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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Wednesday
Jun272012

The Commentariat -- June 28, 2012

Here's my column in the New York Times eXaminer. Take the Op-Quiz! The NYTX front page is here.

Ethan Bronner of the New York Times: "Commentators from across the political spectrum have been saying that Justice Scalia, who is the most senior as well as, hands down, the funniest, most acerbic and most politically incorrect of the justices, went too far." ...

... E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post: "Justice Antonin Scalia needs to resign from the Supreme Court.... He really seems to aspire to being a politician -- and that's the problem. So often, Scalia has chosen to ignore the obligation of a Supreme Court justice to be, and appear to be, impartial." ...

... ** Joan Walsh of Salon: Scalia's "brazen partisanship might wake Americans up to the court's increasingly radical political agenda." ...

... Walter Dellinger in Slate: Psst. Nino. This country's states are not sovereign.

... AND the Old Goat Just Made up Stuff. Judge Richard Posner: "... the suggestion that illegal immigrants in Arizona are invading Americans' property, straining their social services, and even placing their lives in jeopardy is sufficiently inflammatory to call for a citation to some reputable source of such hyperbole. Justice Scalia cites nothing to support it." Posner cites some statistics that & assumptions that belie Scalia's argument.

Walter Dellinger on why the Court ruled against the Montana campaign finance case without hearing it: "the court's majority did not want to hear argument on whether in Montana, or anywhere else, independent expenditures can give rise to an appearance of corruption, because the court's conclusion in Citizens United on this point is almost surely wrong. For the majority's point of view, the less said about that, the better.... There is ... no external check on buying offices or other favors from government when money flows through independent committees."

Connor Simpson of the Atlantic: "Attorney General Eric Holder spent the night before his contempt vote mingling with the rest of Congress, including the GOP, at a barbecue for their families on the White House grounds." ...

... President Obama speaks at the barbecue. He seems so relaxed!

... Al Sharpton discusses the upcoming vote on contempt of Congress charges against AG Eric Holder with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), columnist Dana Milbank & writer Katherine Eban, whose 6-month investigation for Fortune revealed that Congressional charges about the "Fast & Furious" incident are fictional (Eban's story, also linked yesterday is here):

... Ryan Reilly of TPM: "A day ahead of a vote to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) said his committee is no longer even strongly suspicious that highest ranking law enforcement officer in the country knew that guns 'walked' during the botched ATF operation known as Fast and Furious."

... Jonathan Allen of Politico: "The Congressional Black Caucus plans to walk off the House floor during [today]'s votes to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress, according to a letter being circulated among members of Congress." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

Illustration for Rolling Stone by Victor Juhasz."The Scam Wall Street Learned from the Mafia." Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone: "... three Wall Street wiseguys spent the past decade taking part in a breathtakingly broad scheme to skim billions of dollars from the coffers of cities and small towns across America. The [big] banks achieved this gigantic rip-off by secretly colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, a business worth $3.7 trillion. By conspiring to lower the interest rates that towns earn on these investments, the banks systematically stole from schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes -- from 'virtually every state, district and territory in the United States,' according to one settlement. And they did it so cleverly that the victims never even knew they were being ­cheated." When they were caught, the banks accepted fines, but government entities go "right on handing [them] billions of dollars in public contracts."

Making The Da Vinci Code a Reality. Adele Stan of AlterNet: "The pope's new PR strategist not only hails from Fox News; he belongs to the secretive Opus Dei society and lives in an all-male house cleaned by women members." Stan looks at the little distractions Greg Burke is supposed to cover up put in a favorable light.

Julian Borger of the Guardian: "A landmark case brought by a former United Nations employee against the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has cast light on what activists describe as a pervasive culture of impunity in an organisation where whistleblowers are given minimal protection from reprisals. James Wasserstrom, a veteran American diplomat, was sacked and then detained by UN police, who ransacked his flat, searched his car and put his picture on a wanted poster after he raised suspicions in 2007 about corruption in the senior ranks of the UN mission in Kosovo (Unmik)."

Local News

"War on Voting." Julian Brookes in Rolling Stone: "[Wednesday] This afternoon, the New Hampshire Legislature successfully overrode Gov. John Lynch's [D] veto of a voter ID law requiring voters to present driver's licenses, state-issued non-driver's identification cards, passports or military IDs before casting a ballot, though it doesn't come fully into force until after the November election. In Michigan, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder looks likely any day now to sign a bill requiring volunteers to attend state-approved training sessions before they can register voters.... The bill makes no provision for training sessions! Not only that, but volunteers have to have to sign an affidavit making them liable for registration offenses -- offenses that aren't specified! The bill is basically a copy a Florida law, parts of which a federal judge shot down in May, saying they had 'no purpose other than to discourage' voting."

