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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
May292011

The Commentariat -- May 30

Memorial Day, May 1, 1865. Art by Owen Freeman for the New York Times.Historian David Blight, in a New York Times op-ed on the first Memorial Day, which took place on May 1, 1865, and was organized by freed slaves in Charleston, South Carolina. It has long, and no doubt purposely, slipped from the nation's memory.

I've posted an Open Thread for today's Off Times Square. ...

... Krugman says it's time to come up with a jobs program, and Douthat says it's time to whack businesses who employ illegal immigrants. Write whatever moves you. ...

... In a story related to Douthat's column, Julia Preston of the New York Times writes, "Obama administration officials are sharpening their crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants by focusing increasingly tough criminal charges on employers while moving away from criminal arrests of the workers themselves.... In a break with Bush-era policies, the number of criminal cases against unauthorized immigrant workers has dropped sharply over the last two years." CW: coincidentally, this is what I advocated for in my comment on Douthat (#3). I just posted the comment on Off Times Square.

Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: "There are no national surveys that track doctors’ political leanings, but as more doctors move from business owner to shift worker [and are no longer almost all male], their historic alliance with the Republican Party is weakening.... That change could have a profound effect on the nation’s health care debate. Indeed, after opposing almost every major health overhaul proposal for nearly a century, the American Medical Association supported President Obama’s legislation last year...."

Ariel Levy of the New Yorker writes a long article on Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister. Her story also details the status of women in Italy: "According to the World Economic Forum’s 2010 Global Gender Gap Report, Italy ranks seventy-fourth in women’s rights, between the Dominican Republic and Gambia." Berlusconi's remarks about women are appalling. Here's one, his answer to complaints about sexual assaults: "We don’t have enough soldiers to stop rape because our women are so beautiful."

Graham Bowley of the New York Times: "At the International Monetary Fund, there is one set of ethics guidelines for the rank-and-file staff and another for the 24 elite executive directors who oversee the powerful organization.... The fund’s board members remain largely above controls [imposed on staff]. The ethics adviser, for example, is not able to investigate any of them."

Karen Garcia is incensed by the Sheryl Gay Stolberg's New York Times article on Elizabeth Warren's "breach of Congressional etiquette," which I linked yesterday. Garcia suspects a White House set-up. Plus she has the goods on Rep. Patrick McHenry, the perp in this matter. CW: For the record, Stolberg's article didn't bother me at all. I always think it's great when somebody gives back as good as she gets, and I thought Warren came out smelling like a rose. Who the hell is horrified -- other than the blowhard -- by somebody dissing a blowhard? Just for the fun of it, in case you missed it, here's the video of the final exchange between McHenry, who accuses Warren of lying, and Warren. As Stolberg says, it was, "depending on one's point of view, delightful":

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post: not everybody was thrilled to see Palin at the Rolling Thunder rally for veterans & MIAs. With video. ...

... Running for president is not 'American Idol.' -- David Brooks, on Sarah Palin ...

... BUT ... Where's Waldo David?

Sarah Palin and admirers at the Rolling Thunder rally.     ... Photo via Joshua Green of The Atlantic.

Do Not Let Sarah Palin Near a Nuclear (Nuke-U-Lar) Weapon:

Local News

Ben Thrush & Byron Tau of Politico: President "Obama’s biggest asset in [Florida,] a critical swing state he won by a mere 2.8-percentage-point margin in 2008, might be Rick Scott, the wildly unpopular Republican governor Democrats are casting as Lex Luthor to Obama’s Clark Kent.... Broward County, Fla., political blogger Brandon Thorp summed it up this way: 'If presidential and gubernatorial elections were held in Florida today, no declared Republican presidential candidate could unseat Obama, while Rick Scott would have a hard time beating [Cuban President] Raul Castro.'”

News Ledes

 

President Obama participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns this morning & spoke at a Memorial Day remembrance at Arlington National Cemetery:

President Obama made an announcement about Defense Department personnel this morning. The Washington Post has a related profile of Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, whom the President will name as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Politico Update: "President Barack Obama said Monday that he is nominating Army Gen. Martin Dempsey as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.... The president also nominated Adm. James 'Sandy' Winnefeld, the commander of Northern Command, as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the Joint Forces Command, to replace Dempsey as Army chief of staff":

New York Times: "President Obama has decided to send [Michael McFaul,] the architect of his so-called Russia reset policy, to Moscow as the next United States ambassador there, seeking to further bolster an improved relationship as both countries head into a potentially volatile election season."

AP: "Endeavour and its crew of six left the International Space Station and headed home to close out NASA’s next-to-last shuttle flight, pausing just long enough Monday to perform a victory lap and test equipment for a future interplanetary ship."

AP: "Yemeni warplanes carried out airstrikes Monday on a southern town seized by hundreds of Islamic militants over the weekend, witnesses said, as the political crisis surrounding the embattled president descended into more bloodshed."

AP: "Germany’s coalition government agreed early Monday to shut down all the country’s nuclear power plants by 2022, the environment minister said, making it the first major industrialized nation in the last quarter century to announce plans to go nuclear-free.... Energy from wind, solar and hydroelectric power currently produces about 17 percent of the country’s electricity, but the government aims to boost its share to around 50 percent in the coming decades." ...

... Reuters: "Ratings agency Standard and Poor's cut its credit rating on Tokyo Electric Power (9501.T) to junk status on Monday, saying the utility's bank lenders were more likely to be forced to write off debt as part of a restructuring scheme to compensate victims of an ongoing nuclear crisis."

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