The Ledes

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Washington Post: “Towns throughout western North Carolina ... were transformed overnight by ... [Hurricane Helene]. Muddy floodwaters lifted homes from their foundations. Landslides and overflowing rivers severed the only way in and out of small mountain communities. Rescuers said they were struggling to respond to the high number of emergency calls.... The death toll grew throughout the Southeast as the scope of Helene’s devastation came into clearer view. At least 49 people had been killed in five states — Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. By early counts, South Carolina suffered the greatest loss of life, registering at least 19 deaths.”

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The Ledes

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.

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.”

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.'”

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Monday
Jan162012

The Commentariat -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

President Obama speaks to volunteers today:

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "Springtime for Vultures -- Ross Douthat on the Benefits of Creative Destruction." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute to the online journal here. ...

... CW: Writing on another topic, but still backing up my riposte to Douthat, Paul Krugman writes, "... the bulk of a consumer dollar spent in America falls on American-produced goods and services. For one thing, most consumer spending is on services, few of which are really tradable. For another, even if the thing you buy in WalMart says 'Made in China', the price includes a lot of US value-added in the form of transportation and retailing costs."

Oh, and the Commentariat is open for comments.... Thanks to Haley Simon & Kate Madison for the "Atta Girls" in yesterday's comments!

Paul Krugman: "When we observe Martin Luther King’s Birthday, we have something very real to celebrate: the civil rights movement was one of America’s finest hours, and it made us a nation truer to its own ideals. Yet if King could see America now, I believe that he would be disappointed, and feel that his work was nowhere near done.... King — who was campaigning for higher wages when he was assassinated — would surely have considered soaring inequality an evil to be opposed.... The chances that someone born into a low-income family will end up with high income, or vice versa, are significantly lower here than in Canada or Europe. And there’s every reason to believe that our low economic mobility has a lot to do with our high level of income inequality.... Mitt Romney says that we should discuss income inequality, if at all, only in 'quiet rooms.' There was a time when people said the same thing about racial inequality. Luckily, however, there were people like Martin Luther King who refused to stay quiet." ...

Rick Hertzberg: Martin Luther King, Jr. -- a "drum major for justice"? Nope. Hertzberg suggests the Naitional Parks Service carve the Web address for King's full speech into what he and I agree is an "unfortunate" monument "unequal to" King on the National Mall. That Web address -- and the speech, of course, is here.

... Stephen Tuck, who is British, in a New York Times op-ed on the influence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., outside the U.S. In the U.S., "I have heard the man who marched for jobs and freedom invoked by all sides of the political spectrum. African-American activists seek to honor his legacy by calling for race-based remedies to combat stubborn racial inequality. Conservatives invoke his color-blind ideology to remove those same race-based remedies."

Andrew Sullivan in Newsweek/Daily Beast on President Obama's long game. Pretty interesting.

Tim Egan: "The Tea Party has proved to be a fraud, betraying the professed ideals from which it sprang.... The Tea Party gang never intended to govern, or — God forbid — compromise. They were birthed by Fox News and right-wing radio, where fact-challenged outrage is the blood that keeps the heart pumping."

Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post: the train to nowhere is going nowhere. President Obama's plans for high-speed rail hit speed bump after speed bump.

Right Wing World

What's the Matter with Kansas? Well, they voted in this guy. Then his fellow Republicans made him Speaker of the state House. I think the Secret Service should pay him a call, preferably while he's in the middle of delivering a speech on the floor of the Kansas state House.

A short, brilliant post by Driftglass: "I personally find it hilarious that the only way for the 75% of the GOP who fucking hate Willard Romney to deny him the nomination would be to act like a pack of evil S!O!C!I!A!L!I!S!T!S and put the interest of the group ahead of the interest of any one individual." Watch the clip.

Post Mortem. Ben Smith of BuzzFeed: Jon "Huntsman's campaign has been, from the beginning, a fantasy driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of his own party.... The party Huntsman imagined -- modernizing, reforming, and youthful -- could still be born."

David Carr of the New York Times on the film "When Mitt Romney Came to Town": "... there is something deeply funny about watching Republicans, who routinely invoke the film industry as an epicenter of all that is wrong with this country, brazenly aping the techniques of Hollywood to influence how primary voters see the front-runner. 'The Republicans fought for as much freedom as possible in campaign spending, but now it looks like they are beginning to eat themselves,' said [producer/director Judd] Apatow. 'I don’t think they anticipated that they would use some of that money to Swift Boat themselves.'”

Jeffrey Frank of the New Yorker on a bit of the history of the modern Republican party: ".... the increasingly angry, suspicious, and divided party of Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and Perry seems ever more immersed in its current orthodoxies. None of the candidates, though, seem the least bit interested in even addressing how they, or their party, might actually govern the 'whole people' of a fractious nation."

