lucyszyn and Bryan Young, and said they were killed alongside Emile-Antoine Roy-Sirois of Canada and Edvard Selander Patrignani of Sweden near the town of Siversk in the Donetsk region on July 18. Ukrainian officials want more advanced HIMARs rocket systems, but the United States says it's complicated. Soldiers say the dozen U.S. multiple-launch precision rocket systems are a 'game changer,' The Washington Post reports. Yet the Biden administration is slowly parceling out the rocket systems, watching how the Ukrainians handle them and how the Russians respond."

Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times writes a feature on the last stand at Mariupol: "For 80 days, at a sprawling steelworks, a relentless Russian assault met unyielding Ukrainian resistance. This is how it was for those who fought, and for those trapped beneath the battlefield."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate because of a wildfire burning thousands of acres near Yosemite National Park and challenging firefighters. The Oak Fire began Friday afternoon and on Sunday afternoon had burned more than 14,200 acres outside Yosemite, according to Cal Fire. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) declared a state of emergency for Mariposa County on Saturday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is also providing resources to suppress the fire, Newsom said."

New York Times: "There were record-high daily temperatures in parts of the Northeast on Sunday as a nationwide scorching was expected to peak in many places around the United States. In Boston, it was 100 degrees, surpassing the previous record of 98 degrees set in 1933. New York City, which confirmed a heat-related death on Saturday, did not exceed its previous July 24 record of 97 degrees as of Sunday afternoon. Nearby in Newark, N.J., it was the fifth consecutive day of temperatures at or above 100 degrees, the longest streak since record keeping began in 1931, the National Weather Service said."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (8)

Hey, c’mon now. Mississippi may be as corrupt as any member of the Trump Crime Family, but no one beats it for endangering the lives of kids in their schools, amirite?

See, other states might have open carry, regular carry, cash and carry, whatever carry laws permitting any Joe Psycho to brandish weapons anywhere they want, but Mississippi has an ENHANCED carry law. Take that, Texas! In fact, the full title is the “Mississippi We Don’t Care How Many Children Die Because The Founders Sed So And Fuck Your Bullshit About How We Have a Moral Duty to Ensure the Safety of Snot Nosed Little Brats ENHANCED Carry Law”.

So there.

It appears the Mississippi something, something, something board of gun knobbing has decided that old fashioned, out of step stuff like moral obligations conflict with their wicked cool ENHANCED carry law (accent on wicked) which sez anyone can bring guns, guns, guns and oh, did we say guns? into elementary and secondary schools all across the state, because Freeeedom!!

Also because Mississippi doesn’t want to be last in EVERY fucking category. Now they can jump the line to be first in school massacres!

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/25899/mississippi-education-board-votes-to-allow-guns-in-k-12-schools-for-educators

July 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Dear parents,

Please be advised that our school supply list now includes, in addition to pencils, markers, notebooks, crayons, and backpacks, your choice of deadly weapons like Glocks, Sig-Sauers, Berettas, Remington Arms, or your kiddy’s favorite brands. They all they need to show up packing in case one of their classmates or the janitor or some cafeteria lady goes postal and starts blasting. They gotta be able to take down that sum’bitch. Welcome back to school and don’t forget, active shooter drills every day at 9, 10, 11, 1, 2, and 3 o’clock.

Signed,

Mississippi Board of Something, Something, Something, Anything but Education Cuz We Don’t Want to be Last in Every Fucking Thing

July 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Matt Gaetz must think he's god's gift to women, I mean young girls.
It's not nice to call anyone fat and ugly, unless they're talking about
the donald. Just my opinion.

Marie mentioned Handmaid's Tale. We're just into season 2. It's
frightening when compared with the present turn of events. It's
a must see for anyone who hasn't yet seen it (most libraries have it)
but maybe not in Mississippi, or Oklahoma.

July 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterForrest Morris

Forrest,

I’m guessing they do watch “The Handmaid’s Tale” in red states. They likely view it as the kind of hyper-patriarchal, misogynistic theocracy they all crave.

