The Ledes

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Washington Post: “ John Amos, a running back turned actor who appeared in scores of TV shows — including groundbreaking 1970s programs such as the sitcom 'Good Times' and the epic miniseries 'Roots' — and risked his career to protest demeaning portrayals of Black characters, died Aug. 21 in Los Angeles. He was 84.” Amos's New York Times obituary is here.

New York Times: “Pete Rose, one of baseball’s greatest players and most confounding characters, who earned glory as the game’s hit king and shame as a gambler and dissembler, died on Monday. He was 83.”

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 New York Times highlights “twelve essential Kristofferson songs.”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

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.”

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The Commentariat -- July 11, 2012

CW: I won't be doing much today. I have a crew here ripping out my so-called master bathroom, & I have to "attend to" them.

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "David Brooks on Why the Maid's Daughter Can't Get a Good Job." ...

     ... The NYTX front page is here. A rather fabulous entry on the page: Patrick Somerville's "Thank You for Killing My Novel."

"GOP to the Uninsured: Drop Dead." Matt Miller of the Washington Post: "The Republican message to uninsured Americans in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent ruling couldn't be clearer: You're on your own." CW: Miller is fairly conservative (he's one who advocated for a third-party presidential candidate), so this both fairly damning -- & accurate.

Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "Americans paid the lowest tax rates in 30 years to the federal government in 2009, due in part to tax cuts sought by President Obama to combat the Great Recession, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday."

Presidential Race

New York Times Editors: "Mr. Romney has resisted all demands for more [financial] disclosure, leading to growing criticism from Democrats that he is trying to hide his fortune and his tax schemes from the public. Given the troubling suspicions about his finances, he needs to release many more returns and quickly open his books to full scrutiny." A pretty good rundown of Mitt's shady shelters.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Waging old battles with new zeal, the House passed a bill on Wednesday to repeal President Obama's health care overhaul law less than two weeks after the Supreme Court upheld its major provisions as constitutional. The bill was approved by a vote of 244 to 185, with five Democrats supporting repeal. It has no chance of approval in the Senate and would face a veto from Mr. Obama if it ever got to him."

Washington Post: Mitt Romney's "speech [in Houston, Texas] before the NAACP drew him the most hostile reception from any campaign audience so far this year and Romney appeared visibly unsettled by three rounds of loud boos from the crowd."

AP: "A federal judge on Wednesday continued to block a state law that threatened to shut down Mississippi's only abortion clinic and make it nearly impossible for a woman to get the procedure in the state. U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III temporarily blocked the law July 1 and extended that order Wednesday, though he did not say when he would rule on the clinic's request to put the law on hold for a longer period. If he grants that request, the case eventually would go to trial."

Washington Post: "About 2.3 million Northern Virginia residents were without emergency 911 telephone service for several days last week after a backup generator failed following severe thunderstorms in the region, a senior Verizon official told government leaders Wednesday. The outage, which prevented hundreds, perhaps thousands, of calls for help from getting through to emergency responders, was among the worst public safety fallouts from the June 29 storm...."

Washington Post: House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) "joined other lawmakers Wednesday in calling on Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) to disclose more details about his absence from Congress since June 10. Jackson's wife also said she hoped doctors would soon release information about the lawmaker, while some Democrats said again that the congressman should be permitted to sort out his personal issues beyond the public spotlight." ...

     ... ABC News Update: "Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who took a mysterious leave of absence from Capitol Hill last month is being treated for a 'mood disorder,' his physician said Wednesday."

AP: "The president of Florida A&M University submitted his resignation Wednesday, the same day the university was sued by parents of a drum major who died during a hazing. It was unclear if the two events were related. James Ammons announced the resignation, which takes effect Oct. 11, in a letter to the chairman of the university's governing board."

New York Times: "In a case that is part parable of high-society travail and part police-beat mystery, investigators awaited the outcome on Wednesday of further tests to discover what killed American-born Eva Rausing, one of Britain's richest women, after her body was discovered at her upmarket home and her husband arrested." More on the troubled lives of Rausing & her husband Hans Kristian Rausing from the Guardian.

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Reader Comments (6)

I also posted this on NYTX.

Maybe there really IS a God–and HE has not yet turned the power back on in David Brooks’ new Cleveland Park mansion, because (clearly) David is not thinking clearly. Oh wait……he never thinks clearly? Maybe he should go back and rewrite “Bobos in Paradise” as a memoir.

July 10, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

I didn't read the Brooks column until you gave the dunderhead another nod. Can handle him only once a month or so when I check in to see if someone slipped some sanity into his morning coffee. Needless to say, I'm seldom surprised that no one has. Besides, it's much more fun just reading Marie on Brooks, as unfair as it is: his deadly earnestness is no match for your humor. Not to mention that time and again he's flat wrong. Today, another case in point.

On jobs and the absence of social mobility, once again Brooks takes a dimwitted sociological approach, which he presents as coherent analysis. He writes about behaviors as if what people do is unrelated to their circumstance, as if their economic birthright has no influence on the choices they make and what they do. When he does get to economics (after an uncomfortable and muddled acknowledgement of "class"), he points the finger of blame for our declining social mobility in a random direction, tho' one that comports with his ideology: eliminate the social safety net, leaving even more people in dire economic straits, a solution which would seem exactly contrary to his announced intent. But there I go again, trying to make sense where there is none to be made.

