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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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Page Links
Wednesday
Mar022011

The Commentariat -- March 3

President Obama’s Press Availability with President Calderón & Statement on Libya:

Neil King & Scott Greenberg of the Wall Street Journal: "Less than a quarter of Americans support making significant cuts to Social Security or Medicare to tackle the country's mounting deficit, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.... In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was 'unacceptable'' to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security 'unacceptable.'... Amid the union protests in Wisconsin, the poll found that 62% of Americans oppose efforts to strip unionized government workers of their rights to collectively bargain, even as they want public employees to contribute more money to their retirement and health-care benefits."

Gail Collins: "In honor of Women’s History Month, President Obama ordered up the first report on the status of American women since the one Eleanor Roosevelt prepared for John F. Kennedy. It’s chock full of interesting bits of information." Collins notes that the report findings include the information that women "make an average 80 cents for every $1 that men take home." ...

... That's better than nothing. Karen Garcia takes a look at the Organizing for America internship program -- where interns earn zero & have to pay their own expenses -- & finds that it appears to violate the Department of Labor's "very strict rules about unpaid internships."

Glenn Greenwald. Former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) pledged last year not be become a lobbyist when he retired from the Senate. So naturally, he has just become the most influential lobbyist of them all: head of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Jack Mirkinson of the Huff Post thinks this clip is interesting because Megyn Kelly of Fox "News" gets in an argument with Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) over Justice Clarence Thomas' obligation -- or not -- to recuse himself from hearing cases involved the Affordable Care Act because of his wife's lobbying efforts against the act & the financial support the couple received from anti-healthcare entities. I think it's interesting for the content:

... AND, speaking of Justice Thomas, Roger Shuler, the Legal Schnauzer, reports that, "U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should be disbarred for his failure to truthfully complete financial-disclosure forms over a 20-year period, according to a complaint filed by the watchdog group Protect Our Elections (POE). In a bar complaint filed with the Missouri Supreme Court, POE attorney Kevin Zeese says Thomas committed multiple violations of the Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct." The story includes a copy of the complaint. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...

... What Could Possibly Be Wrong with This? Eric Lipton of the New York Times reports on another Republican husband and wife who are double-teaming to game the system: "Louisiana’s biggest corporate players, many with long agendas before the state government, are restricted in making campaign contributions to Gov. Bobby Jindal. But they can [and do!] give whatever they like to the foundation set up by his wife months after he took office.... [Mrs. Jindal's] foundation has collected nearly $1 million in previously unreported pledges from major oil companies, insurers and other corporations in Louisiana with high-stakes regulatory issues, according to a review by The New York Times.... : A photo of [Gov. Jindal] standing alongside his wife appears on a corporate solicitation page on the foundation Web site, and his chief fund-raiser is listed as the charity’s treasurer on its most recent tax return. A state employee from the governor’s office ... manages the foundation’s books."

Yesterday President Obama presented the 2010 National Medal of Arts & National Humanities Awards. Here's a list of recipients, who include Meryl Streep & Joyce Carol Oates.

Right Wing News

The "Genial" Huck Gets Seriously Racist. Steve Kornacki of Salon: after complaining about the media victimized him for "misspeaking," Huckabee said on a radio show yesterday,

Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.

     (See Right Wing News under yesterday's Commentariat for the backstory.) ...

... In another post, Elliott reports that Huckabee actually wrote about Obama's Mau Mau "connection" in a book titled Simple Government. (Elliott notes that, "Huckabee seems to be throwing around the exotic-sounding term 'Mau Mau' every chance he gets.") After speaking with historian David Anderson about the Brits' brutal suppression of the Mau Maus, Elliott concludes that Huck really has no idea of the history & geography of the Mau Mau Revolution, & the claims in his book about Obama are, in the words of Anderson, "stir-fry crazy."

