The Ledes

Monday, September 30, 2024

New York Times: “Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.”

The Wires
powered by Surfing Waves
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.”

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

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.'”

Contact Marie

Click on this link to e-mail Marie.

Page Links
Wednesday
Feb082012

The Commentariat -- February 9, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on Nicholas Kristof's riff on Charles Murray's book Coming Apart, etc. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute to NYTX here.

Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: The White House thinks the contraception battle is a political winner. Here's why:

... NEW. BUT Jessica Yellin & Brian Keilar of CNN: "... the White House is working on a way to thread the needle on a new health care policy which will require all employers-including religious institutions to cover contraception in their health insurance plans.... The administration is especially interested in the Hawaii model, in which female employees of religious institutions can purchase contraceptive coverage directly from the insurer at the same price offered to employees of all other employers." ...

... Gail Collins: "Okay.... The church is not a democracy and majority opinion really doesn’t matter. Catholic dogma holds that artificial contraception is against the law of God. The bishops have the right — a right guaranteed under the First Amendment — to preach that doctrine to the faithful. They have a right to preach it to everybody.... The problem here is that they’re trying to get the government to do their work for them. They’ve lost the war at home, and they’re now demanding help from the outside.... What happens if an employer belongs to a religion that forbids certain types of blood transfusions? Or disapproves of any medical intervention to interfere with the working of God on the human body?" ...

... "Whose Conscience?" Linda Greenhouse: The aggressive objections to requiring church-affiliated, quasi-public institutions to provide equal healthcare insurance for its female workers, "it’s important to be clear that the conscientious objection to the regulation comes from an institution rather than from those whose consciences it purports to represent."

Democracy in America at the Economist: "... nothing has made me as optimistic recently about the prospects for a broadly international, pro-human-rights, anti-authoritarian foreign policy that brings together America, the democratic world, and many of the emerging-market/non-aligned countries as what's happening right now around the Syria question. The complete isolation of Russia and China in the Security Council vote on sanctions last week is a watershed moment."

I know this goes in Infotainment, but the bigger the better:

Hayley Tsukayama of the Washington Post: "Steve Jobs, being considered in 1991 for an appointment under President George H.W. Bush, underwent a thorough background investigation by the FBI, according to newly released files from the agency. The FBI amassed a lengthy and often unflattering file on Apple’s co-founder, with more than 30 interviews of friends, neighbors, family, former business associates and Jobs, that revealed his early drug use and concerns that the then-head of NeXT was neglecting his daughter born out of wedlock with his high school girlfriend." Ned Potter of ABC News has a story here.

Right Wing World

Jonathan Martin & Manu Raju of Politico: "A day after Romney was convincingly defeated by Rick Santorum in non-binding contests in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri, high-profile Republicans voiced long-simmering worries that the would-be standard-bearer lacks a compelling message for conservatives — and must be bolder to capture the party’s nomination.... The admonition came from outspoken conservatives and members of Congress who typically stay out of party spats" like Jon Kyl & Jim DeMint.

Rick Santorum goes ballistic on Prop 8 decision. Santorum's take: The government should be more tolerant of bigots. I like the setting, too -- right in front of an altar. The stained glass windows add a nice touch. Thanks to Dave S. for the link:

Jake Sherman of Politico: "Three initiatives with wide, bipartisan support — banning insider trading on Capitol Hill, a massive tax cut for the middle class and rebuilding the nation’s roads — are staggering like a beaten boxer in the final round, with their ultimate fate uncertain. It raises an inevitable question on Capitol Hill: Can this Congress get anything done?"

If they can't run their own elections, no wonder they can't run the country (sorry, forgot to run this yesterday):

Drill, Baby, Drill. Travis Waldron of Think Progress: Economist Rick Santorum tells a Colorado audience that the real cause of the 2008 financial crisis and resulting recession was high oil prices. CW: luckily he has abandoned his alternate theory that the financial crisis was the result of Americans -- especially blah Americans -- having sex for the fun of it.

Greed Is Still Good. Think Progress: "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has made several changes to the [Senate version of the STOCK Act] legislation which appear intended to at least weaken the final product, if not to kill it outright." The STOCK Act is supposed to prevent some insider trading by Members of Congress. CW: hey, what's the point of public "service" if not to enrich yourself with impunity?

Local News

What's happening in the NH legislature is a pretty good preview of what would happen if the Tea Party ran Washington. -- Michael Cohen (tweet) ...

... Republicans Do the Damndest Things. Pat Garofalo of Think Progress: a New Hampshire state representative, J. R. Hoell (RTP), has introduced a bill to repeal the law requiring employers to provide lunch breaks for employees. The rationale: aah, employers will do so anyway. Garofalo cites a bit of evidence to refute the notion that employers have goodwill toward all hungry employees.

