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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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Sunday
May012011

The Commentariat -- May 2

Sen. Mark Warner brings a buzzer to meetings of the 'Gang of Six' senators who are working to craft a grand deficit-cutting deal. If talks get too tense, Mr. Warner, a Virginia Democrat, hits the button, which intones: 'Bullshit detected. Take precautions.' -- Wall Street Journal ...

... The paragraph above opens a disconcerting WSJ article by Naftali Bendavid & Damian Paletta, which informs us that the Gang of Six is still working on what is surely to be a horrible budget compromise. I hope there's enough bullshit being spewed to break up that old gang of special interest advocates. The budget they should be working from is the Congressional Progressive Caucus proposal. But, needless to say, they aren't.

Paul Krugman: Republicans ran hard against the bank bailout -- pretending it was Obama's idea, not Henry Paulson's -- and now they're planning to dismantle all the regulations that might prevent another crisis -- and another bailout. I've put up a comments page for Krugman on Off Times Square and have posted my comment on his column. Update: Karen Garcia has posted her comment also.

Robert Reich: "That’s the proposal emerging in the Senate from Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee and also Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri. It would get the deficit down not by raising taxes on the rich but by capping federal spending.... According to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the McCaskill/Corker plan would require $800 billion of cuts in 2022 alone. That’s the equivalent of eliminating Medicare entirely, or the entire Department of Defense." It's still a pig.

E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post: "Those who would use the debt limit as a way of reducing spending risk increasing the deficit by forcing our debt-service costs upward. Moreover, conservatives show little actual interest in decreasing the deficit.... What they really care about is reducing government outlays and keeping tax rates on the wealthy low."

Ezra Klein: "Sen. Al Franken introduced the Pay for War Resolution. 'Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us well over a trillion dollars,' he said in a floor speech.... My one qualm with Franken’s approach to this issue is that he frames it almost entirely in terms of fiscal responsibility.... The importance of paying for war — of paying, really, for anything — is that it forces you to make decisions about what is and isn’t worth doing.... But all in all, this is a very worthwhile piece of legislation from a man who has turned out to be a very serious and thoughtful senator."

Rory Carroll of Reuters: "California is putting its reputation as a pioneering environmental heavyweight on the line as it prepares to launch a carbon market in eight months' time.... The idea of capping greenhouse gas emissions and providing cleaner companies with the potential to profit off their success in doing so is not new, but it has never been tried in the United States on this scale."

Robert Parry in TruthOut: "... the 'birther' case became a stand-in for those who saw political benefit in undermining Obama's legitimacy with the American people. By drawing attention to his ethnicity, 'birtherism' became as much a code word for racism as was the states' rights excuse used by white segregationists in the South a half century ago. While some on the American Left seem to have forgotten how extraordinary it was for the United States to elect a talented black politician as president, it does not appear that the right has been so colorblind."

Right Wing World *

Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds. Neera Tanden of The New Republic: "While Republicans initially manufactured lies about [healthcare reform] — anyone remember death panels? — they eventually focused on one provision in the bill that was focused on cutting costs: the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).... Now, more than a year after health care reform passed, Paul Ryan, facing stiff opposition to his plan to end Medicare as we know it, has taken to attacking the IPAB as a way to rebut his critics.... What’s fascinating about the posture of these cosponsors is that it runs into direct conflict to the vote the House took mere days ago on the overall Ryan budget.... So, after all of their complaining about how the IPAB moved too far away from public accountability, they’ve just proposed eliminating all such accountability, insisting instead that private insurance companies know best."

Local News

Wisconsin Gov. Walker's "Starvation Scheme." TruthOut Buzzflash: Gov. Scott Walker wants to "allow a for profit corporation to decide who gets food and who doesn’t. On top of this 20 million dollars will be taken away from Wisconsin in Federal aid for help." Apparently Walker also doesn't care that his proposed plan has a lousy track record. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, privatization of the food stamp program failed in Texas & Ohio; Ohio is still locked in a suit with the private provider who didn't provide. Here's the Journal Sentinel article by Jason Stein. ...

