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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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The Commentariat -- January 24

CW: John Heilemann of New York magazine has another inside-the-White-House-dynamic story, and this one certainly has the White House's blessing, unlike the Peter Baker insider story I linked yesterday. Heilemann obviously talked mostly to insiders still inside; Baker talked to former top staffers. Although the stories aren't parallel because their emphases is different, there is still a remarkable contrast between the two pictures presented -- the what-was vs. the what-is. To me, neither looks very good. ...

     ... Commenting on Heilemann's piece, & specifically on a comment by Dan Pfeiffer -- the White House Communications Director -- the Blue Texan of Firedoglake observes, "it sure sounds like Obama’s happiest when he’s punching hippies, because the loudest objections to the tax-cuts-for- billionaires cave were from the left. But more significantly, Pfeiffer gives lie to 'moving to the center' because he admits Obama’s always been there."

Andrew Bachevich in The Atlantic: "In 1961, Dwight Eisenhower famously identified the military-industrial complex, warning that the growing fusion between corporations and the armed forces posed a threat to democracy. Judged 50 years later, Ike’s frightening prophecy actually understates the scope of our modern system — and the dangers of the perpetual march to war it has put us on."

"The Myth of Homegrown Islamic Terrorism in the U.S." Romesh Ratnesar of Time: "In the wake of the Tucson, Ariz., tragedy, you might think that such high-profile alarm would center on the shortcomings of America's mental-health system or the inadequacy of the country's gun laws. You would be mistaken.... Instead, some members of the political class remain fixated on what they regard as a greater national emergency: the purported rise of 'homegrown' Islamic terrorists.... Those who beat the drums about the homegrown terrorism threat often gloss over one salient fact: for all the publicity that surrounds cases of domestic jihad, not a single civilian has been killed by an Islamic terrorist on U.S. soil since Sept. 11."

In his column, Paul Krugman expands on an earlier blogpost in which he derided President Obama's new "competitiveness" mantra & his choice of GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt to "replace" Paul Volcker. In a comment, I expanded on Krugman's theses; you can find my comment here (#15).

Your Tax Dollars at Work -- Defending Creeps Who May Be Crooks. Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: "Since the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taxpayers have spent more than $160 million defending the mortgage finance companies and their former top executives in civil lawsuits accusing them of fraud. The cost was a closely guarded secret until last week, when the companies and their regulator produced an accounting at the request of Congress.... Taxpayers have paid $24.2 million to law firms defending three of Fannie’s former top executives: Franklin D. Raines, its former chief executive; Timothy Howard, its former chief financial officer; and Leanne Spencer, the former controller."

Your Tax Dollars at Work -- Detaining Journalist Jane Hamsher & David House. Michael Whitney of Firedoglake reports on the frightening acts of officers at Quantico who detained Hamsher & House, who had come to visit Bradley Manning. Hamsher's car was towed & searched. ...

... Juan Cole has an excellent post on Manning's incarceration & Hamsher & House's detention. Cole contrasts Manning's treatment with President Obama's support of the Tunisian uprising -- which came about largely as a result of WikiLeaks documents, which Manning is charged with passing to WikiLeaks. ...

... "The Social Network." Matthew Lee of the AP: "Even as it struggles to contain damage caused by WikiLeaks' release of classified internal documents, the [State] Department is reaching out across the Internet. It's bypassing traditional news outlets to connect directly and in real time with overseas audiences in the throes of unrest and upheaval. American diplomacy isn't a newcomer to Facebook, YouTube, Flickr or Twitter, but it has stepped up online efforts as those networks play a growing role in events around the world."

Steve Kornacki, in a Salon post titled "The Most Cowardly Act of a Retiring Politician," faults Sens. Joe Lieberman & Kay Bailey Huchison for asserting they would have won re-election if only they had decided to run.

Prima Donna, Exit Left. Bill Carter & Brian Stelter of the New York Times: "MSNBC never had any doubt about what it was getting when it made Keith Olbermann the face of the network in 2003: a highly talented broadcaster, a distinctive and outspoken voice and a mercurial personality with a track record of attacking his superiors and making early exits." CW: I suppose we shall have to consider this the definitive word on the breakup of MSNBC & Olbermann; it is the New York Times, after all. ...

... CW: Niall Stanage, writing in Salon, expresses my sentiments exactly: "The smugness, the narcissism, the never-ending parade of yes-man guests: Goodnight and good riddance!" A number of my friends were totally bummed by Olbermann's exit, & I think they were a little mad at me for kissing him good-bye without a tear. But they're coming around.