Rick Santorum, Earmark King. Michael Luo & Mike McIntire of the New York Times: "A review of some of his earmarks, viewed alongside his political donations, suggests that the river of federal money Mr. Santorum helped direct to Pennsylvania paid off handsomely in the form of campaign cash."

Brett Blackledge & Stephen Braun of the AP: "Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been spending large amounts on airfare as a congressman, flying first class on dozens of taxpayer-funded flights to his home state. The practice conflicts with the image that Paul portrays as the only presidential candidate serious about cutting federal spending."

Ariel Levy of the New Yorker has a new profile of Callista Gingrich, which I haven't yet taken the time to read, but I might.

CW: I hate to promote the Huff Post, but this article by Robert Greenwald is too good to pass on: "Billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch ... released its rankings this week of senators and congressman who tow the Koch line most, and it gave a total of 44 A+s for the 112th Congress. Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party group funded by the Kochs, based its grades on opposition to affordable health care, clean air, alternative energy and net neutrality. Scores were also boosted if the elected official signed the tea party group's anti-revenue pledge.... The five senators who scored 100 percent on the Americans for Prosperity how-can-we-make-the-Kochs-richer test received $187,400 in campaign contributions from the Kochs and their allies. These senators are Ron Johnson (R-WI), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and potential Republican vice presidential nominee Marco Rubio, a freshman from Florida." ...

... AND this from the Koch Boys Gang. Jake Tapper of ABC News: "Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group that promotes lower taxes and fewer regulations for businesses, is unleashing a $6 million ad campaign against President Obama leading up to the State of the Union on January 24, ABC News has learned. The ad contains claims that are not tethered to facts.... The 60-second TV ad seems an attempt to muddy the waters amidst the charges against GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney and his tenure at Bain Capital...."

News Ledes

CW: Oh, I completely missed the fact that there's another GOP presidential debate tonight beginning at 9 pm ET. And, as usual, I'll be completely missing the debate itself. Update: here's the Times liveblog. Here's the WashPo's liveblog.

New York Times: "Reversing himself in what had become an awkward intraparty stalemate for Democrats, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey said Friday that he would no longer block President Obama’s nominee to a federal appeals court."

Despite our nation’s record of progress, and long tradition of extending voting rights – today, a growing number of citizens are worried about the same disparities, divisions, and problems that Dr. King fought throughout his life to address and overcome. -- AG Eric Holder, at an MLK Day event in Columbia, S.C. ...

... Politico: "Attorney General Eric Holder used Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy on the anniversary of the civil rights leader’s birthday Monday to emphasize the Obama administration’s dedication to protecting the American people from discriminatory voting practices.... Holder’s remarks in the Palmetto State come just weeks after the Justice Department blocked the state’s new voter ID law from taking effect, citing an unfair burden on minority voters."

New York Times: "Jon M. Huntsman Jr. will announce Monday that he is ending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsing Mitt Romney, narrowing the field and erasing a challenge to Mr. Romney from the moderate wing of his party." ...

     ... Politico Update: "Jon Huntsman ended his presidential campaign Monday and immediately endorsed Mitt Romney."

New York Times: "Iraqi authorities have detained a few hundred foreign contractors in recent weeks, industry officials say, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty after the American troop withdrawal last month."

New York Times: "The owners of a cruise ship that ran aground and capsized near an Italian island, killing at least six people, on Monday blamed human error by its commander, saying he made an “unapproved, unauthorized maneuver” to divert from its programmed course."

AP: "House and Senate negotiators are drawing on Obama's budget and the work of the defunct congressional supercommittee on deficit reduction to come up with the $160 billion or so needed to continue the tax cut and federal jobless benefits. Both of are set to expire Feb. 29."

AP: "Al-Qaida militants seized full control of a town south of the Yemeni capital on Monday, overrunning army positions, storming the local prison and freeing at least 150 inmates, security officials said. The capture of Radda in Bayda province, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Sanaa, underscores the growing strength of al-Qaida in Yemen as it continues to take advantage of the weakness of a central government struggling to contain nearly a year of massive anti-government protests."

