The Ledes

Thursday, September 19, 2024

New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”

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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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Tuesday
Sep142010

Our Miss Brooks Raps the Teachers' Knuckles

David Brooks has "unbounded admiration" for reputed fiscal wunderkind Rep. Paul Ryan & American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks. Pres. Brooks, in case you never heard of him, is the "much-cited author" of stuff, Our Miss Brooks being the much-citer. Columnist Brooks does think perhaps these admirable boys are a tad off in their hurling revulsion for all government, any government.

The Constant Weader remarks:

My admiration for both [Paul Ryan & Arthur Brooks] is unbounded.
-- David Brooks (no relation to Arthur)

There's your first mistake.

... The Democrats' lavish spending.... -- David Brooks

Who started those two crazy foreign wars? Who came up with an extravagant, unworkable prescription drug program? Who cut taxes so this stuff wasn't paid for? Uh, make that Republicans, Republicans & Republicans.

If "tragedy" is by definition self-inflicted, then you got that right. The Republican party is tragic. Unfortunately, the tragedy of the Republican party does not affect only people foolish enough to vote for Republicans. It befalls all of us.

In a complex, modern society, small government just doesn't work. Are you going to have highways stop at the Nebraska border? Oh, oh, & what about the military? Is Kansas going to pay for its own tanks & bombs?

Are you going to let senior citizens fend for themselves? Do you really want people to go on dying because they can't afford health care when simple medication or operations could save them? Are we going to stop feeding hungry children with federally-funded food stamps & school lunch programs? If that's "conservative," it's also mean, stupid & stingy.

Who cares about civil rights? Let's just let the South go on back to being the South. Fly those Stars & Bars, boys, & some of you-all darker-complexioned folks can proceed to the back of the bus. The Americans with Disabilities Act? Who needs it. Way too expensive. Not my problem. Title Nine? Give those girls a jumprope & hula hoop -- and tell 'em to shut up.

If the new conservatives have their way, it won't just be logical federal programs that are cut, but every kind of government service. Rand Paul, running in a state where drug abuse is a severe problem, wants government to get out of the drug counseling business. He thinks churches should handle it. Hallenjuh, Brother! Jesus was no junkie. Sharron Angle thinks states should not honor restraining orders from other states. Welcome to Nevada, stalkers! John McCain sure is anxious to get federal agents down there patrolling the "danged" Arizona-Mexico border, but in ConservoWorld, that will all be up to Arizona. And if Arizona doesn't do a very good job, I guess Utah will have to establish its own border patrol to run along the Arizona-Utah border. What a plan!

Fortunately, in the United States of the Second Amendment we can all arm ourselves & have shoot-em-ups with the neighbors if they get too noisy or don't mow the grass. Because, hey, who needs government monitoring that stuff? And really, let's all burn our own trash in ToxicLand. 

Now, why is it you have "unbounded admiration" for Ryan & Brooks? Is it because the world they have planned for us is a nightmare of lawlessness & anarchy? Or is it because they write your columns for you? C'mon, Miss Brooks. Even you, protected from reality by the latest in rose-colored ConservoSpecs, acknowledged that

... the story Republicans are telling each other, which Ryan and Brooks have reinforced, is an oversimplified version of American history, with dangerous implications.

That's right. These guys are part of a dangerous, anti-American force to be reviled by anyone with a belief in basic societal values. Quit admiring them. And for Pete's sake, quit defending them.


Our Miss Brooks, having followed the economic advice of Rep. Ryan & the AEI, finds herself in financial straits. Fortunately, she comes up with a scheme that involves hillbillies, a minister & a song-&-dance that is just as effective as the song-&-dance routine Ryan & the AEI have been feeding America's modern-day church-going hayseeds:

Segment 2 is here; Segment 3 is here. Things do not work out well for Our Miss Brooks & the other faculty at Madison High, but, hey, who needs teachers anyway? They're just government workers.

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