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
Dec022011

The Commentariat -- December 3

My New York Times eXaminer column is on the New York Times' new comments format. I heartily suggest you read all the way to the end. Or at least read the end. No, sing the end. The NYTX front page is here. ...

... A related item by Eva Galperin & Jillian York on online anonymity is here. The item includes a rebuttal to a New York Times letter to the editor from Christopher Wolf, head of the Internet Task Force of the Anti-Defamation League, in which he wrote: "It is time to consider Facebook’s real-name policy as an Internet norm because online identification demonstrably leads to accountability and promotes civility." Be sure to read the published rebuttals to Wolf's letter, which appear on the same page.

President Obama's Weekly Address. The transcript is here:

Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Deep rifts among House Republicans became evident on Friday as rank-and-file members of the caucus told their leaders that they did not want to extend the cut in Social Security payroll taxes for another year, as demanded by President Obama. Speaker John A. Boehner has told Republicans they would run political risks and could be accused of allowing a tax increase if they block the continuation of payroll tax relief." ...

... Greg Sargent: a senior Democratic aide says there will definitely be another vote next week.

Mike Gudgell of ABC News takes you inside Camp Victory, Iraq, as the last US soldier leaves the base. "... it’s a real challenge to share the stunning significance of the end of Camp Victory."

CW: I've found that you can't always trust the fact-checkers. Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post is particularly bad on economics. And here's PolitiFact, nominating as its "Lie of the Year a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad which claims, "Seniors will have to find $12,500 for health care because Republicans voted to end Medicare." ...

... The problem with the PolitiFact analysis is that the DCCC claim is true. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: Paul "Ryan’s plan ends traditional fee-for-service program and forces seniors to ultimately enroll in private coverage." I've written to PolitiFact & asked them to change their designation. In the past when I've challenged them, they have responded. We'll see what happens this time.

Jo Becker of the New York Times: "The former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, in his first extended interview since his indictment on sexual abuse charges last month, said Coach Joe Paterno never spoke to him about any suspected misconduct with minors. Mr. Sandusky also said the charity he worked for never restricted his access to children until he became the subject of a criminal investigation in 2008." CW: With video I won't be watching. ...

... Joe Nocera on the Penn State & Syracuse sexual abuse scandals and how the universities handled them: "If a university — and its community — can’t treat players and coaches the same way everyone else is treated, then what is it really teaching? Surely, the lessons it is imparting are the wrong ones."

Greg Sargent: "Wall Street executives have been quite open about the fact that they really, really don’t want to see Elizabeth Warren get anywhere near the Senate. And it looks like they’re about to ratchet up their efforts to help Scott Brown prevent it from happening — including the influential U.S. Chamber of Commerce."

Right Wing World

"The Anti-Science Party." Coral Davenport of the National Journal: "Over the past year, GOP politicians have increasingly questioned or flatly denied the established science of climate change. As the presidential primaries heat up, the leading candidates have either denied the verdict of climate scientists or recanted their former views supporting climate policy.... Challenging climate science has become, in some circles, as much of a conservative litmus test as opposing taxes.... In fact, recent reports from the National Academy of Sciences show that the data and consensus on the principles of climate change are stronger than ever.... Here’s what has changed for Republican politicians: The rise of the tea party, its influence in the Republican Party, its crusade against government regulations, and the influx into electoral politics of vast sums of money from energy companies and sympathetic interest groups."

In this week's New York Times Magazine, Robert Draper profiles Mitt Romney. CW: I know I should read this. ...

Mainstream Racism

Steve Benen with more on the bogus story that President Obama is "walking away from the white working class": "I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised if racial politics played a significant part in the right’s misleading rhetoric on this. Conservatives very likely see it as in their interests to convince the white working-class that the president is “abandoning” them while appealing to minority voters and better-educated whites. Indeed, the racial subtext of Fox News’ presentation on this wasn’t exactly subtle":

Screengrab from Fox Nation. Oh, look, there's President Obama at a basketball game with all his blackety-black Affirmative Action friends, waving buh-bye to the last hard-working white person he'll ever acknowledge. Via Dave Weigel. ...

... Ben Adler of The Nation has a good overview of the proliferation of the Republicans' cynical appeal to white racial resentment. CW: it appears to me that many Republican politicians & operatives truly do not believe that any non-whites are "working class." To wit: the Newt:

... Heather of Crooks & Liars: "What's amazing is that we're supposed to believe that Gingrich actually thinks it's going to help him win the GOP primary to do something like this and go about one inch shy of just outright calling black people lazy niggers, which is what he did here. This wasn't a dog whistle. It was a siren." ...

... Charles Blow produces the statistics to debunk another of Newt's big lies. Sorry, Newt, poor kids do know what "work" means, and no, they don't think it's running drugs and shoplifting. ...

... ** Speaking of Affirmative Action, Wayne Barrett, writing in the Daily Beast, follows Herman Cain's wholly-Affirmative-abetted career. (Cain staunchly opposes AA.) CW: I know you don't care about Cain, who by the time you read this, may have dropped out of the race to spend more time with his family, but read this essay for the quality of the writing & the legwork that went into researching the story. Barrett, a long-time star of the Village Voice, has lost none of his edge. ...

... Jim Newell of Gawker on "how to blame your failed political campaign on your wife." Republican political wives are always ruining their husbands' careers.

Maggie Haberman & Alexander Burns of Politico: "Bad Newt’s coming back. The all-too-familiar character from the 1990s has only peeked out in public a handful of times so far. But already, Newt Gingrich – flush with pride over new polls showing his left-for-dead candidacy now leading the pack – is letting his healthy ego roam free again, littering the campaign trail with grand pronouncements about his celebrity, his significance in political history and his ability to transform America." With plenty of hilarious examples.

"Trump? The Republican Primary Is Now Officially a Gong Show." Joe Conason: "Marketing genius is perhaps the most appropriate way to describe Donald J. Trump's newest incarnation as the announced host -- he can hardly be called a 'moderator' -- of a post-Christmas Republican debate sponsored by Newsmax, the conservative magazine." Jon Huntsman, Jr., has the invitation to participate.

News Ledes

New York Times: GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain was scheduled to make "an announcement" at 11 am ET but has postponed it until an unspecified time this afternoon. ...

     ... Update: So I just ran a live video of a speech by Cain, who said he was "suspending" his campaign. And quite a bit of other stuff. God was mentioned. And we the people. And his wife. And then more stuff. Here's the CBS News story.

New York Times: "Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta spoke sternly on Friday to America’s closest ally in the Middle East, telling Israel that it is partly responsible for its increasing isolation and that it now must take 'bold action' — diplomatic, not military — to mend ties with its Arab neighbors and settle previously intractable territorial disputes with the Palestinians."

Reuters: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu "has cancelled government-sponsored television advertisements calling on expatriates to return, after some American Jews complained that the message denigrated their lifestyles. The spots, aired on Israeli channels that are often viewed by emigrants, featured dramatized scenes of Jewish assimilation in gentile settings. In one, an Israeli couple looks dismayed to hear their grandchild mention celebrating Christmas abroad." Haaretz story here. The Haaretz story has embedded videos, but the first one -- which I guess is the Christmas one -- "has been removed by the user."

AP: "Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern was being treated at a hospital in South Dakota after falling and hitting his head on the pavement outside a library bearing his name.

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