The Ledes

Friday, September 27, 2024

New York Times: “Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' to the acid-tongued dowager countess on 'Downton Abbey,' died on Friday in London. She was 89.”

The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: “Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Florida and two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm — which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley — were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here.

Mediaite: “Fox Weather’s Bob Van Dillen was reporting live on Fox & Friends about flooding in Atlanta from Hurricane Helene when he was interrupted by the screams of a woman trapped in her car. During the 7 a.m. hour, Van Dillen was filing a live report on the massive flooding in the area. Fox News viewers could clearly hear the urgent screams for help emerging from a car stuck on a flooded road in the background of the live shot. Van Dillen ... told Fox & Friends that 911 had been called and that the local Fire Department was on its way. But as he continued to file the report, the screams did not stop, so Van Dillen cut the live shot short.... Some 10 minutes later, Fox & Friends aired live footage of Van Dillen carrying the woman to safety, waking through chest-deep water while the flooding engulfed her car in the background[.]”

The Wires
powered by Surfing Waves
The Ledes

Thursday, September 26, 2024

The New York Times:' live updates of Hurricane Helene developments today are here. “Hurricane Helene was barreling through the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday en route to Florida, where residents were bracing for extreme rain, destructive winds and deadly storm surge ahead of the storm’s expected landfall. The storm could intensify to a Category 4, if not higher, before making landfall late Thursday, and forecasters warned Helene’s anticipated large size could make its impacts felt across an extensive area. Areas as distant as Atlanta and the Appalachians are at risk for heavy rains.... Many forecast models show the storm making landfall late Thursday near Florida’s Big Bend Coast, a sparsely populated stretch....” ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post has forecasts for some cites in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina & Tennessee that are in or near the probable path of Helene. ~~~

     ~~~ This morning, an MSNBC weatherperson said Tallahassee (which is inland) would experience wind gusts of up to 120 m.p.h. and that the National Weather Service said expected 20-foot storm surges near the coast would be “unsurvivable.”

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

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."

Contact Marie

Click on this link to e-mail Marie.

Page Links
Monday
Aug152011

The Commentariat -- August 16

I've posted an Open Thread for today's Off Times Square.

The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was the Eightieth Congress. -- Harry Truman ...

... Norm Ornstein in The New Republic: what Barack Obama can learn from Harry Truman. "Truman seized upon [Congressional] conservative over-reaching and openly fought against what he dubbed the 'Do-Nothing Eightieth Congress.' ... But, unlike Truman, Obama has constantly sought common ground with Congress.... The absence of an energized and angry president demanding better of the do-nothings in Congress can only lead to something worse." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "It looks like President Obama really has found his inner Harry Truman, at least for the moment." CW: a good overview of tea leaves that suggest Obama may finally start ratcheting up his rhetoric. Obama still won't say "Republican," a calculated decision, Cohn surmises, of focus-group testing. ...

... Peter Nicholas of the Los Angeles Times: "As he sets out on a three-day bus tour of the Midwest focused on the economy, President Obama is coming under growing pressure from fellow Democrats to put forward a more aggressive strategy to create jobs than the one he has been touting for months. Obama has offered a jobs package crafted to win Republican support in a divided Congress. But he faces two distinct problems: Republicans say they won't vote for several pieces of the plan. And Democrats contend the program, even if enacted in full, would fall short of what's needed to boost job growth or revive Obama's political prospects.

One Democratic congressman ... said he told White House officials at a recent meeting that they seemed to have Stockholm syndrome — embracing the Republican view that deficit reduction should be a major national priority.

This Is Not 2008. Roger Lowenstein of the Daily Beast: actually, this time, the fundamentals of are economy are strong. The biggest problem: those Bush-era tax cuts, which President Obama should have let expire in 2010 and must allow to expire in 2012.

Anna Palmer of Politico: "Now that the members of the supercommittee have been named, lobbyists have begun strategizing in earnest. And they’ve got their sights set beyond just the elite 12." CW: so predictable it's hardly a story.

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "President Obama has directed a small team of advisers to develop a proposal that would keep the government playing a major role in the nation’s mortgage market, extending a federal loan subsidy for most home buyers.... The decision follows the advice of his senior economic and housing advisers, who favor maintaining the government’s role as an insurer of mortgages for most borrowers."

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "Friday’s federal court ruling against a key provision of the health care reform law makes it almost certain the Supreme Court will decide the law’s constitutionality in the 2012 term.... The high court ... probably won’t rule until June — ensuring that President Barack Obama’s signature law will be the center of another very public debate just five months before the election."

CW: Cenk Uygar is an annoying, perennially pissed-off screamer, but he's right about the beltway crowd, exemplified here in the person of Fareed Zakaria. I used to think Zakaria was a genius, and maybe he is, but some while back he took a ride on the Conventional Wisdom express, & like Charlie on the MTA, he has never returned:

AND Democrats thinking whacking the Tea Party will work this time, now that Americans have seen something of what a Tea Party government looks like:

Right Wing World *

Look, I know there are some who say 'let’s just tax the rich.' ... So if we raise taxes on wealthy people, that means businesses see their taxes go up. I don’t want to raise taxes on employers. -- Mitt Romney, responding to Warren Buffett's op-ed urging Congress to raise taxes on the super-rich ...

