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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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Saturday
Apr022011

The Commentariat -- April 3

** The Super-Rich Just Don't Get It -- and They Won't till It's Too Late. Joseph Stiglitz in Vanity Fair: "The Supreme Court, in its recent Citizens United case, has enshrined the right of corporations to buy government.... The personal and the political are today in perfect alignment. Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the top 1 percent.... America’s inequality distorts our society in every conceivable way.... Of all the costs imposed on our society by the top 1 percent, perhaps the greatest is this: the erosion of our sense of identity, in which fair play, equality of opportunity, and a sense of community...." CW: read all of Stiglitz' essay; the few bits I've copied here don't give the whole picture.

** Ethan Bronner of the New York Times: "With revolutionary fervor sweeping the Middle East, Israel is under mounting pressure to make a far-reaching offer to the Palestinians or face a United Nations vote welcoming the State of Palestine as a member whose territory includes all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority has been steadily building support for such a resolution in September, a move that could place Israel into a diplomatic vise. Israel would be occupying land belonging to a fellow United Nations member, land it has controlled and settled for more than four decades and some of which it expects to keep in any two-state solution."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) Press Release: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today questioned why the Federal Reserve provided more than $26 billion in credit to an Arab intermediary for the Central Bank of Libya. The total includes at least $3.2 billion in loans that the Fed was forced to make public today in addition to earlier revelations under a Sanders provision in the Wall Street reform law. Sanders also asked why the Libyan-owned bank and two of its branches in New York, N.Y., were exempted from sanctions that the United States this month slapped on other Libyan businesses to pressure Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s government." ...

... John Nichols of The Nation: "... what’s the point of sanctions if they don’t crack down on the dictator’s bank? ... The senator is also asking Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner – a long-time Fed retainer -- to explain the Arab Banking Corp. was borrowing money at almost zero interest from one arm of the government, the Fed, at the same time the Treasury Department was borrowing money at a higher interest rate." And why aren't more Members of Congress asking these same questions?

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: can litigants get due process in huge class action suits? Some judges, and apparently at least one Supreme Court Justice, don't think so.

Nicholas Kristof: "Mr. Obama and other world leaders did something truly extraordinary, wonderful and rare: they ordered a humanitarian intervention that saved thousands of lives and that even Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s closest aides seem to think will lead to his ouster." The comments are here.

Bara Vaida of the Washington Post: "From Washington to California, the year-old health law, with its layers of complexity, is setting off a gold rush for high-priced lawyers and consultants. It’s 'a full employment act for health-care consultants,' said Ian Morrison, a founding partner of Strategic Health Perspectives in Menlo Park, Calif. Much of the activity — and the prospect of glitteringly high fees — is swirling around a widely discussed provision that encourages doctors, hospitals and insurers to team up in treating patients."

Maureen Dowd: "Republicans hate social engineering, unless they're doing it." And they're doing it. CW: The comments are here.

Dan Eggen & Perry Bacon of the Washington Post: "Facing an energized Republican Party and deep-pocketed conservative groups, President Obama is kicking off his 2012 reelection campaign with a concerted push for help from wealthy donors and liberal groups unbound by spending limits. The strategy — which could begin in earnest as early as Monday with the formation of an official presidential committee — suggests a notable shift in emphasis for a president who has long decried the outsize role of money in politics." ...

Jeff Zeleny's New York Times profile/puff piece on Jim Messina, who will head up President Obama's re-election campaign, strikes me as a bore, but it is receiving a lot of attention. Ben Smith explains why in a post titled "The Messina Wars." ...

... AND Seth Meyers checks out the field of Republican candidates:

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times examines Mike Huckabee's efforts to re-energize the Christian right -- last week at a political non-partisan forum for Iowa evangelical ministers & their wives.

Right Wing World *

Tim Pawlenty Is a Liar Now & Was a Terrible Governor Then. Tom Hamburger & Melanie Mason of the Los Angeles Times: "A close look at [probable Republican presidential candidate Tim] Pawlenty's record [as governor] in Minnesota, and conversations with former Republican allies in the state, suggest that the former governor's tough rhetoric does not match Minnesota's reality.... To [try to balance the budget], he relied on money from the federal stimulus — a program he has decried as wasteful — and other one-time fixes. He postponed school and other obligations, leading to hikes in local property taxes and strains on school districts as burdens shifted downward. Most strikingly, he left the state with a $5-billion projected deficit, one of the highest in the nation as a percentage of the state's general fund." It gets worse. As you read, bear in mind this is a straight news story, not an opinion piece.

What's a Liar to Do? Dan Balz of the Washington Post writes a column -- not a news story -- that begins, "This is not an easy time for Republicans who are thinking of running for president in 2012. Whatever assumptions about the road ahead that may have existed a few months ago suddenly look more complicated, because of unfolding events here and abroad." Balz outlines the changing circumstances, and the changing public reactions to those circumstances, that make it hard for a Republican presidential candidate to know what to do. CW: but, without Balz's saying it or meaning it, what comes across to me is the underlying assumption that Republican candidates don't know what storylines they should invent. A candidate with principles wouldn't have any trouble.

