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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Saturday
Dec102011

The Commentariat -- December 11

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on Frank Bruni's "Life of Tim." This applies:

... The New York Times eXaminer front page is here. ... NYTX editor Chris Spannos interviews foreign correspondent Reese Ehrlich on the downed U.S. drone that went down in Iran. Audio only. Runs about 13 minutes. If you've read New York Times accounts of the drone capture, you should hear what Ehrlich has to say.

The weekend Open Thread on Off Times Square continues.

By Esther Pearl Watson, via the New York Times.The New York Times op-ed that accompanies this painting by Esther Pearl Watson was ever so meh!, but I liked the painting. I like naive painting even when it's fake naive painting.

Maureen Dowd contrasts Barack Obama & Newt Gingrich. Entertaining, with some anti-Newt citations from former House GOP colleagues. ...

... BUT Ross Douthat's column, which covers the same ground -- Barack v. Newt -- is more substantive. Really. If you disagree, tell us on Off Times Square (and tell us why).

... Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) introduced a U.S Senate version of a Constitutional Amendment previously introduced in the House by Ted Deutsch (D-Florida), "which would overturn the Citizens United decision, re-establishing the right of Congress and the states to regulate campaign finance laws, and to effectively outlaw the ability of for-profit corporations to contribute to campaign spending." As Karen Garcia implies, the Sanders-Deutsch proposal is preferable to one introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D-) & others. CW: although I viewed it as better than nothing, the proposed Udall Amendment leaves way to much up to the Congress. The Sanders-Deutsch proposal is much stronger. You can sign a petition in support of the Sanders bill here. I did.

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "The other Guantánamo" is "an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away on back roads. Today, it houses far more men convicted in terrorism cases than the shrunken population of the prison in Cuba that has generated so much debate."

Kim Severson of the New York Times: "Although North Carolina officially apologized in 2002 and legislators have pressed to compensate victims [of a state-run sterilization program] before, a task force appointed by Gov. Bev Perdue is again wrestling with the state’s obligation to the estimated 7,600 victims of its eugenics program. The board operated from 1933 to 1977 as an experiment in genetic engineering once considered a legitimate way to keep welfare rolls small, stop poverty and improve the gene pool. Thirty-one other states had eugenics programs. Virginia and California each sterilized more people than North Carolina. But no program was more aggressive."

Right Wing World

Jonathan Bernstein of the Washington Post assesses the performances at last night's GOP presidential candidates' debate in Iowa. Biggest losers? Diane Sawyer & George Stephanopoulos of ABC News "the questions had to be by far the worst of any debate in this cycle. Hardly any straight issue questions, and lots of gotchas and politics questions, culminating in the absolute waste of time of having all six talk about whether Gingrich’s marital record is a Bad Thing." ...

... On Balloon Juice, Anne Laurie has an irreverent (how could she?!) sort-of liveblog of the debate: "Conclusion: These are all sad, sad human beings (well, mostly human, probably). Team Werewolf (the Swollen Amphibian) beat Team Vampire ($10,000 Bet Guy) handily. President Obama is going to beat either of them, fortunately for the rest of us."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Countries from around the globe agreed on Sunday to forge a new deal forcing all the biggest polluters for the first time to limit greenhouse gas emissions, but critics said the plan was too timid to slow global warming. A package of accords agreed after marathon U.N. talks in South Africa extended the 1997 Kyoto Protocol - the only global pact enforcing carbon cuts - allowing five more years to finalize a wider pact which has so far eluded negotiators."

Reuters: "Manuel Noriega, Panama's drug-running military dictator of the 1980s, was extradited home on Sunday and taken straight to prison to serve a 20-year sentence for the murders of opponents during his rule."

Here's the New York Times story on last night's GOP presidential candidates' debate. See also yesterday's Ledes.

USA Today: "A slew of Palestinian officials reacted with dismay Saturday to Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich's statement that the Palestinians are an 'invented" people.'"

Looks Bad to Me. New York Times: "Netflix is backing a bill in Congress that would amend the Video Privacy Protection Act, a 1988 law that requires a video services company to get a customer’s written consent when it seeks to disclose that client’s personal information, such as rental history. The new bill, passed by the House last Tuesday, would allow consumers to give one-time blanket consent online for a company to share their viewing habits continuously."

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