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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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Page Links
Wednesday
May252011

The Commentariat -- May 26

Gail Collins: "In case you missed it, New York’s 26th Congressional District went blue this week." ...

... I have a Collins comments page up on Off Times Square. Comment on Collins or anything vaguely related to politics. I've posted my comment; Kate Madison & Karen Garcia both wrote terrific -- and funny -- comments. In her comment -- which the Times moderators buried on page 2 -- Garcia refers to the video below, shot earlier today:

I'm glad we won this race in New York, but I hope the Democrats don't use it as an excuse to do nothing on Medicare. -- Bill Clinton to Paul Ryan, find the most effective way possible to stomp all over the Democrats' message du jour

     ... Jonathan Karl of ABC News has more. ...

     ... AND, as Jim Newell of Gawker writes, "It's interesting to hear this from Bill Clinton, whose well-managed stand against Newt Gingrich's (much less severe) Medicare cuts in 1995 helped him save his presidency and win a second term." CW: Hillary in 2012? ...

... PLUS, Your Medicare Picture of the Day, courtesy of Peter Orszag, who -- among his new, private ventures -- has a new column in Bloomberg. He devotes his first column to explaining why the Ryan plan would be bad for future seniors. He doesn't cover a lot of new ground, but he gets his point across with this:

Another Reason to Disbelieve Everything David Brooks Writes. In his never-ending quest to understand human beings with whom he evidently has little actual contact, Brooks posted the results of a study that showed people really liked to cooperate. That might be true, but you couldn't prove it by Brooks. Reader Diane F. did a little research & discovered that the study Brooks cited was funded by a group called the Mercatus Institute: "Check out the board of directors...," Diane writes. "A Koch brother [Charles] and Ed Meese too! I just wanted to tell someone about at least one place where David get his research." CW: The other major non-academic member of the board is John Allison, former BB&T CEO; Allison's other favorite cause: He is a major contributor to the Ayn Rand Institute and assigned Rand's Atlas Shrugged to all of his senior executives, calling the novel "the best defense of capitalism ever written."

Jerry Zremski of The New Republic on "How Kathy Hochul Won." It helped that her main opponent, Republican Jane Corwin is a flat-footed, lying cold-fish multimillionaire.

... The president's problems are in large measure because of the color of his skin. -- Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who has a habit of telling the truth

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "... the Senate on Wednesday rejected the House Republican budget blueprint, a mostly symbolic vote that nonetheless underscores the political peril entailed in the GOP proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher program.... As was the case in the House vote, all Democrats present in the Senate voted against the measure.... The Republicans voting against the plan Wednesday were moderate Sens. Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), as well as conservative freshman Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), who argued that the plan did not go far enough in cutting spending." Here's a more extensive article on the same subject by Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times.

If you want to urge President Obama to reappoint Elizabeth Warren as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief (which he'll have to do as a recess appointment because Republicans will block her confirmation), here's a Progressive Change Campaign Committee petition that makes supporting Warren quick & easy.

Karoun Demirjian of the Las Vegas Sun: "Nevada’s most reliably unpredictable candidate, Sharron Angle, has just taken the surprise move of removing herself from a campaign. Angle was first in, and now the first out, to fill the 2nd Congressional District seat left vacant by Dean Heller when he filled the Senate seat John Ensign resigned this month. She’s doing so, it appears, because of last week’s court decision to let party central committees play a selective role, in lieu of a formal primary process.... The shift would seriously weaken Angle’s chances...."

The Fight over Nothing, Con'd. Peter Schroeder of The Hill: Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-Ga.) and supporters of Elizabeth Warren, who flooded his Facebook page Wednesday, are still arguing about whether or not his staff agreed to allow Warren to leave a House hearing by 2:15 pm ET Tuesday after the committee had rescheduled the hearing at nearly the last minute. CW: The real issue is McHenry's disrespectful, bullying treatment of Warren throughout the hearing, finally devolving into his shouting at her, "You're making that up." McHenry & other Republicans had better learn that Democrats adore Warren & will protect her from attack dogs.

