The Ledes

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Washington Post: “ John Amos, a running back turned actor who appeared in scores of TV shows — including groundbreaking 1970s programs such as the sitcom 'Good Times' and the epic miniseries 'Roots' — and risked his career to protest demeaning portrayals of Black characters, died Aug. 21 in Los Angeles. He was 84.” Amos's New York Times obituary is here.

New York Times: “Pete Rose, one of baseball’s greatest players and most confounding characters, who earned glory as the game’s hit king and shame as a gambler and dissembler, died on Monday. He was 83.”

The Ledes

Monday, September 30, 2024

New York Times: “Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.”

~~~ The New York Times highlights “twelve essential Kristofferson songs.”

The Wires
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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

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.”

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Wednesday
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The Commentariat -- May 14, 2014

Internal links removed.

9-11 Museum Opens Tomorrow

After a decade marked by deep grief, partisan rancor, war, financial boondoggles and inundation from Hurricane Sandy, the National September 11 Memorial Museum at ground zero is finally opening ceremonially on Thursday, with President Obama present, and officially to the public next Wednesday. It delivers a gut-punch experience -- though if ever a new museum had looked, right along, like a disaster in the making, this one did, beginning with its trifurcated identity.

One disaster that actually did occur was the response to the events of 9-11, something that also bears remembering. The sociopaths who took us to war without ever making any effort to go after the real perpetrators, or the individual most responsible (he was later killed by actions taken by a Democratic administration) are still around, living lives of ease while the millions affected by their lies have had their lives ended or destroyed.

Bush's Dog's Brain

One of the major figures responsible for the debacle of the Bush administration that brought us war, death, destruction, economic disaster, and serious loss of standing in the world was Bush's so-called brain. According to Joan Walsh on Salon, he's not looking too brainy these days. Maybe he was actually the brain behind Bush's dog. Rove has been a dirty trickster since the days of Tricky Dick. Rove was one of the slimier dicks, and that's saying a lot when you look at all the other dicks around the big one back then. " Let]s consider what it says about the Republican Party today that Karl Rove, once known as 'Bush]s Brain,' is forced to do his dirty work himself these days. It's seems a demotion, or a variety of devolution, for the lordly impresario of American Crossroads, the man who rose to power to run presidential campaigns, not be their hit man or their ratfucker (that's Donald Segretti's lovely old word for the team of trolls Richard Nixon used to smear and gaslight his enemies)."

But....according to Peter Beinart on the Atlantic site, Rove's sliminess pays off, which, of course, is why he does such repulsive things. The Modern GOP. Models of decorum and honesty.

Mitch and Elaine. Such Nice People

Jason Horowitz in the New York Times submits a puff piece about Mitch McConnell and his wife, former labor secretary, Elaine Chao. Horowitz seems to want us to think that she's a wonderful, inspirational person but she comes across as more Leona Helmsley than Mother Theresa.

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog is not impressed. " Apart from that blocking-everything-they-want thing, McConnell and Chao are just fine with people who aren't right-wing."

One Reason and One Reason Only

Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns, and Money, reminds us of why the GOP insists on Voter ID laws. "Iowa Republicans conducted a study trying to show voter fraud, and found essentially no voter fraud of any kind and literally no fraud that would be prevented by Voter ID laws:...in conclusion, here are the reasons why Republicans want to enact Voter ID laws: Vote suppression. That's it."

Science and the GOP. Don't laugh...

Several Reality Chex commenters yesterday submitted their thoughts on politics and science. Seems we were on a similar wavelength to Charlie Pierce who offers a well researched piece reacting to a column by former Bush hack, Michael Gerson, who wonders how anyone could be so willfully stupid when it comes to science. I mean, who does that? "Michael Gerson, the pious former word-'ho for the worst president in history, is still writing columns for Fred Hiatt's Hiring Hall For Unemployables. Today, Michael is confounded by something he apparently just noticed. Watch him write this whole column without once mentioning the word, "Republican." It's dazzling, like watching a guy pull out the tablecloth without disturbing the flatware."

Hillary, Hillary! HILLARY!!...

It didn't take long. Now that Karl Rove has gotten the ball rolling on Hillary Clinton's brain damage, the rest of the clowns are getting in line to see how many of them can pile into the circus car that will be rolling around the big top for the next two years. Dana Milbank informs us that, in case you didn't know it, Hillary is to blame for those girls being kidnapped in Nigeria. Also for global warming. Well, if they actually believed it existed. "Conservatives have reached the firm conclusion that Hillary Clinton is to blame for those Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the terrorist group Boko Haram, 14 months after she left office. All they have to do now is fill in the details."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (7)

Re: Forked tongues; silver spoons and pie holes; "...it was always, for me, an important part not just of my responsibility but my privilege to be a friend of Israel,” she said. Hillary Clinton cited from a speech to the American Jewish Committee forum.
Hate to say it but Hillary is either a lying sack of politician (yea, yea it's a speech to the choir, so?) or Oh, wait there is no "or".
Sorry all to hell, she's scum. How would you react to her quote if you were from the Middle East AND not Jewish? How about, "Thanks for the balance."
I'd like her a whole lot better if she said get the settlements out of Palestine but she can't, can she? And we're worried about the Koch brothers running the country?

May 14, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJJG

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/05/climate-change-will-eat-your-lunch

Faux News says more CO2 is really a good thing. As the above link points out--not so fast, Sparky!

May 14, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

@JJG-
Here is a matter on which I am quite cynical: Politicians and Israel. And particularly the creepy power evidenced by their fealty to AIPAC. Hillary has probably never talked to a Palestinian activist, nor would she waste her time talking to Jimmy Carter about the apartheid in which Palestine is held by Israeli right wingers.

Yeah, I know. We gotta vote for her--but it will be while I am holding my nose and crossing my fingers. LOTE--period. My mantra is as last time: "Supreme Court!"

May 15, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

Rebecca Traister of the New Republic "sort of hopes we find out that Jill Abramson was robbing the cash register"–––trying to explain this singularly humiliating firing from the NYT.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117767/jill-abramsons-firing-was-singularly-humiliating

May 15, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

JJG &Kate: At this point in our country's trajectory it really doesn't matter that Hillary isn't all that we want her to be ( at least she doesn't need the constant stroking her husband needs and gets). If she runs and I expect she will we as Democrats will vote for her even if some of us are holding our noses while we do it. There isn't another contender on our side that will be able to cut the mustard and the few that could haven't thrown their hats into the ring. Kate's singular concentration of the Supremes is crucial and if nothing else it's reason enough.

Re: Carl Rove: His dirty tricks in Texas during the Jim HighTower campaign led to Hightower losing and Rick Perry winning. Before this as we all know Rove orchestrated a vicious campaign against Ann Richards; same against McCain, Max Cleland, and had his dirty little paws in the Swift Boat business and possibly with the Valerie Blame outing. In all these instances there was never an actual paw print left––Rove was a master in deciminating information that appeared to come from other sources. This time with his suggestion that Hillary is a bit brain damaged the media has not been fooled––except on Fox where all the hens are cackling their support.

May 15, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Where's Marie today?

May 15, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterNancy

Re: Marie. I'm sure she's busy. We get so used to RC always being there, we forget she does have a life that doesn't involve us.

May 15, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa
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