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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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Tuesday
Mar012011

The Commentariat -- March 2

Jason Linkins has a terrific piece on the "error-ridden" reporting of young Arthur G. Sulzberger, the family scion & cub reporter at the New York Times. Although the Times had a real labor reporter -- Steven Greenhouse -- in Wisconsin, they sent young A.G. to do a story on reactions to the union protests, wherein A.G. quoted "Rich Hahan..., a union man from a union town" who said he opposed public sector unions "because of what he sees as lavish benefits and endless negotiations...." Trouble is, Hahan -- whose name is actually spelled "Hahn" (but who care about details?) has never been a member of a union. Whoops! Wisconsin Gov. Scott "I don't normally tell people to read the New York Times" Walker liked the story so much he boasted about it to Fake Koch. And, BTW, when Li'l A.G. reported on Walker's prank call, also of course, in the aforesaid NYT, he did not bother to mention that Walker was citing a phony story that he himself -- A.G., that is -- had written. The Times did print a bland correction to the original story (nothing on Sulzberger's story about the prank call, as far as I know), but of course, who the fuck reads corrections?

"Where's Obama?" Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "... Barack Obama can be a strangely passive president. There are a startling number of occasions in which the president has been missing in action -- unwilling, reluctant or late to weigh in on the issue of the moment. He is, too often, more reactive than inspirational, more cautious than forceful.... He didn't want to get mired in legislative details during the health-care debate.... He doesn't want to go first on proposing entitlement reform.... He didn't want to say anything too tough about Libya.... He didn't want to weigh in on the labor battle in Wisconsin.... Where ... is the president on the verge of a potential government shutdown...?" Marcus, BTW, describes herself as "someone who generally shares the president's ideological perspective...."

Issa Gets Results. Fast. New York Times: "Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, dismissed his chief spokesman, Kurt Bardella, on Tuesday after concluding that Mr. Bardella had secretly and regularly shared e-mail exchanges he had with journalists with a reporter for The New York Times writing a book about Washington’s political culture." See yesterday's Commentariat for the backstory. ...

... Keach Hagey of Politico: "... a debate played across the media and on Twitter between those who were shocked at Bardella’s behavior and those who saw it as business-as-usual in Washington’s backstabbing, gossip-obsessed political culture."

CW: I didn't link to David Brooks' column yesterday (a) because I never do, unless it's to post one of my Times-discarded comments, & (b) because Brooks never says anything worthwhile. BUT Driftglass gives Brooks his due, with a little help from Gemli & me. P.S. Gemli, if you read this, write to me! ...

David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "There is no good case that government pay is a major cause of the budget problems now facing states.... The real problem with most union contracts for public workers is not the money — it’s almost everything else." Leonhardt blames government leaders for kicking the can down the road by way of deferred payments; i.e., pensions. He faults health insurance plans with low or no co-pay. And he blames unions for government workers' "sub-par performance"; they protect their worst workers. ...

... Bold Progressives is running this ad in support of Wisconsin's public unions. You can chip in here to help pay for air time:

Bill Keller, in a New York Times Magazine preview, writes that dictators about to be deposed could learn how to go gracefully from the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev & South Africa's F. W. de Klerk. Nonetheless, coming from Keller, who is the executive editor of the Times, a remark like this seems laughable:

The regimes that have sent their thugs against the press and tried to unplug the Internet are right to fear the media.

The U.S. "regime" has little to fear from the New York Times, which is always playing Lapdog for Access. Their hypocrisy in the WikiLeaks tapes is classic: the Times published the cables only after State Department approval. When the editors & reporters had had their way with Julian Assange, they dissed him in a long "profile," of which Keller was one of the authors. In an even more recent affront to journalism, the Times went along with the State Department charade that CIA operative & former Blackwater operative Raymond Davis, accused of shooting dead two men in Pakistan, was a U.S. diplomat entitled to diplomatic immunity. Not only did the Times knowingly misinform their readers, they trotted out their ombudsman/public editor Arthur Brisbane to "defend" them. "Fear the media"? Well, maybe the alternative media, but not the Times. -- Constant Weader

Right Wing World -- the Presidential Candidate Edition

Big Far Liar No. 2:

We have people pull up at the pharmacy window in a BMW and say they can't afford their co-payment. -- Gov. Haley Barbour,  (R-Miss.), on Medicaid recipients ...

... Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post's fact-checker, gives this one Four Pinocchios, the worst rating. Kessler could find no evidence of Barbour's claim. Plus, in a House hearing Tuesday, "Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-Ill.) asked Barbour about the BMW statement, but two witnesses said he did not provide an explanation.... The failure of Barbour's aides to provide any documentation for this claim is rather suspicious."

Big Fat Liar No. 1:

Mau-Mau Revolution. Eric Hananoki of Media Matters: "During a radio appearance [Monday], Mike Huckabee repeatedly falsely claimed that President Obama grew up in Kenya.... Huckabee [is] a Fox News host and potential presidential candidate.... Contrary to Huckabee's claims, Obama did not grow up in Kenya. Obama spends significant portions of his book Dreams From My Father describing his first visit to Kenya in the late 1980s." Listen to the whole tape & read the transcript at the link. CW: here's part of Huck's "analysis":

... his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British are a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.

... So then, Huckabee's spokesman Hogan Gidley tells Ben Smith:

Governor Huckabee simply misspoke when he alluded to President Obama growing up in ‘Kenya.’ The Governor meant to say the President grew up in Indonesia.

... So then Andrew Sullivan asks,

Well, how do you get a view of the Mau Mau revolution in Indonesia? So I don't buy the mis-spoke explanation. And Obama did not 'grow up with' a Kenyan father and grandfather. Huckabee always seems a pleasant fellow. But then you hear him on gays or on Israel/Palestine or on this kind of issue, and you realize just how extreme this affable man actually is.

... "Huckabee Knows Less than Nothing." Lawrence O'Donnell weighs in:


Not Presidential, but Foxidental. Digby digs up a Bill O'Reilly clip of the "violent Wisconsin protests." In the clip above by Bold Progressive, you'll notice the "violent Wisconsin protesters" are protesting in the snow & are dressed for the weather. But in O'Reilly's clip, the "violent Wisconsin protesters" are protesting in shirtsleeves & there are palm trees in the background. It's a Fucking Fox Miracle: 

But, hey, Fox "News" has ethics, all right! Brian Stelter of the New York Times: "The Fox News Channel said Wednesday that it had suspended the contracts of two employees, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who are considering running for president.... Three other possible Republican candidates for president — Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and John Bolton — are also employed by Fox, an arrangement that other television executives say is unprecedented." Video:

News Ledes

AP: "In an early victory for Republicans, the Democratic Senate is voting to send President Barack Obama a GOP-drafted measure that cuts $4 billion in spending as the price for keeping the government open for an additional two weeks."

AP: "The bargaining rights of public workers in Ohio would be dramatically reduced and strikes would be banned under a bill narrowly passed by the Ohio Senate on Wednesday. The GOP-backed measure that would restrict the collective bargaining rights of roughly 350,000 teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees squeaked through the state Senate on a 17-16 vote. Six Republicans sided with Democrats against the measure."

Wisconsin State Journal: State "Senate Republicans ... voted to impose a $100 per day fee for any senator who is absent without leave for two or more session days. Republicans remaining in the Senate approved the daily fine resolution with none of the Democrats present." ...

... Huffington Post: "The Wisconsin Democratic Party has launched a fundraising campaign to recall state Senate Republicans who have supported the budget bill by Gov. Scott Walker (R) that would strip collective bargaining rights from the state's public employee unions."

New York Times: "The First Amendment protects hateful protests at military funerals, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in an 8-1 decision." You can read Chief Justice Roberts' majority ruling, Justice Breyer's concurring opinion & Justice Alito's dissent here (pdf).

AP: "Rebel forces routed troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi in a fierce battle over an oil port Wednesday, scrambling over the dunes of a Mediterranean beach through shelling and an airstrike to corner their attackers. While they thwarted the regime's first counteroffensive in eastern Libya, opposition leaders still pleaded for outside airstrikes to help them oust the longtime leader." ...

... Washington Post: "Some [Libyan] opposition leaders are calling for international military intervention to help topple Gaddafi, saying they believe that people power alone may not be enough to dislodge the dictator from his last remaining strongholds. The leaders say they do not want ground forces, but are increasingly coming round to the view that help in the form of a no fly zone, as well as supplies of weaponry and air strikes will be necessary if Gaddafi is to fall."

Washington Post: Shahbaz Bhatti, "Pakistan's federal minorities minister, a Christian, was gunned down in this capital city Wednesday in the second killing this year of a senior government official who had spoken out against the nation's stringent blasphemy laws."

Bloomberg: "Employment increased by 217,000 last month after a revised 189,000 gain in January, according to figures from ADP Employer Services. The median estimate in the Bloomberg News survey called for a 180,000 gain last month."

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