Instead of blaming the tattered safety net, I would look in another direction. For the last thirty years, we have worked hard to eviscerate our economy and we have done a mighty fine job. Responding to this morning's NYTimes discussion of the need (or not) for expanded job training, I wrote suggesting that much handwringing about American jobs simply misses the major points.

Workers go begging for jobs for any number of simple reasons, I said.

Most companies have no social conscience. The bottom line they worship dictates their decision to seek cheap labor and lower costs. If that means outsourcing, dropping pension plans, expecting others to train their workers at no cost to themselves, so be it.

Because most large employers are transnational, national governments can do little to control their behavior. As the global economy has grown with help from trade agreements that offer little protection for American workers, corporations have been handed even more power to decide through their purchased people in Congress most economic policy, which is, of course, in their favor.

Also, as our productivity has increased primarily due to robotics and cheap energy, vastly subsidized by the federal government (wars for oil, cheap oil leases, the Price-Anderson Act that makes nuclear power possible, the list goes on), fewer workers are necessary to provide the food and goods people actually need. It's just arithmetic.

Capitalism calls this efficiency and it is--for the businesses. For the nation, which has to bribe the companies with tax breaks and subsidize the unemployed, a class that will only grow as long as current business and governments behaviors are allowed to continue, not so much.

Not much pop sociology in that. Maybe that's why Brooks can't write about it. And it seems he doesn't much like subsidizing the growing underclass (there's that darn word again) of unemployed either.

July 10, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

Re: Marie on maids, money and marriage. Jez, Marie if tearing out the master bath results in that good of a column rebuttal on Mr. Brooks I say demo the kitchen next.

July 11, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

@JJG: did that already. The kitchen here came with those plastic-clad MDF cabinets & I wanted solid wood with NO MDF or particleboard. Also, I didn't like the layout & wanted to extend the kitchen into the next room which was sort of an office office. So I tore out all the cabinets, had the locations of the stove & fridge moved, added a wall oven, bought flatpack cabinets & built some of my own from scratch (like the cabinet for the wall oven & a center island, a fridge surround & walk-in food pantry). Didn't do any of my own plumbing & wiring, & we're all safer for that.

Then, ever the recycler, I took most of the crappy cabinets & hung them in the kitchen I built from scratch at my lake cottage. There I put up or laid down all the walls, floors, ceiling (what a pain in the neck!), tho I had a handyman do the plumbing & wiring there, too. And we're all safer for that.

David Brooks was not a factor.

But I did all that before I turned 65, & I swore I wasn't going to do any more major building projects after I turned 65. So no more kitchens for me. Now I'm the helper/meddler. It's way easier.

July 11, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterMarie Burns

I so enjoyed Patrick Somerville's piece in the NYTX. Imagine an editor exchanging emails with a character from a novel––quite extraordinary. Janet Maslin is married to Ben Cheever, John Cheever's son, and the latter's problems with editors, publishing houses, and critics were legendary. When he was struggling with his first novel and wanted an extra $$ to hold him over, his publishers suggested he write more short stories; his reply: "I want to write more short stories like I want to fuck a chicken."

July 11, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

I’ve pretty much given up reading Brooks directly. I’m not unhappy to read Marie (or Krugman) smacking him around because at least the bullshit will be named as such and the outrageous intellectual dishonesty appropriately dispensed with.

Some time ago I concluded that Brooks (very much like The Mustache of Wisdom, Tom Friedman) writes the same column over and over again with small variations. The formula is wearyingly familiar.

Take an event (Supreme Court decision, Springsteen concert, Tea Party Rally) or some little known book from the right-wing sociology or armchair psychology remainder bins, deconstruct event or book according to pre-approved conservative academic ideological guidelines with plenty of haughty sniffs from the ivory tower, add a healthy dose of finger wagging and sad head shaking regarding the loss of morals in the west, especially those of liberals and their allies, dirty pot-smoking, sexually active hippies, apportion blame for any problems equally to Democrats and Republicans. Shake head several more times. Wonder to oneself how on earth anyone would get through the day without reading one’s words of wonder. Close door and retreat back into study, well insulated from real world, assured that moral superiority and conservative values are the only bulwarks against precipitous and imminent decline of American virtue. Send steaming pile of dung while still warm to NY Times. Cash enormous check. Repeat twice a week.

Easy, isn’t it? Next on the agenda, go on NPR and PBS and any other media outlet that needs differing opinions (but doesn’t want any rabid ankle biting by the Krauthammers and Kristols) by inviting a conservative who presents himself as a moderate, professorial, slightly effete snobby know it all (oh….wait, isn’t that George Will?). Regurgitate column. More head shaking. Cash more checks.

The life of a conservative pundit. Spin bullshit. Get paid. Repeat as needed.

This is why, like Ken, I can only stomach Brooks in small doses from afar. So thanks, Marie, for tilting at and regularly puncturing this pompous, pettifogger. How you can stand the noisome stench that seeps out of the holes is beyond me.

July 11, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus
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