Looking for a New Way to Dump on the Needy. N.C. Aizenman of the Washington Post: "Republican efforts to repeal or limit the reach of the new health-care law took a new direction last week when Arizona lawmakers approved a novel and controversial attempt to cut Medicaid for 280,000 of the state's poor. The bill, requested and signed by Gov. Jan Brewer (R), empowers her to make a formal request ... for a federal waiver to avoid complying with provisions ... that prohibit states from tightening their eligibility requirements for Medicaid. Twenty-nine Republican governors, including Brewer, have signed a letter calling on President Obama and congressional leaders to remove the provision from the law."

"The Palestine Papers." Suzanne Milne & Ian Black of the Guardian: "The biggest leak of confidential documents in the history of the Middle East conflict has revealed that Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to accept Israel's annexation of all but one of the settlements built illegally in occupied East Jerusalem. This unprecedented proposal was one of a string of concessions that will cause shockwaves among Palestinians and in the wider Arab world." The Guardian will publish many of the papers, which they obtained from Al-Jazeera, throughout the coming days. CW: the initial consensus is that the revelations make the Palestinians look weak, but -- admittedly not know what forthcoming documents will reveal -- I think these first revelations look very bad for Israel, & I expect many Israeli citizens will see their leaders as bullies, too. We'll see. ...

... Tony Karon of Time, who knows a lot more about it than I, writes, "The major impact of the 'Palestine Papers' ... will be on the administration of President Abbas.... The possibility that a two-state solution can be agreed to by the parties themselves has just become a little more remote. And that leaves the matter of ending the occupation and realizing Palestinian rights back in the lap of the international community." ...

... David Dayan of Firedoglake: "The Israelis look bad on this one for essentially having no interest in the peace process no matter what they could receive from the Palestinians. And the Palestinians look really bad to their hardliners for being willing to give up so much for a homeland. Ultimately, this will not help efforts at reconciliation."

... Update: the Guardian has a page of links to news related to the leaked Palestine Papers. ...

... In today's news: "Yasser Abed-Rabbo, a senior PLO leader, attacked al-Jazeera and its Qatari owners over what he called 'a distortion of the truth' designed to create confusion. Speaking in Ramallah, headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, he called the leak 'a propaganda game through the media in order to brainwash Palestinian citizens'." ...

... AND the Guardian reports more reactions to the leak, including this one: "Martin Indyk, Clinton's national security adviser on the Israeli-Palestinian question and a former US ambassador to Israel, said: 'My reading is there's nothing more here on Jerusalem than [Yasser] Arafat agreed to in Camp David....'"

News Items

AP: Justice Antonin "Scalia adopted a professorial, occasionally playful tone on Monday while addressing members of Congress and staff behind closed doors at an event organized by GOP Rep. Michelle [sic.] Bachmann and the Tea Party Caucus." New York Times item here.

New York Times: "After a senior Palestinian official angrily denounced Al Jazeera on Monday for publishing more than 1,600 leaked Palestinian records of peace negotiations, a small group of protesters tried to break in to the network’s office in the West Bank city of Ramallah."

Chicago Tribune: "Rahm Emanuel should not appear on the Feb. 22 mayoral ballot, according to a ruling issued by a state appellate court today. In a 2-1 ruling, the appellate panel said Emanuel does not meet the residency requirement of having lived in Chicago for a year prior to the election. The judges reversed a decision by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, which had unanimously agreed that Emanuel was eligible to run for mayor." Here's the pdf of the ruling. ...

... Chicago Sun-Times Update: "Emanuel, speaking to reporters..., said he is confident he will win an appeal and return to the ballot." ...

... Tribune Update: "Attorneys for Rahm Emanuel late today asked the Illinois Supreme Court to prevent Chicago elections officials from printing ballots for the Feb. 22 mayor's election without his name. Emanuel's legal team also said they will ask the state's highest court on Tuesday to hear their appeal of a decision by an appellate court today to knock him off the ballot on the grounds he doesn't meet residency requirements."

AP: "A $21.7 billion development fund backed by celebrities and hailed as an alternative to the bureaucracy of the United Nations sees as much as two-thirds of some grants eaten up by corruption, The Associated Press has learned. Much of the money is accounted for with forged documents or improper bookkeeping, indicating it was pocketed, investigators for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria say. Donated prescription drugs wind up being sold on the black market."

Washington Post: "Jared Loughner, 22, is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in a Phoenix courtroom at 1:30 p.m. Arizona time (3:30 p.m. [ET]...). It will be the second court appearance for Loughner...."

     ... AP Update: Loughner "pleaded not guilty Monday to charges he tried to kill Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and two of her aides.... Loughner, 22, faces federal charges of trying to assassinate Giffords and attempting to murder two of her aides. He will later face state charges dealing with other victims." New York Times story here.

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