July 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

BOARDS BASH THE BABY:

Editorial boards at both the N.Y.Post and Wall Street Journal "slammed" Trump calling him "unworthy" to hold office again. Hmmm–will the widdle foxes follow suit? Their boss man Murdoch done have a change of direction––was going to say heart, but that's going too far.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-york-post-editorial-board-slams-trump-on-damning-jan-6-silence_n_62dc41fae4b03dbb991962c2

Progress people! Progress! Although according to the comments above the state that Nina Simone called "Mississippi Goddamn!"ain't gonna move a muscle and is mired in the deep do-do-they have always been mired in.

While Forest watched "The Handmaid's Tale" ( when I first watched it I thought, yup, "it COULD happen here" but then dismissed it as not likely––I was wrong.) we watched one of the best of films, "Yanks" and it made me cry––-the careful treatment of the sensitivity of the characters and the perfect picture of that time in our history when war changed lives so immeasurably and love bloomed in unexpected circumstances. This was the third time I've seen this film but this time it's impact was much more emotional and I think it's due to the utter chaos we have been going through. There was something stabilizing and passionate about this film that made me feel grounded and took me back to a time when we "felt" our country was united in its goals and that those Yanks coming into the Brit's backyard became a game changer. Now I just sense the danger.

July 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterP.D. Pepe

For anyone needing to purge their bodies of anything they ate by mistake: Just say/hear/read about Matt Gaetz.

I think Jonathan Swan has done a service in shining light on the things happening in the shadows of this country. I am not going to read it.

I will no longer say/hear/read about any of these people. I appreciate journalists sounding the alarms, but there are now too many to keep up with. A neighbor told me on the sidewalk yesterday that her family is moving to Florida. Her husband is an Indian who is a dumpster fan. I had to really search for something to say in response other than expressing sympathy/empathy. So many areas to stay out of... A friend on her way to New York's Chatauqua reported that western PA is full of Mastriano signs, dump flags featuring his fat face, and let's go brandon signs. She could not wait to cross the state line into New York. I can't wait to see Fat Face in prison garb but I despair in that "reality."

Meanwhile, possibly 103 today...

July 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterJeanne

One has to wonder about the Party of Traitors 2.0 coming along these days, ready to finish the job of murdering democracy, permanently misogynating the country, and theocratizing the justice system.

I’m wondering about the response of those nascent traitors attending the USA Student Achtung Sinkhole where Gaetz made his comments about how overweight women needn’t worry about being raped because statutory rapists like him only like nubile underage girls for raping purposes. Did they laugh? Did they think it was ho-ho-ho funny?

This is not an idle concern. In the bad old Reagan days, I was appalled at the number of people my age or younger (I was 25 when that blight on the political landscape was elected) who were all about Yew Ess Ay, and “Fuck you, Charlie, I got mine”, and railing against Welfare Caddy Queens (who never existed). My sense then was that typically, young people tend to be more liberal but can often grow more conservative as they age. But if you’re a Nazi at 20, what will you be at 40?

Now I’m wondering, if you’re okay with rape jokes, support theocracy and treason, and support the destruction of America’s founding principles for more money, power, guns, and stupidity at 20…

Jesus…

July 24, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Akhilleus: I think you're on to something. In precisely the timeframe you write about, I went to a lecture by recently-defeated President Jimmy Carter at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill was supposedly so liberal back then that N.C. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-acist) said U.N.C. stood for the "University of Negroes and Communists, & suggested that instead of spending money to build a proposed state zoo, the state should just put a fence around Chapel Hill.

It was too early to tell that Carter & his wife Rosalynn would devote the rest of their lives to public service, as it has turned out Carter did more than any other president before or since. (Anybody seen Trump & the Mrs. building a Habitat for Humanity house? Ha ha ha ha ha.) But in his speech back then Carter extolled the virtues of public service. He urged the many students attending the speech to devote a few years after they graduated to public service, noting that they would not have time to do so again for decades. Well, you have never seen such an apathetic response. From the looks on those students' faces, and from the complete lack of applause for the idea, it was clear that public service was not only the furthest thing from their minds, they wouldn't consider it. I came up through school a decade earlier, and their disinterest surprised me and made me realize why Reagan had beat Carter. These students were like an early scene in "The Graduate" come to life: "Plastics!" These kids were going to devote themselves to business (whether plastics or oil or banking), not to the Peace Corps.

And now they're all growed up & even retired, maybe, and their idea of "public service" is to run for election to state & county posts that will allow them to suppress the votes of "Negroes & Communists."

July 24, 2022 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns
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