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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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Friday
Mar042011

The Commentariat -- March 5

CW: Michael Cooper of the New York Times has a mini-profile/interview of David Koch, who was in Cambridge, Massachusetts yesterday to open a cancer research center at MIT for which he has contributed $100 million to get his name on the building. Oh, and he has/had prostate cancer, so he says he's much more interested in cancer research than in politics, had no idea who Scott Walker was, yadayadayada. My favorite paragraph in an article about a guy who has spent millions in support of candidates who promise to cut government spending on poor & middle-class people & of course on those nasty EPA regulators:

In his speech at the opening ceremony, Mr. Koch warned that government spending cuts could impede cancer research. And he urged donors to fill the gap.

     ... No shit.

It's a pleasure to be with you in San Francisco. But then, I have to confess, it's a pleasure to be anywhere but Washington, D.C. -- a place where so many people are lost in thought because it is such unfamiliar territory. -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates, at an event in September 2010

Thom Shanker of the New York Times: "Even for a particularly outspoken defense secretary, [Robert] Gates has reached a new level of candor.... He sharply criticized members of the House of Representatives this week for spending money on Humvees that the Army did not want instead of buying surveillance systems needed to protect troops. In recent speeches, he has rebuked military leaders for clinging to ancient concepts of war — and by ancient he means before Sept. 11, 2001. And he has cited the painful experiences still unfolding in Afghanistan and Iraq to warn of grave risks if the military again intervenes in the Muslim world, this time in Libya, using tones far more grim than others in the Obama cabinet."

Here are shocking statistics from Michael Greenstone & Adam Looney of the Brookings Institution: "... there has been a sharp decline in employment rates for men, particularly lower-skill men with less than a college degree. Today, only 66 percent of American prime-aged men hold full-time jobs, down from 80 percent in 1970. Further, the reduction in work is greater for the less-educated (79 percent of high-school graduates held a full-time job in 1970 versus 57 percent today.) ... Earnings have not stagnated but have declined sharply. The median wage of the American male has declined by almost $13,000 after accounting for inflation in the four decades since 1969. This is a reduction of 28 percent!"

Fareed Zakaria will host Hans Rosling this Sunday at 8:00 pm ET & PT to discuss world economic growth. Late last year, we ran Rosling's compelling four-minute video on the same subject: Here's a preview of the CNN show:

     ... You can see Rosling's BBC video here on YouTube.

Thursday, President Obama talked to the crew of Discovery aboard the International Space Station. Includes a joke:

     ... Here's a related story from space.com.

Local News

"Wisconsin Wobblies." Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal: "... three Republican state senators may defect on the collective-bargaining reform vote.... Democrats remain in exile to prevent the necessary quorum. But Republicans in the Senate hold a 19-14 majority, so GOP Gov. Scott Walker can afford to lose no more than two Republican senators on this pivotal vote. On Wednesday, Republicans held a 'unity' press conference that was attended by all but one senator, Dale Schultz. But a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showing that 62% of respondents oppose curtailing collective-bargaining rights for public-sector workers ... suggests that the GOP position may be losing some support among independent voters. Meanwhile, the unions have turned up the heat by launching recall efforts against at least five of the GOP senators."

Welcome to Louisiana, 1935. Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "A 78-year-old Louisiana state prisoner was surgically castrated this week at a hospital in Baton Rouge as part of a plea deal in a child molestation case.... [Francis Phillip] Tullier was back in prison recuperating and was scheduled to leave prison next week. He will be registered as a child sexual predator. In 2008, Gov. Bobby Jindal signed a bill authorizing judges to order chemical or surgical castration on the first offense of certain sexual crimes, and mandating it on the second offense, but so far there is no record of such a sentence being handed down under the new law...."

Jon Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun: "In one of the most brazen schemes in Nevada history, gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid’s campaign formed 91 shell political action committees that were used to funnel three quarters of a million dollars into his campaign, circumventing contribution limits and violating at least the spirit – and maybe the letter – of the laws governing elections. Reid, who was fully aware of what was done, essentially received more than $750,000 from one PAC – 75 times the legal limit -- after his team created dozens of smaller PACS that had no other purpose other than to serve as conduits from a larger entity that the candidate funded by asking large donors for money." Reid, a Democrat, is Sen. Harry Reid's son. He lost the election.

News Ledes

AP: "Alberto Granado, who accompanied Ernesto 'Che' Guevara on a 1952 journey of discovery across Latin America that was immortalized in Guevara's memoir and on-screen in 'The Motorcycle Diaries,' died in Cuba on Saturday. He was 88." Update: the New York Times has an obituary here.

New York Times: "Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s militia stormed the rebels controlling the town of Zawiyah on Saturday morning in what two residents described as a 'massacre.'” ...

... AP: "Moammar Gadhafi's forces on Saturday broke through rebel lines at [Zawiya,] an opposition-held city that is closest to Tripoli, in a dawn attack that could prove crucial to the regime's defense of the Libyan capital, witnesses said."

... Washington Post: "Massive crowds turned out across the Arab world for a Friday of mostly peaceful protests, although the Iraqi government responded with a forceful crackdown and at least three people were killed in Yemen. In Egypt, the huge crowd that had gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square cheered as the country's newly appointed prime minister [Essam Sharaf] waded into throngs of protesters and asked for their support and help."

St. Petersburg Times: "After the state Supreme Court ruled in his favor and the federal government begrudgingly accepted his refusal, Gov. Rick Scott emerged victorious Friday in his effort to kill high-speed rail in Florida. The death knell came when the court turned down a last-minute lawsuit from two state senators to save the Tampa-Orlando line and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced he would send $2.4 billion earmarked for Florida to other states."

New York Times: "House Republicans quietly moved Friday to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that bans federal recognition of same-sex marriages, saying they would step in to argue for the measure’s constitutionality after the Obama administration’s decision to stop defending it."

AP: "The United States is increasing pressure on Sri Lanka to investigate the deaths of thousands of civilians at the end of its civil war. Rights groups contend a Sri Lankan government commission has demonstrated no intent of doing it."

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