CC of Daily Kos: Sen. Rand Paul has conveniently "forgotten" he voted in favor of a resolution urging the U.N. to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. He has apparently instructed his staff to say he didn't vote for it the resolution, or the Democrats who wrote it were "sneaky." Or whatever. Lawrence O'Donnell has a recording of another young Paul staffer being coached by a senior staffer who tells an NBC producer another convoluted version of why Paul's vote wasn't a vote. O'Donnell is pretty longwinded, but the tape is interesting. Here's Paul on the Senate floor proposing a 180-degree counter-resolution, saying, "There has been no Constitutional authority given to the President to be committing troops to this war":

... AND here, having executed his own flipflop, Sen. Paul bashes Newt Gingrich for his multiple positions on the Libyan intervention:

... It must be fun to be a Republican, because you can say whatever you want. Why, you can even criticize your potential presidential opponents for doing exactly what you just got through doing!

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

Mary Ellen Klas of the Miami Herald/St. Pete Times: "In the next 30 days, Florida lawmakers are poised to make it easier for insurance companies to raise rates, make it more difficult for women to receive an abortion and hand over control of prisons to private companies. These are just a few of the proposals the Republican-led Legislature is pushing in the final weeks of their 60-day session. Others include dramatically changing the way the state handles Medicaid, state pensions, courts, growth and the environment."

News Ledes

New York Times: "House Republicans plan this week to propose more than $4 trillion in federal spending reductions over the next decade by reshaping popular programs like Medicare, the Budget Committee chairman said Sunday in opening a new front in the intensifying budget wars."

New York Times: "BP has asked United States regulators for permission to resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, two company officials said on Sunday, creating a delicate situation for the Obama administration as it seeks to balance safety concerns with a desire to increase domestic oil production."

New York Times: "The United States, which long supported Yemen’s president, even in the face of recent widespread protests, has now quietly shifted positions and has concluded that he is unlikely to bring about the required reforms and must be eased out of office, according to American and Yemeni officials."

... ABC News: "In his first interview since leaving the White House last fall, former Obama National Security Advisor Jim Jones warned that the way events were unfolding in Yemen were 'not good.' Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been an ally of the United States in the fight against terrorism, is facing increasing pressure to step down; Jones echoed language coming from the White House...."

Al Jazeera: "Abdel Ati al-Obeidi, Libya's acting foreign minister, told the Greek prime minister in Athens that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi wants the fighting to end. 'It seems that the Libyan authorities are seeking a solution,' Dimitris Droutsas, the Greek foreign minister, said." ...

... Washington Post: "Libya’s rebel military struggled Saturday to explain an apparent rift within its highest ranks while acknowledging its soldiers’ role in a mistaken NATO bombing of rebel columns the night before. The strike, which killed 13 rebels and injured seven, illustrated the hazards of conducting an aerial bombing campaign against a fluid and fast moving front line. Several cars and an ambulance were also incinerated, and opposition leaders said rebels may have been responsible for the bombing because they had fired their guns into the air in celebration." ...

... AP: "Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, the vice chairman of the [Libyan rebel] National Provisional Council..., says the opposition to longtime leader Moammar Gadahfi seeks to install a parliamentary democracy in the country."

AP: "Afghan protests against the burning of a Quran in Florida entered a third day with a demonstrations in the south and east Sunday, while the Taliban called on people to rise up, blaming government forces for any violence." ...

     ... Politico Update: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told CBS's Bob Schieffer on Sunday that some members of Congress were considering some kind of action in response to the Florida Quran burning that sparked a murderous riot at a United Nations complex in Afghanistan and other mayhem." ...

     ... CNN Update: "Top U.S. officials in Afghanistan on Sunday condemned the burning of a Quran in the United States that sparked three days of protests in which more than 20 people died. Burning the Muslim holy book 'was hateful, it was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful and again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible,' said Gen. David Petraeus, who heads the U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan."

AP: "The United Nations and the government it supports in embattled Ivory Coast are trading accusations over the killings of hundreds of civilians in a western town. The U.N. accused hunters fighting in a force to install democratically elected President Alassane Ouattara of 'extra-judicial executions' of more than 330 people in Duekoue. Ouattara's government Saturday night accused U.N. peacekeepers of abandoning civilians there to vengeful militiamen fighting for incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to accept his election defeat."

AP: "It could take several more months to bring Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant under control, a safety agency spokesman said Sunday as engineers tried to find a way to stop highly radioactive water from pouring into the Pacific." A second attempt to seal a leak of radioactive contaminants is not working yet, and new problems arise daily.

AP: "A week ago, Wisconsin Republicans thought they'd won the fight over the state's polarizing union rights bill. They'd weathered massive protests, outfoxed Senate Democrats who fled the state and gotten around a restraining order blocking the law by having an obscure state agency publish it. They even started preparations to pull money from public workers' paychecks. But the victory was short-lived. A judge ruled Friday that the restraining order will stay in place for at least two months she while considers whether Republicans passed the law illegally."

AP: "Federal records show cracks were found and repaired a year ago in the frame of the Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 that made an emergency landing at an Arizona military base after a hole was torn from the passenger cabin.... Southwest grounded 80 similar planes to carry out inspections."

Reuters: "Al Qaeda operatives are in Brazil planning attacks, raising money and recruiting followers, a leading news magazine reported Saturday, renewing concerns about the nation serving as a hide-out for Islamic militants. Veja magazine, in its online edition, reported that at least 20 people affiliated with al Qaeda as well as the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah, the Palestinian group Hamas and two other organizations have been hiding out in the South American country."

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