AP: "Pakistan's Supreme Court ramped up the pressure on the nation's beleaguered government Monday, beginning contempt proceedings against the prime minister for failing to carry out its order to reopen a corruption case against the president. The court ordered Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to appear before the bench on Thursday to explain his refusal to reopen the graft investigation, injecting fresh uncertainty into the political crisis threatening to engulf the country."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (9)

Maybe I am too old. I have a memory that goes back before the 'civil rights era'. I somehow disagree with Krugman's comment 'the civil rights movement was one of America's finest hours'. I am not proud of the fact that it only took about 180 years of democracy to make discrimination illegal. And that happened at the federal level. If it was up to individual states it would still be illegal for blacks to pee in 'white' toilets in much of America. Yes, the super exceptional democracy finally got it right in the law but that is not the same as getting it right in everyday life. And now we have the perfect target to remind us of who we still are. A person with genes from a white mother and a black father who was brought up in a white household with white family but whose skin color is all we consider. Obama is black. Period. And Obama could not have been born in 24 states because interracial marriage was a crime.
So yes we have moved up the scale in law but not so much in reality. Sorry, I am not proud to be an American today.

January 16, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

@Marvin Schwalb. Worse yet, the GOP used the civil rights movement to foster the political ends of the rich -- the conservative movement gained momentum precisely because they could get the votes via Nixon's Southern strategy -- which the GOP is still using today with its Dog Whistles for White People stunts.

But I would give a shout-out today to white men, primarily, in my father's generation and the one before his. These guys -- like Lyndon Johnson & Hubert Humphrey & the old white guys on the Supreme Court & lower courts -- were the ones who finally said "Enough is enough." It's true that black lawyers like Thurgood Marshall & black activists like King did all the work, but those old white guys had the guts to go against our long and shameful heritage & sign the papers Marshall, et al., prepared & handed them on silver platters. It all seems obvious today, but it didn't then. Those old white dudes had the empathy to put themselves in someone else's shoes and the courage to follow the Golden Rule when they could have kept on keepin' on the way those before them did.

January 16, 2012 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

@Marie, Caro's third book on LBJ is due out this spring. I respectfully withold final judgement on LBJ until I get my hands on that long awaited book.

January 16, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterHaley Simon

@ Haley Simon: while JFK was twiddling his thumbs on enforcing court desegregation orders, LBJ went to Gettysburg -- on the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg address -- and delivered this one. Here's a piece of it, but the whole speech is a remarkable declaration, for its time:

"In this hour, it is not our respective races which are at stake -- it is our nation. Let those who care for their country come forward, North and South, white and Negro, to lead the way through this moment of challenge and decision.

"The Negro says, 'Now.' Others say, 'Never.' The voice of responsible Americans -- the voice of those who died here and the great man who spoke here -- their voices say, 'Together.' There is no other way.

"Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact. To the extent that the proclamation of emancipation is not fulfilled in fact, to that extent we shall have fallen short of assuring freedom to the free."

Marie

January 16, 2012 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

@Marie You know what's scary? I was married, pregnant, and not doing drugs when he made that speech and I (forgive the caps) HAVE NO RECOLLECTION of that (terrific) speech. I'm of an age where I am not expected to remember what I had for lunch, but what's my excuse for the large gaps of our recent history?
I wonder... do you remember that because you looked it up on this magic machine or because it is a recalled memory?

January 16, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterHaley Simon

Liars, damn liars, and the Wall Street Journal editors:
"The editorial implies that President Obama is repeating LBJ's Great Society by building up giant welfare and regulatory programs reflected in the "boom" of federal employment... No, the increase in employment is mainly in national-security-related employment: the military, homeland security, and justice (including prisons, FBI, drug enforcement, and the like)... If we parse the increase of 225,000 federal jobs between 2008 and 2011, three-fourths came in the Defense Department (+84,000), Homeland Security (+28,000), Justice (+13,000), and Veteran's Affairs (+45,000)." --from Jeffrey Sachs, HuffPost
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/how-the-wall-street-journ_b_1206349.html?ref=tw

January 16, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterTrish Ramey, Louisville, KY

I know exactly what I was doing May 30, 1963. It was the end of my freshman year & I was studying my heart out for finals. I had absolutely no knowledge of what was going on in the news.

I found this speech on the magic machine several years ago when I was embroiled in an argument with a famous journalist (who shall remain nameless) about LBJ's conflicted views about the civil rights movement. The famous journalist argued that LBJ was a foot-dragger like Kennedy. I cited the Gettysburg speech & of course won the argument. I am indebted to Mr. Google.

January 16, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterMarie Burns

I was a New England yankee and it was 1962. I was a sophomore in college and I remember visiting a friend in Georgia. I was shocked when I saw two drinking fountains side by side, one labelled White and the other Black. Such an incredible change in such a short half century. I remember the bus ride back and being amazed at what I had seen. I got a headache from the cigarette smoke from the person seated beside me. That also has changed. Changes can be good.

January 16, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterTom Lovely

Here was this bottom rung, small time , ignorant, under educated
crook running around the world on a false passport and no means of financial support.
We went to great lengths to keep from finding out who was protecting him and financing him.
There must have been some really powerful people involved. Dr. MartinLuther King was hated by a large segment of the population.

January 16, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterCarlyle
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