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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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Apr112011

M.I.A.

Paul Krugman has joined a long list of liberals who are looking for "the inspirational figure" Obama supporters thought they elected. "Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular?" Krugman asks.... "I’d say that the nation wants — and more important, the nation needs — a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that’s not what we’re seeing." (Comments are here.) See updates below.

The Times moderators also rendered my comment M.I.A., * so here it is:


When we -- and I include myself -- weren't paying attention, we elected a President who admired Ronald Reagan, whose campaign economic advisers included bankster Robert Rubin and deregulation advocate Larry Summers, and who famously saw not Red America, not Blue America, but One America. **

That One America turned out to be pretty Red. You haven't said anything here that you and other liberals haven't been saying for a couple of years now. You mentioned months ago that Obama accepted the Republican narrative on a host of issues, even to the point of buying into the "right-wing smear" that FDR didn't act quickly to initiate his New Deal policies.

We know the President reads the papers, so begging him to pay attention isn't going to do any good. He knows what he's doing. Obama makes concessions before the first Republican bid because he wants to. He accepts what Christiane Amanpour got David Plouffe to admit were "draconian" cuts because he wants to. (See also video in yesterday's Commentariat.)

Obama proudly signed on to "the largest annual spending cut in our history" for the same reason he has consistently bent over backwards to accommodate the banksters and other big businessmen. It's the same reason he appointed tax-free GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who sent thousands of GE jobs overseas to head up his jobs commission. It's the same reason he appointed conservatives to head his Cat Food Commission. It's the same reason he wouldn't stand up for Dawn Johnsen but did stand by Tim Geithner. It's the same reason he didn't even slightly push the public option. It's the same reason his "stimulus" bill was more tax cuts than anything else. It's the same reason he has escalated Bush's loser war in Afghanistan. It's the same reason he's made nice to the Chinese, even as they crack down on dissidents & artists. It's the same reason he caved on civil trials for Gitmo prisoners. It's the same reason he hasn't done one thing about gun control, even in the wake of the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabby Giffords, when there was a darned good chance of getting even the lock-and-load crowd in the House to capitulate. Yadayadayada.

The President whom Obama most reminds me of, philosophically, is Richard Nixon. To his credit, Obama is cuter and nicer than Nixon. He probably doesn't have a personality disorder. Other than that, Barack Obama is Nixon warmed over. He wants to take us back to the 70s. Right now, we just have to hope that's the 1970s, not the 1870s, because we're regressing fast.


** We also elected a guy, who by his own account, was willing to accommodate his grandmother's benign racism. So why are we surprised when he is willing to accommodate John Boehner's overt racism,  vis-à-vis Obama's agreeing to Boehner's draconian control over majority-black Washington, D.C.?

* My comment is at #28 now.


Update: Reader John F. rebuts my comment. I don't disagree with him:

Read your comments on Krugman's column today and have to take exception with something you said.
 
Nixon was a far more liberal president than Obama. Nixon gave us the EPA, wage and price controls, relations with China, and detente with the Soviets. Nixon might well have given us national health care if Watergate hadn't intervened.
 
This is in no way intended to be a defense of Nixon. Rather, it's intended to demonstrate just how far to the right our supposedly liberal president is.

We were jobbed. Maybe Hillary will stage a primary challenge and we can get a Democrat in the White House.

Update 2: in another response to Krugman's column, Kate Madison examines the family dynamic that made Barack Obama a mediator, not a leader. 
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