REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- April 8, 2013

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Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

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.”

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The Commentariat -- April 8, 2013

Ed O'Keefe & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Prospects for a bipartisan deal to expand federal background checks for gun purchases are improving with the emergence of fresh Republican support, according to top Senate aides.... Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), a key Democratic broker, has spent the past few days crafting the framework of a possible deal with Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.). Manchin and Toomey are developing a measure to require background checks for all gun purchases except sales between close family members and some hunters...." ...

... Travis Waldron of Think Progress: "Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) Sunday became the latest senior Republican to question the 13 Republicans who have threatened to filibuster gun legislation they haven't yet seen. The blind filibuster threats, originally made by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), have already been criticized by top GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tom Coburn, who 'bristled at the idea.'" ...

... Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker: why are members of Congress afraid to vote for legislation that has the back of 90 percent of the American people? CW: Talbot offers a number of explanations, but the obvious answer is that members of Congress don't represent 90 percent of the people & don't give a flying fuck about anyone but their constituency of one -- themselves. ...

... E. J. Dionne: "... election outcomes and the public’s preferences have ... little impact on what is happening in Washington. At the moment, our democracy is not very democratic.... This representational skew affects coverage in the media.... There is no immediate solution to the obstruction of the democratic will. But we need to acknowledge that our system is giving extremists far more influence than the voters would." ...

... Paul Krugman: conservatives are still opposing ObamaCare in the name of FREEEE-DOM, an ironical position that isn't playing so well anymore, "perhaps because the experience of losing insurance is so common...." ...

Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: the Obama administration will hit up federal employees to effect budgetary "retirement savings." ...

... CW: It's probably worth reading Michael Scherer's (Time) piece on Obama's abandonment of quasi-liberals just for a laugh. Scherer claims the President's move to the right is justified because Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Sunday that Obama was "showing a bit of leg." Apparently, Scherer is unaware that Graham is a tease: he loves to dance with the President, but he never goes home with him.

Contributor Keith Howard recommends this essay by David Graeber, published in Baffler. Consider it a short history of world revolutions.

The Never-Ending Ted Steven Case. (even though Stevens is dead & the court overturned his conviction.) Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "An administrative judge has overturned the suspensions of two federal prosecutors whom the Justice Department had tried to discipline for failing to turn over evidence that might have helped the defense in the botched corruption trial against Senator Ted Stevens."

Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times profiles Anne Smedinghoff, the young U.S. diplomat killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan Saturday.

** Frank Rich on the death throes of old media. ...

... AND speakng of old media, here's Jon Favreau, formerly President Obama's chief speechwriter, in his "debut Daily Beast column," on the sequestration cuts, & -- BTW -- the media's failure to robustly cover the issue. Favreau, we should note, took a job with the first big old-media outlet to totally fold: Newsweek.

David Cameron says his government is cracking down on welfare queens (and kings). He chose the perfect venue to publish his op-ed -- The Sun -- the tabloid owned by Cameron's pal Rupert Murdoch.

Local News

Josh Margolin & David Seifman of the New York Post: "Former Rep. Anthony Weiner is laying the groundwork for a political comeback, possibly as a startling addition to this year’s mayoral race, sources said yesterday. Political insiders were abuzz at news that Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, had granted a lengthy magazine interview for the first time since his resignation in an embarrassing sexting scandal in 2011." CW: okay, it's the Post, Not The World's Most Reliable Newspaper, so I hope it's wrong again. Anthony Weiner will forever be known for his private attributes, & I don't want to think about them. He should go quietly & become a mortician or a restaurateur, or maybe both.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Margaret Thatcher, a towering, divisive and yet revered figure who left an enduring impact on British politics, died on Monday of a stroke, her family said." The Guardian's obituary is here, with links to related stories. ...

... American women of a certain age will be more saddened by this. New York Times: "Annette Funicello, who won America's heart as a 12-year-old in Mickey Mouse ears, captivated adolescent baby boomers in slightly spicy beach movies and later championed people with multiple sclerosis, a disease from which she suffered, died on Monday in Bakersfield, Calif. She was 70."

