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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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Sunday
Nov212010

The Beauty Queen Meets Popeye

The New York Times moderators nixed my comments on both Frank Rich's column and Maureen Dowd's. So you get a two-fer today.

"I can see the White House from my house." Art by Barry Blitt in the New York Times.Frank Rich: "Sarah Palin’s amateurism and liabilities are her badges of honor, and Republican leaders who want to stop her, and they are legion, are utterly baffled about how to do so." CW: this doesn't bode well at all. It appears we are going to be subjected to at least two more years of Ponifications on Palin. ...

... Oops. Nate Silver assures me my fears are justified. Based on Palin's Google traffic, Silver concludes, "If and when Ms. Palin declares her candidacy for the White House, it could consume much of the media oxygen literally for months. For that matter, if Ms. Palin declines to run for office, it could also be a huge story. And, of course, until her mind is made up, there will be plenty of articles that attempt to anticipate Ms. Palin’s decision."


The Constant Weader comments:

What no one mentions, because it is so not politically correct to say so, is what a very liberal septuagenarian wrote to me today about Sarah Palin: "I have to tell you that she is a smasher. Her sexiness MUST be a BIG factor in what's going on."

If Sarah Palin didn't look like her generation's Sophia Loren, she would be -- perhaps -- Alaska's sitting governor, a ditzy woman unknown outside her own state. Bristol Palin would not be dancing with the stars and a younger Palin child would not be known for dissing one of her mother's young detractors with homophobic slurs. They would all be part of one big, troubled family in what for us in the Lower 48 is a far-off place. Had a story about the family and its matriarch ever made it in a mainstream media outlet, we would read with amusement, and with gratitude that we weren't quite THAT bad.

A few years ago, I thought the American people were to be congratulated for getting beyond the "Miss America" 1950s mentality. We have pretty much ditched the pageant, which in my childhood was An Event watched by millions on black-and-white TVs & a guaranteed front-page Sunday morning photo of the teary-eyed tiara winner on every American newspaper willing to hold the presses for the finale. But the allure of the pageant is still with us, re-purposed -- thanks to John McCain -- to fit our political landscape. Now a Miss Alaska runner-up is poised to be President of the United States. Instead of a rose-bedecked beauty-queen in tulle whose most political remark is a wish for world peace or an expression of admiration for Eleanor Roosevelt, we will get a thoughtless, gun-toting Neo-con from whom no one in the world, least of all Americans, will be safe.

 It does make a reasonable person long for the fabulous 50s when the President was a sensible older gentleman & the President-in-Waiting, though every bit as good-looking and charismatic as Sarah Palin, came with a brain and a coterie of those dreaded intellectual elites.


Maureen Dowd: President Obama "aims to position himself as a statesman. He wants to come across as the grown-up in the room, disciplining puerile Republicans who would 'mess with nuclear weapons and screw up alliances.' The Republicans may help Obama if they act so vindictive, entitled and puffed up that they turn off the voters who just anointed them." But, Dowd concludes, after failing to take stands against Republicans earlier, Obama represents a case of "Popeye pulling out the spinach too late."

The Constant Weader remarks:


Bad news, Ms. Dowd. Popeye will not eat his spinach. Today in Lisbon, the President ticked off a litany of venerable American statesmen, American military leaders and foreign ministers who were begging Senate Republicans to Pass. the. Damned. Treaty. Then, as the canned spinach began to mold, the President covered for the Defector-in-Chief, Sen. Jon Kyl. As the AP reports,

 Obama suggested he was encouraged that Kyl, the Republican point man on the issue, had not publicly said he wants to see the treaty rejected -- just that there wasn't enough time during the current lame-duck session to get it done. 'I take him at his word,' Obama said.

Therein lies the reason Americans do not trust anyone in Washington. We all know Jon Kyl is lying, that his "concerns" about a time crunch are all about politics. He wants to delay the ratification vote until the next Congress is in session and Republicans have an even larger stranglehold on the Senate. But, the President says, "I take him at his word." If we know Jon Kyl is lying, then we know President Obama is lying, too, and he is lying from his bully pulpit on the world stage.

Ratifying the New START treaty is an imperative, but being straight with the American people is even more important. Dwight Eisenhower could speak the truth. So could Jimmy Carter. But for the last several decades, the White House has been occupied by men who told the American people what they thought the American people wanted to hear, not what they knew. Ronald eagan denied the truth of the Iran-Contra arms deal. Bush Pere promised "Read my lips. No new taxes" (in fairness, it's to his credit he reneged on that promise). Bill Clinton pointed an accusing finger at us & said, "I did not have sex with that woman." And Bush-Cheney. Well. I can't count the lies.

A country in crisis needs a candid, can-do President. We need someone who will fight to the finish and eat all his spinach. So far, it appears Popeye has abandoned ship.

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