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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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Thursday
Jan132011

The Commentariat -- January 14

New York Times: "The Republican National Committee selected a new chairman on Friday, with Reince Priebus of Wisconsin surviving seven contentious rounds of balloting to succeed Michael Steele as party officials expressed a desire for new leadership to prepare for the 2012 presidential election. Mr. Priebus, who broke away from Mr. Steele’s inner circle to run against him, pledged to pay off the committee’s $21 million debt and strengthen state parties across the country...." CW: he also pledged not be nearly as fun.

Anthony Shadid of the New York Times: "The reported departure of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, after popular protests in his North African country, electrified an Arab world whose residents have increasingly complained of governments that seem incapable of meeting their citizens’ demands and bereft of ideology save a motivation to perpetuate themselves in power.... Since their beginning, the protests have been closely followed by Arabic-language networks, as well as social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter."

Poppycock. -- Col. T. V. Johnson, a Quantico spokesperson, in response to the assertion that Bradley Manning, the accused WikeLeaker, is being mistreated (other expletives Col. Johnson commonly uses: "Egad!" "Horsefeathers!" and "Upon my word!") ...

... Scott Shane of the New York Times contrasts Manning's living conditions with those of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in a Washington Post op-ed,  has advice for Presidents Obama & Hu on how to avoid a U.S.-China cold war. "The aim should be to create a tradition of respect and cooperation so that the successors of leaders meeting now continue to see it in their interest to build an emerging world order as a joint enterprise."

Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post: the Obama administration has made significant concessions to the business community over the past few months. "By the unwritten rules of political reconciliation, they demand and deserve a similar response. The most obvious and effective would be a clear statement from the business lobby that it will not support Republicans in their effort to repeal last year's health reform legislation." ...

... Greg Sargent: "'The Patient's Rights Repeal Act.' At a House Dem leadership meeting last week, Dem leaders decided that this is the phrase they will officially use to brand the House GOP's push to repeal health reform."

Richard Dunham of the Houston Chronicle on Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas' senior statewide officeholder, announcement that she will not seek re-election in 2012.

Bryan Walsh of Time has a good article, with lots o' links, on the EPA's decision to veto "the largest single mountaintop mining removal permit in West Virginia history." West Virginia Democrats Sens. Joe Manchin & Jay Rockefeller & Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin were among those who harshly criticized the EPA for canceling the permit. Here's Andrew Restuccia of The Hill on Rockefeller's letter of protest to President Obama. Ken Ward, Jr. of the Charleston Gazette reports on Tomblin's reaction.

Alex Pareene of Salon: "For a bunch of people who worship the Founders and like to play dress-up American Revolutionary War, Tea Partyers sure hate knowing anything remotely reality-based about the Founding Fathers. Tennessee Tea Party groups have introduced a proposal to take what few minorities there are in American history textbooks out of American history textbooks, along with any negative portrayals of the wealthy white men who led this young nation in its infancy."

Andrew Downie of Time on the Brazilian floods: "The devastation of the flooding will be made more bitter for its victims by the fact the deluge was so desperately predictable. Brazil is a tropical nation with a heavy rainy season that often bursts the banks of rivers, and yet each year's flooding brings death and destruction that could have been avoided with adequate planning and management."

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