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Reader Comments (7)

While responsible journalism is a dying art, consolidated by corporate cash Kings, permitted by our petty politicians not worth their weigh in horseshit... Alas! Sometimes diamonds are indeed forged in the rough desert of modern media.

You're guaranteed at least a little giggle with this gem of journalism

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/30-animal-doppelganger-of-congress

April 8, 2013 |

safari

"The Secret of the Seven Sisters" on the al Jazeera site is a simple and useful look at big oil in the middle east. I don't know if this has been pointed out on earlier posts - I'm just catching up.

April 8, 2013 |

Victoria

So the Iron Lady soon will lie rusting in her grave.

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan rang a bell for conservatives in the 80s that still rings out today.

Bellicose, friends to the wealthy, scourge of the poor, unions, and the middle class. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Conservatism in a nutshell.

One of Thatcher’s early political statements of purpose came at the expense of poor children when she denied them access to a free glass of milk at school. As is the case with most bullies, Thatcher attacked those who could not defend themselves (the Falkland Islands “War” draws the same picture on larger and more deadly scale) and if her opponents had any power at all, such as unions, she changed the laws to chop their legs off.

Like Reagan, she hated unions and clutched at every opportunity to break them. She saw them as repositories of undeserving, uppity poor people who were impinging in the rights of the wealthy.

When miners went on strike, Thatcher’s government sided with the fat-cat owners. She changed the laws that controlled how government assistance could be handed out in order to starve the miners and their families into submission, forcing them to knuckle under to her rich friends and backers.

Thatcher’s war on unions had indirect but dire consequences here in the States. Her indefatigable efforts on behalf of Rupert Murdoch during a printers strike is largely responsible for the creation of Fox “News”. Back in the mid 80s, Sir Rupert the Egregious had borrowed nearly three quarters of a billion to expand his empire. With Thatcher’s help he successfully fired 5,000 unionized employees, broke the printers' union and drastically reduced his overhead pocketing hundreds of millions. Voila, Fox Network.

Sir Rupert returned the favor with years of outrageous propaganda and smears in service of Thatcher’s most radical policies, attacking and besmirching any who stood against her. And although Thatcher has departed, Murdoch is still working hard to make life miserable for the poor (see Marie's link to the Sun article).

And what is it about conservatives starting wars against puny, barely defended countries? Reagan invaded Granada. Granada? A country the size of Greenwich Village, population 79. How to show toughness there, Ron. At least he didn’t enter war criminal territory the way Thatcher did in the Falklands by killing hundreds of men and boys on an Argentinian vessel that posed zero threat to Britain, and the way Bush and Cheney did in Iraq. No country too small for them to show who’s boss.

Free ride for the wealthy and the wingnuts, pain, suffering, and death for everyone else.

The international Conservative way.

"Oh, Mr. Scratch, we have a new arrival. Shall I show her to the Brimstone Room?"

April 8, 2013 |

Akhilleus

Thanks to reader Keith Howard for the Graeber piece. Much to chew on there.

And this morning from one of my sons:

www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2013/03/16/corporations-record-huge-returns-from-tax-lobbying-gridlock-congress-stalls-reform/

It's not ALL about the money, but as Graeber implies, most of it is. Reminds me to get back to work on a book supplied a year ago by the other son, DEBT, by the same author, which Thomas Frank praised in passing in one of his Harper's pieces.

April 8, 2013 |

Ken Winkes

I don't usually pass these sorts of things along but this is just too funny.

Books are temples of the intellect, dammit!

April 8, 2013 |

Akhilleus

I have to say the lovefest between Thatcher and Reagan that is being touted non-stop on NPR is seriously putting me off my feed. Pieces of work the both of them. Their grandiosity was only surpassed by their elevated status on the asswipery scale.

April 8, 2013 |

Diane

Best thing I've seen in a while:

https://twitter.com/resnikoff/status/321366544217174016

Follow the link

April 8, 2013 |

DaveS

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