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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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Monday
Mar072011

The Commentariat -- March 8

More James O'Keefe Shenanigans. Michael Calderone of Yahoo News: "Former NPR executive Ron Schiller slams Republicans and the tea party movement and suggests that NPR would be better off without any federal funding in a hidden-camera video released Tuesday by conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe. Schiller, president of the NPR Foundation ... until just last week, appears on the tape at Georgetown's Café Milano with NPR director of institutional giving Betsy Liley and two men posing as executives from a fake Islamic organization considering a $5 million donation to the network.... 'We are appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for," said NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm in a statement." Includes O'Keefe's video. CW: frankly, Schiller got it mostly right.

David Sanger & Thom Shanker of the New York Times: "Nearly three weeks after Libya erupted in what may now turn into a protracted civil war, the politics of military intervention to speed the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi grow more complicated by the day — for both the White House and Republicans."

Bush III. Dana Milbank: "Not only had [President Obama] revoked his pledge to close Gitmo within a year, but he also had contradicted his claim that a detention policy 'can't be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone.' His executive order did exactly what he said must not be done, in a style favored by his predecessor in the Oval Office."

** Nancy Gibbs of Time: "... the GOP spending bill does not only cut Planned Parenthood; it kills Title X, the 1970 law that provides family planning for nearly 5 million women every year at more than 4,600 health centers. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that for every dollar invested in Title X — specifically for contraceptive care — taxpayers save a little under $4 in Medicaid costs for mother and baby just in the first year. Title X prevents about a million unintended pregnancies annually, of which about half would likely end in abortion. Consistency is the true test of conviction; anything less is just prejudice dressed up as principle. If pro-life lawmakers kill Title X, they need to accept either the risk of increasing the abortion rate or the cost of growing numbers of children born to poor parents. Their plan also cuts money for prenatal care and slices $750 million for nutrition for mothers and infants."

Walter Shapiro in Politics Daily: "After ignoring the deficit for almost a decade, the new orthodoxy is that Medicare and Social Security must be revamped immediately because 2075 is getting closer every day. With a series of artificial deadlines coming up (March 18 for funding the government and sometime later this spring for raising the statutory debt ceiling), congressional Republicans and the Obama White House are giving lip service to fantasies about long-term fixes. Even if it would not jeopardize the fragile recovery, this is the wrong medicine at the wrong time."

The New York Times Editorial Board: "On Thursday, Representative Peter King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is scheduled to open a series of hearings that seem designed to stoke fear against American Muslims. His refusal to tone down the provocation despite widespread opposition suggests that he is far more interested in exploiting ethnic misunderstanding than in trying to heal it." ...

... Jonathan Allen & Jake Sherman of Politico: "The top two House Republican leaders are divided over how to handle the bubbling controversy surrounding Homeland Security Chairman Peter King’s hearing into “radicalization” in the American Muslim community. Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the highest-ranking Jewish member of Congress, is squarely behind King.... 'Chairman King is chairman of the Homeland Security Committee' is all [Speaker John] Boehner spokesman Michael Steel would say when asked about the controversy. [Majority Whip Kevin] McCarthy’s office declined to comment." ...

... Bob Herbert says of the King hearings, "America should be better than this. We’ve had all the requisite lessons: Joe McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the demonization of blacks and Jews, the internment of Japanese-Americans, and on and on and on. It’s such a tired and ugly refrain." ...

... Karen Garcia sees King's hearings as part of the Republican scare tactics designed to defeat President Obama in 2012. (He is a Muslim, you know.) Garcia thinks if President Obama quit playing by Republican rules and showed he was a Democrat by going to Wisconsin to stand with the unions, the press wouldn't have time to concentrate on King's little melodrama. ...

... Gene Robinson: "King seems untroubled that the freedoms of religion and association are guaranteed by the Constitution. His public exercise in Islamophobia ... can do no good -- and much harm."

Even the UK is noticing King. You can vote here in the Guardian on whether you think King's hearings are legitimate or "a fear-mongering witchhunt." At the time I voted, 69.3% went with witchhunt.

Goldman Sachs-Government Partnership (Is Not What You're Thinking). Jia Lin Yang of the Washington Post: "To give women [in developing countries] a boost, Goldman Sachs and the State Department are teaming up to offer classes on the basics of business management to help these women drive economic growth in their communities. The partnership, which will be announced Tuesday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Goldman's chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, augments an existing program run by Goldman's charitable arm that has so far educated more than 3,500 women in more than 20 countries, including Afghanistan, Rwanda and China."

President Obama & Prime Minister Gillard visit Wakefield High in Arlington, Virginia. PM Gillard takes questions from students:

Right Wing World

Clarence Thomas Has a Louis XIV Moment. Jonathan Turley in a Los Angeles Times op-ed: "Thomas appears to have finally merged his own personality with the institution [i.e., the Supreme Court] itself. Thus, any criticism — even criticism that he is harming the court — is an attack on the institution. It is more than an embarrassing conceit; it can be a dangerous delusion for any justice."

"The Enema Man & Snoopy, Snoopy Poop Dogg." Grumpy Grampy Alan Simpson of Catfood Commission fame. Politico has an item here, but the video is priceless:

Local News

Rick Scott Is Not a Constitution-Loving Teabagger. Lizette Alvarez & Gary Fineout of the New York Times: "In his first two months in office, the governor has irritated the [Florida] State Senate’s powerful Budget Committee chairman, [a fellow-Republican,] by selling two state jets without legislative permission, a constitutional no-no.... He annoyed the ambitious Senate president, [also a Republican], as well as a host of leaders in conservative states, by trying to kill off a database to track the fraudulent distribution of addictive prescription drugs before it was up and running. He did so without consulting lawmakers...." ...

It’s necessary at this time, I think — because our governor’s new — to let him know this is not a monarchy. He’s not a king. This is a democracy. -- Arthenia L. Joyner, a Democratic Florida State Senator

News Ledes

CBS News: Rep. Peter King, who will hold hearings beginning Thursday on home-grown Muslim terror threats, has been getting threats of his own & will receive stepped-up security.

President Obama visited a classroom in Boston, Massachusetts, & made remarks this afternoon. New York Times item here. Update: here's the Times' post-visit story.

AP: "Libyan warplanes launched at least five new airstrikes Tuesday near rebel positions in the oil port of Ras Lanouf, keeping up a counteroffensive to prevent the opposition from advancing toward leader Moammar Gadhafi's stronghold in the capital Tripoli." ...

... Washington Post: "The Libyan opposition said an offer -- purportedly from Gaddafi -- had been conveyed to council elders late Monday in the provisional capital of Benghazi. According to an opposition spokesman, the Libyan leader would agree to step down if granted immunity from prosecution and safe passage out of the country. But opposition officials said they were still trying to establish the veracity of the offer, which came from Jadallah Azous al-Talhi, a former minister in Gaddafi's government."

AP: "The U.S. military is too white and too male at the top and needs to change recruiting and promotion policies and lift its ban on women in combat, an independent report for Congress said Monday. Seventy-seven percent of senior officers in the active-duty military are white, while only 8 percent are black, 5 percent are Hispanic and 16 percent are women, the report by an independent panel said, quoting data from September 2008."

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