News Ledes

New York Times: "After days of dramatic talks, Greek political leaders reached a deal on Thursday to support a package of harsh austerity measures demanded by Greece’s financial backers in return for the country’s latest bailout."

New York Times: "President Obama will waive central provisions of the No Child Left Behind federal education law for 10 states that have embraced his educational agenda and promised to raise standards, and improve accountability and teacher effectiveness, the White House announced on Thursday morning."

New York Times: "The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Thursday to ban insider trading by members of Congress and to impose new ethics requirements on lawmakers and federal agency officials. The 417-to-2 vote came less than three weeks after President Obama demanded such action in his State of the Union address. The Senate approved a similar bill by a vote of 96 to 3 on Feb. 2, but the lopsided votes concealed deep disagreements over the details of the legislation." Washington Post story here.

New York Times: "After months of painstaking talks, government authorities and five of the nation’s biggest banks have agreed to a $26 billion settlement that could provide relief to nearly two million current and former American homeowners harmed by the bursting of the housing bubble, state and federal officials said in Washington on Thursday." Here's a new government Website that is supposed to tell you how you might benefit from the deal.

AP: "The Pentagon is unveiling plans Thursday to allow women to serve in thousands of military jobs closer to the front lines, reflecting the realities of the last decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan."

New York Times: "Amid mounting tensions over whether Israel will carry out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and Israel remain at odds over a fundamental question: whether Iran’s crucial nuclear facilities are about to become impregnable."

Los Angeles Times: "A program that lets preapproved air travelers zip through faster security lines will be expanded this year to 35 of the nation's largest airports, Transportation Security Administration officials announced Wednesday. The pilot program, dubbed PreCheck, lets travelers who get TSA clearance avoid what have become the most annoying steps of post-9/11 screening: removing shoes, belt and coats."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (7)

Santorum had a whopper of a quote today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=48t25kjIrBA

Apparently if a federal court enforces equal rights its showing intolerance toward bigotry. Because bigotry is basic human right I suppose.

February 9, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterDaveS

Let us all pray for Rick. Just what this country needs is a dose of religious principles of the finest kind. I can look forward to all the fast girls having a large A hanging from their neck.
Water boarding began in the sixteen hundreds as a way to get confessions from witches. Must have been successful because I have seen very few witches lately. I can see all kinds of potential for the pracrice. We could certainly speed up the court system.
Following Rick Santorum to the roaring 1600s should be a great adventure and will put this society in tune with God,s will.

February 9, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterCarlyle

Wait - did Santorum actually cite "nature" and "reason" in his argument? Weren't those aspects of the Enlightenment, which brought us people like Galileo, Mary Wolstonecraft, and Charles Darwin?

February 9, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterJanice

Rick Sanitarium has a new phone number: 1-800-JESUS. You can call anytime, all the time, and you will always get an answer. And if you vote for Ricky, you will get an extra bonus. You. dear sinner, will be SAVED. There are lots of rooms in heaven, and Ricky has first dibs on all of them.

Just remember, eat your peas and NO BIRTH CONTROL. Sex is to procreate. Period. Besides, if we end up with too many people, war will take care of that. Always has. Com'on, this is a win-win.

Hard to believe there is a person out there-- oh, wait...a candidate for POTUS--an "educated" man--who inhabits such an internal dichotomy. Universe save us from him and his nasty Jesus!

February 9, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

I'm sorry, I missed the first part of Demoron's comment. Was he defending slavery? What scares me the most is that he really does not get the basic irrationality of his argument. Government must defend bigotry if it based on religion.

February 9, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

Memo to rick santorum:
Congrats, you have just alienated millions of LGBT voters, and
a lot of us have sympathetic family and hetero friends, so multiply
that by millions. Then there are the 'blahs' from one of your previous rants, so add a few more millions. And what about
women's rights? More millions alienated. And here's hoping
you get the nomination. Laughter is the best medicine!

February 9, 2012 | Unregistered Commenterforrest morris

I think of all these millions of dollars spent on these candidates, mostly for ads that reveal the ugly, the greedy, the slipshod antics of all of them––what a waste! Today is Ricky's turn––finally–-this earnest seeming, sincere seeming candidate whose right shoulder has Jesus perched and ready to whisper sweet nothings, urging Ricky to convince the populace that he has the truth and that to follow him will not only bring salvation but a bang-up economy. There's something sad about all this, pitiable really, because in the end he will lose and all his prayers will go for naught plus all that money–––gone with the wind and then what would Jesus say?

February 9, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.