The Ledes

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Washington Post: “Towns throughout western North Carolina ... were transformed overnight by ... [Hurricane Helene]. Muddy floodwaters lifted homes from their foundations. Landslides and overflowing rivers severed the only way in and out of small mountain communities. Rescuers said they were struggling to respond to the high number of emergency calls.... The death toll grew throughout the Southeast as the scope of Helene’s devastation came into clearer view. At least 49 people had been killed in five states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. By early counts, South Carolina suffered the greatest loss of life, registering at least 19 deaths.”

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The Ledes

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.

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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Friday
Dec092011

The Commentariat -- December 10

President Obama's Weekly Address (the transcript is here):

Via Salon.Rebecca Traister of Salon Is My Hero of the Day: "... as an American, I think it is important for my president not to turn to paternalistic claptrap and enfeebling references to the imagined ineptitude and irresponsibility of his daughters – and young women around the country – to justify a curtailment of access to medically safe contraceptives. The notion that in aggressively conscribing women’s abilities to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy Obama is just laying down some Olde Fashioned Dad Sense diminishes an issue of gender equality, sexual health and medical access. Recasting this debate as an episode of 'Father Knows Best' reaffirms hoary attitudes about young women and sex that had their repressive heyday in the era whence that program sprang." ...

... Akiba Solomon of Color Lines: "I can count four ways this decision sucks for colored girls who have considered ‘the morning after pill’ when their first-line birth control wasn’t enough." ...

... Katha Pollitt of The Nation: "Who died and made Barack Obama daddy in charge of teenage girls? Would he really rather that Sasha and Malia get pregnant rather than buy Plan B One-Step at CVS? And excuse me, Mr. President, thanks to your HHS, acquiring Plan B is prescription-only not just for 11-year-olds but for the 30 percent of teenage girls between 15 and 17 who are sexually active, and is a cumbersome process for all women, who have to ask a pharmacist for it and, as many news stories have reported, be subjected to fundamentalist harangues and objections. Apparently, it’s okay with you if Michelle is treated like a sixth-grader. I’m trying to think if there are any laws or regulations affecting only men in which unfounded fears about middle-school boys deny all men normal adult privileges. Needless to say, no one suggests that underage boys get a prescription if they want to use condoms, or that grown men have to ask the pharmacist for them and maybe get a lecture about the evils of birth control and promiscuity." ...

... Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post on "Plan B the danger of extreme examples." ...

... Michael Herper of Forbes: the medical community -- including FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg -- is enraged. "Although the HHS secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, was within her legal authority under the 1938 law that created the FDA, this is the first time a presidential administration has ever publicly overruled the FDA in this manner."

CW: In case you were under the misapprehension that Republicans run for the U.S. Senate in hopes of going to Washington to make the federal government work better, Gail Collins' column today will disabuse you of that happy notion. "The Ghost of Boyfriends Past" is Collins at her best.

Sarah Lyall & Julia Werdigier of the New York Times: "Prime Minister David Cameron’s fateful decision to veto the idea of renegotiating the European Union treaty on Friday has left Britain as isolated as it has ever been in postwar Europe and effectively left out of future European decisions." ...

... Paul Taylor of Reuters: Nicolas Sarkozy, "the French president, emerged as one of the big winners of a European Union summit on Friday which ended with up to 26 member states agreeing to move forward in economic integration around the euro zone, and Britain alone in staying out.... By obstructing the wish of the other EU members to amend the bloc's governing Lisbon treaty to allow closer fiscal union among the 17-nation single currency area, British Prime Minister David Cameron managed to unite Europe against him. He may be feted by Eurosceptics at home, but he emerged as the biggest diplomatic loser of the summit, leading his country into an isolation that all his predecessors sought to avoid." ...

