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[.]”

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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!

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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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Page Links
Tuesday
Aug162011

The Commentariat -- August 17

Maureen Dowd: "In dueling buses crisscrossing cornfields, a temperate president and intemperate governor check out the political temperature."

I've posted a page for comments on Dowd's column on Off Times Square.

... Marc Ambinder & George Condon of the National Journal: "The White House, burned by failed efforts to work with Republicans and dismayed by a growing perception that President Obama is a weak leader, has made the decision to put more pressure – and blame – on Congress when Obama returns to Washington after his family vacation." ...

     ... More video & story here.

Most Obnoxious MSM Headline of the Day: "Obama Aims to Keep White Voters on Board." The article itself, by Laura Meckler & Carol Lee of the Wall Street Journal is actually a serious analysis of voting patterns.

Profs. David Campell & Robert Putnam, in a New York Times op-ed: "On everything but the size of government, Tea Party supporters are increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans."

"What Would Hillary Have Done?" Hillary Clinton supporter Rebecca Traister, in a New York Times Magazine article, has the answer. She presents various possibilities, but in the end concludes,

Hillary Clinton’s presidency would probably not have looked so different from Obama’s. She was, after all, a senator who, for a variety of structural and strategic reasons, often crossed party lines to co-sponsor legislation with Republicans, who voted to go to war in Iraq, who moved to the center on everything from Israel to violent video games. You think Obama’s advisers are bad? Hillary Clinton hired, and then took far too long to get rid of, Mark Penn. And her economic team probably would have looked an awful lot like Obama’s. 

Joshua Miller of Roll Call: "Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren is preparing for her likely bid to unseat Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) by attending house parties in the Boston area...." ...

... The Democratic political establishment is ... so obsessed with winning this seat back that Washington elitists are trying to push aside local Democrat candidates in favor of Professor Warren from Oklahoma. -- Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass), in a fundraising letter [emphasis added]

Right Wing World *

Excuse me. The "Texas Miracle" just fell off the page:

Graph by Felix Salmon of Reuters.... Felix Salmon of Reuters: "Perry’s [employment] record is pretty bad, here: he inherited a ratio of more than 47% in Texas from George W Bush, and has presided over a steady decline ever since — including every year of the Bush presidency bar 2005." ...

... ** NEW. Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "Rick Perry’s Texas is Ross Perot’s Mexico come north. Through a range of enticements we more commonly associate with Third World nations — low wages, no benefits, high rates of poverty, scant taxes, few regulations and generous corporate subsidies — the state has produced its own 'giant sucking sound,' attracting businesses from other states to a place where workers come cheap.... He is the 21st-century, homegrown version of the Manchurian candidate." ...

... Michael Scherer of Time: on Hypocrisy Watch: Rick Perry has aggressively lobbied (and won) federal deficit spending dedicated to his own projects, including one huge grant that went to a group of Perry's favorite oil and gas industry buddies. The programs for which Perry's lobbied are the very ones (or worse than the very ones) he is now attacking as "wasteful spending of our children's inheritance." ...

... Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal: twice this weekend Rick Perry railed against an Obama Administration "rule" that doesn't exist and never did. 

... "Perrymania Is Overrated." Ed Kilgore of The New Republic: "Until Perry’s popularity in Iowa can be verified by polls of likely Caucus-goers, the most plausible scenario is a Bachmann win in the Caucuses, followed by Romney victories in Nevada and New Hampshire, and then a Perry breakthrough in South Carolina. This scenario would take the GOP into uncharted territory, since there’s never been a presidential nominating contest where the first three big states were won by three different candidates."

Perry’s rant is a particularly low moment in American political debate. -- Steve Stromberg of the Washington Post, on Rick Perry's remarks about Ben Bernanke

The guy who threatened secession is now calling someone else treasonous? Hello, pot, it’s me, kettle. -- Republican "Insider"

When you’re president or you’re running for president you have to think about what you’re saying because your words have greater impact. President Obama and we take the independence of the Federal Reserve very seriously and certainly think threatening the Fed chairman is probably not a good idea. -- White House Press Secretary Jay Carney  ...

... Steve Benen: The White House is framing a new narrative. "The question for voters is whether someone like Obama, the grown-up who solves problems, or someone like Perry, the buffoon who accuses Ben Bernanke of treason, can be trusted to help make politics work again." ...

* Where the sleaziest, meanest most prolific liar wins the day.

Local News

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: "The Florida Supreme Court concluded that [Florida Gov. Rick] Scott 'overstepped his constitutional authority' and 'violated the separation of powers' when he suspended all proposed rules until he could review and approve them. It was the governor’s first executive order. A majority of judges stated that Mr. Scott encroached on the State Legislature’s authority when he opted to unilaterally freeze rule-making." Meanwhile, "teachers, prison workers, food stamp recipients, doctors — are plastering him with [more] lawsuits." The ruling is here (pdf). St. Pete Times story here.: "Scott attorney Charles Trippe had argued that the 'supreme executive power' granted the governor by the state Constitution is among the reasons he has final say over rules developed by state agencies under his control." CW: so much for our Supreme Leader. Jerk.

News Ledes

AP: "... President Barack Obama will give a major speech in early September to unveil new ideas for speeding up job growth and helping the struggling poor and middle class.... The president's plan is likely to contain tax cuts, jobs-boosting infrastructure ideas and steps that would specifically help the long-term unemployed.... All of Obama's proposals would be fresh ones, not a rehash of plans he has pitched for many weeks and still supports, including his 'infrastructure bank' idea to finance construction jobs.... Obama will also present a specific plan to cut the suffocating long-term national debt and to pay for the cost of his new short-term economic ideas."

AP: "Global stocks fell Wednesday in a downbeat appraisal of a Franco-German summit that failed to persuade investors that a convincing fix to the eurozone's spiraling debt crisis was imminent."

Reuters: "Libyan rebels launched an assault on an oil refinery on Wednesday to drive the last remaining troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi out of a city on Tripoli's outskirts and consolidate a siege of the capital.... Gaddafi is looking isolated, with reinvigorated rebel forces closing in on the capital from the west and south and cutting off its road links to the outside." ...

     ... Al Jazeera: "Libyan rebels say they now control most of the strategic western town of Az-Zawiyah, as they continue an offensive aimed at isolating Tripoli, the country's capital."

AP: "Chinese commentators are marking a visit by Vice President Joseph Biden by offering a struggling United States advice: Stop flooding your economy with cheap credit. The prescriptions awaiting Biden, who arrived Wednesday in Beijing, range from cutting government budget deficits to fighting poverty."

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