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.”

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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
Aug072011

The Commentariat -- August 8

We are now in our fourth day with no comments facility, and I have moved past anger to despair. Poor, pitiful us. On a grander scale, speaking poor pitiful us ...

Paul Krugman: "... there is no reason to take Friday’s downgrade of America seriously. These are the last people whose judgment we should trust. And yet America does have big problems." ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker looks at both sides & disagrees with Krugman: "In focussing attention on the dysfunction in Washington and making the participants pay a price, S. & P. was performing a valuable public service." ...

... The Tea Party Bites the Hand that Feeds It. James Surowiecki of the New Yorker: "Once games of chicken become the accepted way to resolve budget issues, the U.S. economy will become a much riskier place." But the deficit deal "hurts business in more concrete ways." ...

... "Bleak Prospects." Krugman: "The economics team at Goldman Sachs, whom I’ve always found very good, now say ... 'We have lowered our growth forecast further and now expect real GDP to increase just 2%-2½% (annualized) through the end of 2012.'" ...

... ** Bill Saporito of Time: why Congress & S&P deserve each other: Congress gave S&P its power, refused to rein in S&P after its irresponsibility played a huge role in the 2008 financial collapse. The kicker, of course, is that the taxpayer pays for both S&P's & Congress's misdeeds: "... a jump of a single percentage point in the interest rate the federal government pays [which is likely because of the S&P downgrade] will more than wipe out the savings anticipated by the current debt deal."

... Charlotte Rampell of the New York Times: "If the economy falls back into recession, as many economists are now warning, the bloodletting could be a lot more painful than the last time around.... The economy is much weaker than it was at the outset of the last recession in December 2007, with most major measures of economic health — including jobs, incomes, output and industrial production — worse today than they were back then. And growth has been so weak that almost no ground has been recouped, even though a recovery technically started in June 2009."

CW: Why does Not-President Kerry have more guts that President Obama? Heather of Crooks & Liars has the transcript.

Worst Ever. Steve Benen on the Republicans' hostage-taking of the U.S.'s "full faith and credit": "If we stick to domestic politics since the Civil War, can any other major-party scandal match this? Nothing comes to mind."

John Cassidy: "A substantive jobs bill is what’s called for, and the White House should send one to Congress as soon as possible after it returns from the summer recess.... The real barrier to a meaningful jobs program is not the markets or the ratings agencies but the G.O.P. If the Republicans were to vote down a jobs bill, however, it would hurt not only the economy but also, potentially, their own prospects. Meanwhile, for a Democratic President, especially one who has disappointed many of his supporters, campaigning as someone who fought to create jobs, rather than as a copycat budget cutter, would seem a winning strategy."

** U.S. Companies to U.S.: "Buh-Bye." Don Lee of the Los Angeles Times: "Many major U.S. companies are making big plans to expand overseas even as some of them announce new layoffs at home, and there's a chilling reason why: They're beginning to give up on the American consumer as a source of future growth.... In effect, as many corporate executives look ahead, the United States has a diminishing place in their thinking.... That shifting focus is one reason new job growth here has slowed to a trickle in recent months.... Big multinational firms are adding droves of sales and marketing employees in countries such as China, India and Brazil — even as many cut back or hold the line on employment and other spending at home." CW: this helps explain why American banksters & other corporate leaders continue to ask for & get tax breaks that worsen the American economy & increase income disparity. They don't give a flying fuck about the health of the U.S. economy or the U.S. consumer because they have new opportunities elsewhere. Let's ask GE CEO Jeff Immelt, the head of Obama's so-called jobs council, what to do.

CW: I missed Karen Garcia's analysis of President Obama's weekly address, but it's still worth a read, not the least because of the remarks by Dennis Kucinich, whom Garcia quotes at length.

David Carr of the New York Times: "... a News Corporation [Murdoch, et al.] division has twice come under significant civil and criminal investigations in the United States, but neither inquiry went anywhere.... Both cases involve News America Marketing, an obscure but lucrative division of the News Corporation that is a big player in the business of retail marketing, including newspaper coupon inserts and in-store promotions. The company has come under scrutiny for a pattern of conduct that includes below-cost pricing, paying customers not to do business with competitors and accusations of computer hacking."

Junior. Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times on how Utah billionaire & philanthropist Jon Huntsman, Sr. gave his able son a political career.

Right Wing World *

Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker profiles Michele Bachmann: "Bachmann belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians. Her campaign is going to be a conversation about a set of beliefs more extreme than those of any American politician of her stature...." CW: It's a long article. Enjoy. Here's a fun bit about Bachmann's I.R.S. career:

Bachmann usually describes herself vaguely as a 'former federal tax litigation attorney.' ... but ... she didn’t do much litigating.... Two of Bachmann’s five children were born while she worked for the I.R.S., and ... Bachmann ... spent a good portion of her time on maternity leave — the I.R.S. had a fairly generous policy — and that caused resentment.... A colleague said, 'She was an attorney here, but she was never here.' ...

Definition of Chutzpah. This president has destroyed the credit rating of the United States through his failed economic policies and his inability to control government spending by raising the debt ceiling. President Obama is destroying the foundations of the U.S. economy one beam at a time. -- Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on S&P's lowering the U.S. credit rating. Bachmann refused to vote for any hike in the debt limit & said default would be no big deal. ...

... How to Get Good Press: Doh! Buy the Press. Maggie Haberman of Politico: New Hampshire radio host Jeff Chidester (or Chidestar) interviewed presidential contenders, including Michele Bachmann. You can bet it was a softball "interview" of Bachmann, since she was paying him as a consultant & shortly thereafter hired him as her New Hampshire campaign manager.

* Where every stupid thing you do is somebody else's fault & "ethics" is not in the dictionary.

Local News

Rob O'Dell of the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star: " Banks that took bailout money were supposed to use part of the taxpayer-provided cash infusion to help customers avoid foreclosure, but instead, many of them are buying up struggling homeowners' tax debt. The tax liens earn banks up to 16 percent interest, and if homeowners don't repay their debt within three years the banks can foreclose on their homes. Since the bailout in 2008, major banks have bought nearly 6,000 tax liens in Pima County that total at least $15.8 million." There's a related item here. Thanks to Fred D. for the link. CW: if they're doing it Arizona, you can bet they're doing it in all 50 states.

News Ledes

Reuters: "Stock index futures tracked a sharp drop in global equity markets on Monday after rating agency Standard & Poor's cut the top-tier AAA credit rating of the United States, rattling already-jittery investors." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Wall Street stocks plummeted on Monday as skittish investors, already concerned about the economy, struggled to work out the implications of an unprecedented downgrade of the United States government’s credit rating and sought safer places to put their money."

AP: "A besieged Syrian city came under fresh artillery fire early Monday as a deadly military assault left President Bashar Assad's regime increasingly isolated, with Arab nations forcefully joining the international chorus of condemnation for the first time. The renewed violence in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour comes a day after at least 42 people were killed there in an intensifying government crackdown on protesters." Here's Al Jazeera's liveblog.

New York Times: "Mark O. Hatfield, a liberal Republican who challenged his party’s positions on the Vietnam War and on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution during his 30 years as a Senator from Oregon, died on Sunday in Portland, Ore. He was 89." The Oregonian's obituary is here.

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