As Marvin Schwalb said in commentary here some while back, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) numbers don't add up. But as Kate Zernike of the New York Times reports, Christie is doubling down on his fantasy numbers. He "derided the director of the nonpartisan office who downgraded the revenue estimates as a partisan hack, a 'Dr. Kevorkian of the numbers.' ... He promises to flog Democrats 'all long, hot summer' in town-hall-style meetings.... At a town-hall event on Tuesday..., Mr. Christie referred to [Paul Sarlo, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee,] with a profanity.” CW: Christie called Sarlo "an arrogant S.O.B." Video here.

News Ledes

Guardian: "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been served with a police letter saying he has to present himself to a London police station on Friday. Assange has been seeking political asylum inside Ecuador's embassy in London since last week as he tries to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about alleged sex offences."

Contemptible Contempt. Washington Post: "The House of Representatives voted Thursday to make Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. the first sitting attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress for withholding documents requested as part of a congressional investigation into a botched gun-running operation. On a vote of 255 to 67, the Republican-led House successfully sanctioned Holder for failing to cooperate with an ongoing probe into Operation 'Fast and Furious' ... On a separate vote, lawmakers voted 258 to 95 to approve a civil contempt charge against Holder." ...

... Washington Post: "The House plans to vote Thursday on whether Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. should become the first sitting attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress for withholding documents requested as part of a congressional investigation into Operation 'Fast and Furious.'"

For News Ledes related to the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act, see the next entry forward -- "ObamaCare."

Murdoch Steps Aside. From the Guardian liveblog: "The surprise in News Corp's announcement is that Rupert Murdoch will, for the first time in 60 years, not directly run the company's global stable of newspapers. He will be chairman of the new publishing business, but that is likely to be seen as a ceremonial role compared with his close involvement with his newspapers in the past."

Savvy Businessmen, My Ass. New York Times: "Losses on JPMorgan Chase's bungled trade could total as much as $9 billion, far exceeding earlier public estimates, according to people who have been briefed on the situation."

New York Times: "Some 26,000 people were forced to evacuate late Tuesday when the Waldo Canyon [Colorado Springs, Colorado] fire, as the blaze is known, exploded without warning -- just a day after officials reported making progress on it.... President Obama planned to survey the damage on Friday." The Denver Post front page currently links to numerous stories on the fires.

New York Times: "Overcoming lingering historical animosities with its former colonial master, South Korea said on Thursday that it would sign a treaty with Japan that would encourage the sharing of sensitive military data on their common concerns: North Korea's nuclear and missile threats and China's growing military expansion in the region."

Reuters: "Apple Inc's suppliers in China have violated local labor laws when they imposed excessive overtime and skimped on insurance, a New York-based labor rights group, [China Labor Watch,] said."

New York Times: "On Friday, Peter Madoff -- more than three years after his brother, Bernard, confessed to running a vast Ponzi scheme that swindled investors out of billions of dollars -- is expected to appear in Federal District Court in Manhattan and plead guilty to criminal charges, according to prosecutors."

Comment2 Comments

Reader Comments (2)

It seems that Scott Brown, that playboy cover darling who hoodwinked the majority of Mass. to vote him into the senate, has been going around town saying in all his speeches how busy he is every day, it's just one thing after another like "I have secret meetings with kings and queens and prime ministers." Huh? finally someone said, but zeroed in on "secret." Oh, well, his campaign people said, Scott didn't really mean secret, he meant to say foreign. Silence. Then someone else who was actually listening asked about all those kings and queens and foreign ministers? Oh, well, his band of brothers came back with, "Sen. Brown misspoke about kings and queens." Yes, but what about all those prime ministers? There are videos––four of them where Scott is delighting the crowd with his fairy tales and one radio interview. Such a busy guy . Elizabeth Warren is being a patient spider just waiting to nab him in her net when they finally have debates.

Another little gem: Saw on the TEEVEE an ad for a Christian Dating service called "Christian Mingle"––"Find God's match for you."

Now two pieces of info one could ponder while waiting for the Supreme's final solution––can I say that?

June 28, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Re: Checkmate. PD; I saw the same teevee ad while watching with my live-in partner and asked her what she was going to do once God's mate showed up. She said, "Laugh while you can funny man, I heard you're being hooked up with Pandora." I said, "So, you're here already?" Ah, sweet, sweet Lauraine....
If laughter is the worlds best medicine; we should all be really healthy by this afternoon. Go black robed wonders, better than best you're supreme.

June 28, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

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