The Ledes

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

The New York Times is live-updating developments in the progress of Hurricane Helene. "Helene continued to power north in the Caribbean Sea, strengthening into a hurricane Wednesday morning, on a path that forecasters expect will bring heavy amounts of rain to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and western Cuba before it begins to move toward Florida’s Gulf Coast."

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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.

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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Tuesday
Jun142011

The Commentariat -- June 15

"The President's Speech" -- the Movie. So nearly three million people watched this video before I got around to it. Fortunately, a reader's octogenarian cousin is hipper than I am, & the reader clued me in. Thanks to both of them:

I've got another Open Thread on Off Times Square today, the last few have been so terrific. If you've been away, read Monday & Tuesdays' comments to catch up. The exchange has been a pleasure and has lots of followers.

** Patricia Cohen of the New York Times: French cognitive social scientists have developed an "argumentative theory of evolution" which concludes that the purpose of reasoning is not to help "us to get better beliefs and make better decisions." Instead, “It was a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us,” says Hugo Mercier, one of the French scholars. "Truth and accuracy were beside the point." CW: this really helps explain how Republicans, especially, but politicians in general, persuade with lies. The article is fascinating, and helps explain why we can't "win" our discussions with our conservative friends.

Tom Friedman highlights the teaching of Michael Sandel, a political philosopher who uses the Socratic method to teach his course & lead other discussions. Friedman says he & Sandel are close friends, which of course is a strike against Sandel, but I'm keeping an open mind. PBS has videos of Sandel's course online, & I'll give them a whirl when I get a chance -- like late next week.

"So No One's Responsible?" New York Times Editors: "With Justice Clarence Thomas writing for a 5-to-4 majority, the Supreme Court has made it much harder for private lawsuits to succeed against mutual fund malefactors, even when they have admitted to lying and cheating."

"Down the Memory Hole." Jared Bernstein: "Listening to the Republican debate..., I was once again struck by the extent to which these folks are stuck in a tattered old box when it comes to economic policy. Deregulation, supply-side tax cuts, turn the entitlements over to the market, etc.... the very agenda that got us into this mess."

Mark Bittman has more on farmworker slavery in Southwest Florida. This is not just a local story, as Bittman reveals, because major grocery chains all around the U.S. are refusing to give farmworkers a penny a pound more for their back-breaking labor, even tho Wal-Mart & some of the fast-food chains have acquiesced. Bittman doesn't tell the whole story, of course. Here's one tidbit he didn't include: even after McDonald's & Burger King, et al., agreed to the penny a pound, they refused to pay the workers till enough other corporations agreed to the deal. Instead, they put their penny a pound in escrow. How to you think a farmworker spends a penny that's in escrow? Then the corporate creeps, who were still not releasing the money to farmworkers, put up signs in their "restaurants" saying they had to raise their prices because they had to pay so much more for tomatoes as a result of farmworker pressure!

Karen Garcia: Save the Desert Tortoise! ... Website! ... from Joe Biden!

Right Wing World *

Oh, if you live in the Tampa-St. Pete area, you could send the kids to Tea Party summer camp. Warning: they promise they are not "politically correct."

Tea Leaves. David Drucker of Roll Call: Republicans in Congress ponder the effects -- on themselves, of course -- of the sudden rise of Michele Bachmann's star after her good showing in Monday's Republican debate. They can't decide whether to cheer because she's not around to cause problems or worry because her popularity will shine a light on the Tea Party's failure to bring down the government.

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post does a pretty good job of debunking a Republican argument you're going to hear throughout campaign season, and which both Romney & to a worser (a good enough word, as applied here) extent, Bachmann used in Monday's debate. Romney: "Obamacare takes $500 billion out of Medicare and funds Obamacare." Kessler's answer is complicated, but here's a two-part shorthand answer you can use to counter Republican parrots: (1) The savings come from cutting payments to healthcare providers, not from cutting Medicare benefits -- that is, they don't cut Medicare benefits; they just make Medicare cheaper. (2) All but four Republican House members & most Republican Senators voted FOR the $500 billion Medicare savings because it's part of the Ryan/Republican Tea Party budget. If the way Obamacare cuts down on Medicare costs is so bad, why did all the Republicans vote for it?

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "The Obama administration argued Wednesday that its nearly three-month-old military involvement in Libya does not require congressional approval because of the supporting role most U.S. forces are playing there, a position that puts it at odds with some Republican leaders and the antiwar wing of its own party. The White House reasoning, included in a 32-page report to Congress, is the administration’s first detailed response to complaints from lawmakers of both parties, who say President Obama has exceeded his authority as commander in chief by waging war in Libya without congressional authorization." You can read the White House rationale here.

Politico: "More than a quarter of the Senate is calling on President Barack Obama to accelerate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan beginning with the planned initial troop reduction next month as part of a 'sizeable and sustained' effort to end the Afghan war. In a letter sent Wednesday, 26 Democrats, one independent, and two Republicans – Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky – ask the president to approve the withdrawal of a significant number of troops in July. Lee and Democrats Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tom Udall of New Mexico were the lead authors of the letter." The Washington Post has a draft copy of the letter with a partial list of the signers.

New York Times: "In the latest sign that the economic recovery may have lost whatever modest oomph it had, more small businesses say that they are planning to shrink their payrolls than say they want to expand them. That is according to a new report released Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business, a trade group that regularly surveys its membership of small businesses across America."

Reuters: "Worried that Congress will not act in time to raise the country's borrowing cap, the Obama administration is enlisting the business community to persuade lawmakers that a default will have dire consequences. Outgoing White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee is set to talk to a slew of business representatives this week...." Also, see Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's remarks below. ...

... Politico: "Robust, strongly felt exchanges marked White House budget talks Tuesday as the focus turned back onto discretionary spending and the huge divide still between House Republicans and the Obama administration’s domestic agenda. 'We’re down to the real tough stuff right now, everybody is in the room… everybody’s still in the game,' Vice President Joe Biden told reporters as he left the Capitol after the more than two hour meeting."

ABC News: "The White House responded Tuesday to House Speaker John Boehner's warning that President Obama will soon be in violation of the War Powers Resolution – three months after the president informed Congress of the start of the mission in Libya – because the White House has failed to answer ;fundamental questions regarding the Libya mission.'" In a statement, Tommy Vietor, NSC spokesman said the White House was "preparing extensive information for the House and Senate that will address a whole host of issues about our ongoing efforts in Libya...."

San Francisco Chronicle: "The Senate refused Tuesday to end $6 billion in ethanol subsidies, defeating an amendment by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that crystallized a larger ideological split within the GOP over whether removing tax subsidies is a tax increase or is a legitimate way to trim the $1.5 trillion federal deficit.... The 40-59 vote split the GOP." CW: but stay tuned. Majority Leader Harry Reid promises another vote soon. It appears many of the Democratic nay votes were motivated by procedural nonsense.

Reuters: "Hundreds of Florida homeowners suffering with tainted Chinese drywall will share $55 million in a deal that also accuses a global drywall maker of lying about the product's safety, according to court documents."

Ben Bernanke, speaking on Tuesday about the necessity to raise the debt ceiling:

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