... Ian Traynor, et al., of the Guardian: "David Cameron plunged Britain's position in Europe into the greatest uncertainty in a generation as he used his veto to block a new EU-wide treaty and left at least 23 other countries to forge a pact to salvage the single currency. With the apparent blessing of the pro-European deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg – and the subsequent delight of Tory backbenchers – Cameron deployed the ultimate weapon in European summitry at about 2.30am yesterday." ...

... Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian reacts to Britain's rejection of the new eurozone treaty:

Paul Krugman: "I’m not as surprised as Greg Sargent seems to be that Karl Rove’s latest line of attack against Elizabeth Warren is that she’s too close to Wall Street. Hey, she oversaw the use of TARP funds! Greg takes this as a sign that Democrats are winning the argument, and it is. But they also have to win the election. And this wouldn’t be the first time that nonsensical arguments that rely on voter ignorance about who stands for what have worked."

Right Wing World *

Today in Rick Perry Said Another Ignorant Thing. Josh Voorhees of Slate: Gov. Rick Perry told the Des Moines Register editorial board that Supreme Court Justice "Montemayor" was an activist judge. That would be Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Perry went on to say that he didn't think 8 Supreme Court justices should be able to tell local school boards they can't allow prayer in school. There are 9 Supreme Court justices. With videos. So make that two ignorant things.

Today in Mitt v. Mitt. Ben Armbruster of Think Progress: In October, Mitt Romney said President Obama's decision (actually, he didn't have a choice) to order all troops out of Iraq by the end of the year was "an astonishing failure." Yesterday, he told the Des Moines Register editorial board the troop removal was "appropriate."

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: Mitt Romney is not going to keep his hands off your Medicare. He doubles down on his endorsement of Paul Ryan's voucher plan.

Tamara Keith of NPR: Congressional Republicans argue that many small-business owners will be hurt by a "millionaires' surtax" which would be used to pay for payroll tax cuts. NPR wanted to talk to small business owners who would be affected by the tax. They couldn't find any. "So, NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview."

In a Des Moines Register op-ed, ahead of tomorrow's umpteenth Republican debate, this one to be held in Iowa, Rand Paul Son of Ron writes an op-ed attacking Mitt & Newt, but mostly Newt, as not-so-closeted libruls: "If the tea party is to continue the work we resolved in 2010 to undertake, then we must not make a giant leap backward by electing big government, status quo Republicans like Gingrich in 2012."

* Where everything leaders say is a focus-group-tested lie.

News Ledes

Here's the New York Times' liveblog of the GOP debate. On-the-spot commentary & fact-checking from Times reporters is here. ...

... Washington Post: "Republican presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich came under sharp and repeated attack here Saturday night, accused by his rivals of being a Washington insider, a career politician and a serial hypocrite who has changed his views to suit the times and his political needs."

Boston Globe: "Hundreds of Boston police officers swooped down on the Occupy Boston encampment early this morning, arresting dozens of protesters and tearing down tents, bringing an end to the 10-week rally against economic inequality, the longest continual Occupy demonstration in the country. At least 46 protesters were arrested in the lightning-swift operation, which was over in less than an hour. The vast majority are facing trespassing charges...."

New York Times: "Thousands of Russians thronged the center of Moscow on Saturday in a show of defiance against the government of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, one that organizers hoped would become the largest anti-Kremlin demonstration since the fall of the Soviet Union. Calls for protest have been mounting since parliamentary elections Sunday that domestic and international observers said were tainted by ballot-stuffing and fraud on behalf of Mr. Putin’s party, United Russia."

AP: "Three women who fought injustice, dictatorship and sexual violence in Liberia and Yemen received the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital on Saturday. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, her compatriot Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen collected their Nobel diplomas and medals to applause at Oslo's City Hall."

AP: "A Los Angeles woman accused of attacking at least 20 Black Friday shoppers at a Walmart store with pepper spray won't face felony charges, prosecutors said Thursday. The case of Elizabeth Macias, 32, was referred to city attorneys after county prosecutors didn't find evidence of a felony.... Macias could still face misdemeanor prosecution, Gibbons said."

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