... Gov. Scott Walker is a genuine high school graduate, but he doesn't think much of libraries. Mark Karlin of TruthOut Buzzflash: Walker is planning to cut Wisconsin library funding by $18.5 million in 2012 alone. The cuts come at a particularly bad time, according to Rhonda Putney, President of the state Library Association: "It's not just books and story times and computer access. We're helping people look for jobs and learn computer skills, so they can apply for jobs. That's been a really big focus."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Senator Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts announced Monday that he had asked to conduct his annual training as a member of the state’s Army National Guard this summer in Afghanistan." CW: Scott Brown may have begun his Senate career as an uninformed, gaffe-prone doofus, but he is turning into a darned smart Senator & politician.

AP: "President Barack Obama plans to visit New York City on Thursday to mark the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The White House says Obama will visit ground zero, the site of al-Qaida's attack on the World Trade Center, and meet with the families of those killed nearly 10 years ago."

President & Mrs. Obama hosted a dinner for bipartisan leaders & their spouses. Politico: "President Obama was congratulated by dozens of lawmakers Monday night for authorizing an attack that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The members of Congress, who were eating dinner at the White House, interrupted Obama’s opening remarks with sustained applause as he said, 'Last night, as Americans learned the United States had carried out an operation that resulted in the capture and the death of Osama bin Laden —.” Update: see video under May 3 Commentariat above.

Las Vegas Sun: "Sen. John Ensign apologized Monday to an all but empty Senate chamber for his extramarital affair with a former aide and hoped aloud that his legislative record would speak for him.... Ensign's farewell speech was notable as much for who was not there as for what he said. Not a single colleague came to hear him speak or to pay tribute to his service. The gallery was empty of family members and staffers who often pack its seats for such occasions."

Las Vegas Sun: "Saying the decision on who to elect should rest with the people and not “politically elite' powerbrokers,' Secretary of State Ross Miller announced today that the special election ballot for the 2nd Congressional District will be open to all candidates and not just nominees selected by the state’s political party.... The special election will be Sept. 13 to replace U.S. Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., who will be appointed to the U.S. Senate next month following Sen. John Ensign’s resignation." CW: this means Sharron Angle is in the mix.

AP: The Obama "administration used DNA testing to help confirm that American forces in Pakistan had in fact killed bin Laden, as U.S. officials sought to erase all doubt." ...

... Reuters: "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday cooperation with Pakistan helped lead the United States to the Pakistani compound where Osama bin Laden was found and killed by U.S. special forces." That's about all there is to this article (at 1:20 pm ET), tho it might be fleshed out later.

** New York Times: "Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday, President Obama announced." Here's the AP story. The Washington Post's lead story is here. A new, updated New York Times story includes related WikiLeaks info.

     ... The New York Times' The Lede is following reactions to the killing.

     ... Here's the Al Jazeera story, with video report. Al Jazeera also has a liveblog of developments related to Osama's killing.

Chicago Tribune: "The Boston University center that studies brain injuries to professional athletes says former NFL player Dave Duerson had brain damage when he committed suicide in February. The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the B.U. School of Medicine announced on Monday its findings on its examination of Duerson's brain. The safety who began his NFL career with the Chicago Bears was 50 when he shot himself in the chest." New York Times story here.

Washington Post: "The U.S., British and Italian embassies were attacked and burnt by mobs in the Libyan capital Sunday, hours after a NATO airstrike was reported to have killed one of Moammar Gaddafi’s sons and three of his grandchildren. Britain responded to the attack on its embassy and ambassador’s residence, which were gutted by fire, by expelling Libya’s ambassador to London. The United Nations announced that it had temporarily withdrawn its 12 international staff members from Tripoli and sent them to neighboring Tunisia after a mob entered its compound."

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