Right Wing World *

We only had part of this tape the other day. The follow-up is priceless. After Georgia Republican Congressman Rob Woodall chides a constituent for failing to take care of herself & asking the government to do it (i.e., accepting Medicare & Social Security), another constituent asks him why he doesn't set an example and give up his government-funded health insurance plan the way he wants his constituents to do. Listen to Woodall's answer:

     ... If you want to know why you should show up at the townhalls these wingers conduct, here's the answer. The woman is this video demonstrates what Americans must do to hold our so-called representatives' feet to the fire. ...

... On that same subject, Jewish Funds for Justice focuses on younger voters whom the Ryan plan will deprive of Medicare:

The president and his party have decided to shamelessly distort and demagogue Medicare. -- Paul Ryan, appearing on "Morning Joe" yesterday.

... Dana Milbank: "He’s right about that. Democrats and, particularly, liberal activists, are engaged in some shameless demagoguery.... And Ryan is well qualified to call out shameless demagoguery and scare tactics: Over the past two years, he has practiced both. Speaking on the House floor in 2009, he said the Democrats’ health-care legislation would 'take coverage away from seniors,' 'raise premiums for families' and 'cost us nearly 5.5 million jobs.' Later, he said the health plan would bring about government 'rationing” of health care.'" And more.

Barack Obama promised that spending 800 billion dollars on a pork-filled stimulus bill would keep unemployment under 8 percent.  He promised that bailouts for well-connected businesses were a good deal for the country. He promised that a federal takeover of health care would keep costs under control. And hard as it is to believe, he even promised the deficit would be cut in half in his first term! — Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, presidential candidacy announcement

Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact-checker: “The paragraph ... struck us as a pretty fair summary of the Republican indictment against President Obama’s reelection.... Pawlenty’s collection of charges against Obama is a pretty weak brew. Many barely hold up to scrutiny. The so-called 'promises' were often not promises made by Obama, while the underlying facts are often exaggerated or in dispute." CW: if the standard "Republican indictment against Obama" is pretty much a series of lies, it would appear that the GOP counts on the American voter to be too uninformed to recognize a lie when s/he hears it. This tack worked against Kerry; will it work again?

... Kessler gives this Web ad by Michelle Bachmann ...

... In other words, it's a bald-faced lie. So what else is new? This is what I mean when I say Obama must confront this crap.

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

Reuters: "Vermont became the first state to lay the groundwork for single-payer health care on Thursday when its governor signed an ambitious bill aimed at establishing universal insurance coverage for all residents."

Los Angeles Times: "The Supreme Court on Thursday gave Arizona and other states more authority to take action against illegal immigrants and the companies that hire them, ruling that employers who knowingly hire illegal workers can lose their license to do business. The 5-3 decision upholds the Legal Arizona Workers Act of 2007 and its so-called business death penalty for employers who are caught repeatedly hiring illegal immigrants."

New York Times: "Ruling that Republicans in the State Senate had violated the state’s open meetings law, a judge in Wisconsin dealt a blow to them and to Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday by granting a permanent injunction striking down a new law curbing collective bargaining rights for many state and local employees."

AP: "A man believed to be Gen. Ratko Mladic, Europe's most wanted war crimes fugitive, has been arrested in Serbia, news media reported Thursday." Update: here's the New York Times story.

The Hill: "A breakthrough in negotiations on renewing the Patriot Act became evident on the Senate floor Wednesday evening when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced that a crucial vote on the legislation will occur at 10 a.m. on Thursday, rather than at 1 a.m. as previously thought.  Senate leadership is racing against the clock, believing the expiration of the current version of the Patriot Act at midnight on Friday would create an upheaval in the law enforcement community."

Washington Post: "The Obama administration is seeking to scale back or eliminate 30 federal regulations in an effort to save American companies billions of dollars in unnecessary costs. The measure, the latest attempt by the administration to burnish its pro-business credentials, will affect workplace safety, environmental protection, endangered species and a number of other areas. Many of the changes involve reducing paperwork or eliminating redundancies in the law."

Reuters: "Dozens of Yemenis were killed in overnight gun battles in the capital, government officials said on Thursday, as fighting aimed at ending President Ali Abdullah Saleh's three-decade-long rule threatened to ignite civil war." ...

... New York Times: The president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has backed out of transfer-of-power agreements three times in recent days, & even his supporters consider his behavior bizarre.

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