Constitutional Scholar Sarah Palin attacks the Supreme Court's 8-1 decision in the Westboro Church case. Justin Elliott of Salon parses Palin's understanding of the First Amendment: "... criticism of public figures threatens free speech, but peaceful protests she doesn't like should be banned." ...

... Maybe Palin should have had Adam Serwer of American Prospect explain the ruling to her. He sums up the pages & pages it took Chief Justice Roberts to write the Court's majority opinion:

You don't forfeit your First Amendment rights just by being an asshole. -- Adam Serwer

Local News

This Is a Classic. Brett Dykes of Yahoo News: "A proposed immigration bill in the Texas state House ... would make hiring an 'unauthorized alien' a crime punishable by up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine, unless that is, they are hired to do household chores...."Rep. Debbie Riddle, a tea party favorite who introduced the bill with its glaring loophole, said through a spokesman "that the exemption was an attempt to avoid 'stifling the economic engine' in Texas, which today is, somewhat ironically, celebrating its declaring independence from Mexico in 1836."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The United States has evidence that a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who disappeared in Iran four years ago is alive and being held in the region, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement on Thursday. The former agent, Robert Levinson, who had worked as a private investigator since leaving the F.B.I., disappeared in March 2007 while on a trip to Kish Island, a Persian Gulf resort that is a smuggling hub."

DOJ Gamble Pays Off. New York Times: Roger Vinson, "a federal judge in Florida, stayed his own ruling against the Obama health care law on Thursday, allowing the act to be carried out as the case progresses through the Courts of Appeal and on to the Supreme Court. The judge, making evident his irritation with the Obama administration, sought to speed the process by conditioning the stay on the Justice Department’s pursuit of an expedited appeal, which he ordered filed within seven days."

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Pressure ratcheted up on absent [Wisconsin] Senate Democrats Thursday, as they were found in contempt by GOP senators and Gov. Scott Walker said he will start sending out layoff notices to state unions and workers by the end of Friday if the standoff over his budget-repair bill isn't resolved." ...

... Politico: "The Wisconsin state Senate passed a resolution ordering the 14 Democratic senators who fled the state two weeks ago to return to the Capitol by late Thursday afternoon or face being taken into custody by police."

New York Times: "President Obama demanded Thursday that the embattled Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, 'step down and leave' immediately, and said he would consider a full range of options to stem the bloodshed there, though he did not commit the United States to any direct military action. In his most forceful response to the near-civil war in Libya, Mr. Obama said the United States would consider imposing a 'no-fly zone' over the country — a step his defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, warned a day earlier would carry major risks...." ...

... New York Times: "From the feeble cover of sand dunes, under assault from a warplane overhead and heavy artillery from a hill, rebels in this strategic oil city[of Brega]  repelled an attack by hundreds of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s fighters on Wednesday, but air strikes were reported to have resumed on Thursday." ...

... New York Times: "Libyan authorities loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi have captured three crew members of a Dutch naval helicopter who were rescuing European citizens, last Sunday, the Dutch Defense Ministry said on Thursday, the first report of foreigners being by held in Libya’s bloody and unfolding uprising." ...

... AP: "The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says he will investigate Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and his inner circle, including some of his sons, for possible crimes against humanity in the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters."

Washington Post: "A close ally of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak [-- Ahmed Shafiq --] resigned as the country's prime minister Thursday, an apparent bid to head off demonstrations planned for Friday by activists frustrated with the country's slow pace of reform."

New York Times: "A criminal court agreed on Thursday to delay pressing murder charges against the C.I.A. operative, Raymond L. Davis, ruling that that lawyers for Mr. Davis should have more time to prepare for the case."

New York Times: "Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, is set to confirm his intention to explore a presidential campaign [today] — the first step toward becoming an official candidate for the Republican nomination."

AP: "Women and children fled en masse from a disputed flashpoint town between north and south Sudan after fighting this week killed more than 100 people, officials said Thursday. Abyei has long been seen as the major sticking point between the north and south, which voted to secede in January and is on course to become the world's newest country in July."

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