... Raising taxes on the rich will have little effect on small businesses. Fewer than 2 percent of small businesses owners make more than $250,000, never mind the $1 million level, at which Buffett is advocating a tax increase. Far more small businesses (14 percent) claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is only available to low-income workers. -- Pat Garofalo of Think Progress

Steven Rattner in the New York Times: "... the leading Republican presidential candidates have ... a philosophy oriented around shrinking the role of the federal government in every imaginable way, by slashing spending, cutting taxes and halting or rescinding regulations. Their mantra is repeal and retrenchment, devoid of new initiatives or a positive agenda. Some of these views are to the right even of the Tea Party; they amount to the most radically conservative positions of any set of candidates at least since Barry M. Goldwater in 1964."

** Matea Gold & Melanie Mason of the Los Angeles Times: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry has powered his political career on the largesse of donors ... [who] have found the rewards to be mutual, reaping benefits from Texas during Perry's tenure.... Nearly half of those mega-donors received hefty business contracts, tax breaks or appointments under Perry, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis."

... If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous, or treasonous, in my opinion. -- Gov. Rick Perry, on Fed Chair Ben Bernanke ...

... Let's Rough up Ben Bernanke (Alternate Title: Texas Governor Is Dangerously Crazy & Ignorant). Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Perry’s comments drew a sharp rebuke by some commentators online." ...

... Conservative columnist John Podhoretz: Perry is "trying to be the next president, and he needs to be judged on that standard. What Perry did was make a thoughtless blunder, an unforced error; we’re now going to spend a couple of days discussing whether he was summoning violence on Ben Bernanke’s head or not, which is of absolutely no use to Perry." ...

... See also conservative columnist Ramesh Ponnuru, who argues, contra Perry, in favor of the Feds loosening the purse strings. ...

... Clifford Krauss of the New York Times: nonpartisan economists and academicians argue that Rick Perry is not responsible for the "Texas Miracle," which isn't so miraculous anyway and cannot be duplicated at a national level.

If this shirt has a few wrinkles in it, it's not my wife's fault. -- Gov. Rick Perry

The line rang a bell, but I couldn't place it until this morning: It was what the overtly sexist talk-radio kids who stood up in a New Hampshire town hall meeting yelled at Hillary Clinton, helping to feed a sympathetic surge toward her in the state. They were chanting, 'Iron my shirt.' -- Ben Smith of Politico

Psst. Bud. Want to ask Paul Ryan a question? That will be $15 please. And it's a deal. Prince Ben Quayle Son of Dan is charging $35. Reid Epstein of Politico: "It’s no secret why members of Congress would shy away from holding open town hall meetings – it’s no fun getting yelled at by angry constituents or having an uncomfortable question become an unfortunate YouTube moment. By outsourcing the events to third parties that charge an entry fee to raise money, members of Congress can eliminate most of the riffraff while still – in some cases – allowing in reporters and TV cameras for a positive local news story."

* Where the Tea Party is the liberal wing and women know their place.

News Ledes

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "The six-month saga that was Wisconsin's state Senate recall movement ended Tuesday with Democrats retaining two seats -- and Republicans still in possession of a week-old, razor-thin 17-16 majority."

President Obama spoke at a White House Rural Economic Forum this afternoon. Reuters: "President Barack Obama will on Tuesday announce fresh steps to boost rural hiring on the second day of a bus tour through the U.S. heartland to explain his economic and job policies to anxious voters."

New York Times: "A high-profile parliamentary panel investigating phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid released embarrassing new evidence Tuesday that the practice of intercepting voice mail had been widely discussed at the newspaper, contradicting assertions by its owners and editors." Facsimilies of documents are here.

New York Times: "United Nations officials said Tuesday that as many as 10,000 residents of a Palestinian refugee neighborhood in the Syrian port city of Latakia had fled during a four-day assault, as security forces carried out more arrests and intimidation in what residents said was a government attempt to rebuild a wall of fear in one of Syria’s largest cities." Al Jazeera story here, with video.

Reuters: "The leaders of France and Germany meet for high-pressure talks on Tuesday to discuss what further measures they can take to shore up investor confidence in the euro zone following a dramatic market sell-off last week. President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are under pressure to show financial markets they are in agreement on doing more to shore up the embattled currency union -- or risk watching the euro zone unravel." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, on Tuesday called for closer coordination of economic policy among the 17 countries that share the euro currency and proposed that they enshrine in their constitutions an obligation to balance their national budgets.

AP: "Gunmen wearing military uniforms pulled seven people from a Sunni mosque south of Baghdad and then shot and killed them execution-style, officials said Tuesday, raising the death toll to 70 in Iraq's deadliest day this year."

New York Times: Indiana state investigators are examining structural issues & the actions of state fair officials preceding the storm that caused the collapse of a stage killed five people & injured many more. ...

... AP: Sugarland tour manager Hellen Rollens may have saved the lives of the group & crew when she decided at the last minute to hold the band backstage because of weather.

Comments Off