REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- May 8, 2012

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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.”

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

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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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Monday

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The Commentariat -- May 8, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on Brooks' nonsense of the day. The NYTX front page is here.

Alec MacGillis of The New Republic writes a fabulous post on "Robert Caro and Our 'Great Man" Fetish."

Paul Krugman speaks to Chrystia Freeland about stimulus spending & jobs growth:

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "After months on the sidelines, major liberal donors including the financier George Soros are preparing to inject up to $100 million into independent groups to aid Democrats' chances this fall. But instead of going head to head with the conservative 'super PACs' and outside groups that have flooded the presidential and Congressional campaigns with negative advertising, the donors are focusing on grass-roots organizing, voter registration and Democratic turnout."

Presidential Race

Steve Peoples of the AP: "Campaigning in the backyard of America's auto industry, Mitt Romney re-ignited the bailout debate by suggesting he deserves 'a lot of credit' for the recent successes of the nation's largest car companies. That claims comes in spite of his stance that Detroit should have been allowed to go bankrupt." CW: That's the lede. Later in the piece, Peoples writes, "Romney has repeatedly argued that Obama ultimately took his advice on the auto industry's woes of 2008 and 2009. But he went further on Monday by saying he deserves credit for its ultimate turnaround. The course Romney advocated differed greatly from the one that was ultimately taken. GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy on the strength of a massive bailout that Romney opposed.... Romney opposed taxpayer help." It is worth emphasizing that this is an AP story -- one that may appear in many papers throughout the U.S. The MSM -- even in straight news stories -- is beginning to point to Romney's implausible stories. ...

... ** In a comment on this story, Akhilleus offers hope that Willard will be abducted by aliens. (CW Update: to clarify, I guess I should say that by "aliens" I mean extraterrestrials, not those nice young men who used to mow & trim the Romneys' lawns before Willard was running for President, for Pete's sake.)

Beth Reinhard of National Journal: "... it’s hard to see [President Obama's] unwillingness to declare his support for gay marriage as anything other than political expedience. For evidence, look no further than North Carolina, poised on Tuesday to join the majority of states with constitutional bans on gay marriage." ...

... Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post: No, Obama's positions on gay rights are not just like Romney's. ...

... BUT Greg Sargent: "Some leading gay and progressive donors are so angry over President Obama's refusal to sign an executive order barring same sex discrimination by federal contractors that they are refusing to give any more money to the pro-Obama super PAC, a top gay fundraiser's office tells me. In some cases, I'm told, big donations are being withheld." ...

... NEW. Walter Shapiro, writing for Yahoo! News: "In 2013, either as a second-term president or as a private citizen beyond political ambition, Obama almost certainly will reinvent himself as a supporter of gay marriage." ...

... NEWER. Dana Milbank: Jay Carney didn't have a big enough mop to clean up this mess. A funny, if frustrating, reprise of yesterday's press briefing wherein Carney's briefs were tied in knots.

... NEWEST. Peter Wallsten & Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "Several people close to the White House said the [Biden] episode has exposed internal tensions within Obama’s team between those who want the president to say he favors same-sex marriage before the November election and others who worry about a political backlash if he does -- not just among conservatives and working-class voters but among African Americans.... About one in six of Obama's top campaign 'bundlers' are gay..., making it difficult for the president to defer the matter. Activists are planning a campaign for the adoption of a pro-gay-marriage plank in this year's Democratic Party platform. And a series of referendums this year on same-sex marriage -- including one in the swing state of North Carolina on Tuesday -- are putting the issue at the forefront." ...

... AND New York Times Editors: "By failing to go the next step and actually say that he supports the freedom to marry as Mr. Biden does and as polls show nearly a majority of Americans do, Mr. Obama risks dampening the enthusiasm of allies without gaining the support of equality's opponents. It's not an unfamiliar place for this president to be, unfortunately."

Dave Weigel of Slate: "New Frontiers in Neo-Swiftboating: Obama Was Ready to Blame the Troops!" The right wing, including former Bush AG Mike Mukasey, goes insane trying -- without success -- to find ways to undermine Obama's success in the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Reid Epstein of Politico: "Faced with a questioner who declared that President Barack Obama should be 'tried for treason,' Mitt Romney calmly answered the woman’s question about constitutional principles and then allowed her a follow-up question.... As the event ended, Romney told reporters on the ropeline [who asked] if he agreed that Obama should be tried for treason. 'No, no, no,' he said, shaking his head. 'No, of course not.'” ...

... Andy Rosenthal: "Why do politicians have this cowardly habit of standing by while their supporters say ridiculous things, without making the slightest attempt to set them straight? Afterward, they say they have no control over their supporters. But presumably they have some control over themselves." ...

... Jonathan Bernstein: "If everything that Mitt Romney, Republican Members of Congress, and the other Republican presidential candidates say about Barack Obama was true, then Obama should be tried for treason. It's that kind of rhetoric that's the problem, not Romney's immediate response to what someone says at a rally."

Brian Bakst & Stephen Ohlemacher of the AP: "Don't tell Ron Paul the Republican primary is over. He's too busy mucking up Mitt Romney's efforts to accumulate enough convention delegates to officially claim the GOP nomination for president. Paul's supporters won control of state GOP conventions in Maine and Nevada last weekend, stripping Romney of delegates in Maine but graciously letting him keep the ones he won in Nevada's February caucuses. Next up: Republican state conventions in Minnesota, Missouri, Louisiana and Iowa."

AND "The Dog Ate My Birth Certificate." In another interesting presidential election aside, Prof. Janet Davis, in a New York Times op-ed: "Our fears of consuming canines ... have had more to do with moralistic xenophobia and exclusion than with animal welfare, public health or ethical taboo. The flap over Mr. Obama's youthful consumption of dog meat is a resurrection of the birther-conspiracy wolf dressed in dog's clothing."

News Ledes

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Shrugging off millions of dollars spent by labor groups to defeat him, Tom Barrett walked to victory in Tuesday's Democratic primary and set up a more taxing sprint toward June 5 -- a historic recall that will be a rematch of his unsuccessful 2010 race against Gov. Scott Walker."

New York Times: "Richard G. Lugar, one of the Senate's longest-serving members, a collegial moderate who personified a gentler political era, was turned out of office on Tuesday, ending a career that had spanned the terms of half a dozen presidents and had seen broad shifts in the culture of Washington."

AP: "North Carolina voters have approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman, making it the 30th state to adopt such a ban. With 35 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday, unofficial returns showed the amendment passing with about 58 percent of the vote to 42 percent against."

Raleigh News & Observer: "Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney added to his big lead in the race for convention delegates Tuesday by winning Republican presidential primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, inching closer to the number of delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination."

Yahoo! News: "After learning of the alleged sex tape featuring John Edwards and his mistress, Rielle Hunter, during the 2008 presidential campaign, a former Edwards adviser said he tried to warn the Obama campaign not to consider Edwards for a spot in the administration."

New York Times: "Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83 and lived in Ridgefield, Conn."

ABC News: "In a stunning intelligence coup, a dangerous al Qaeda bomb cell in Yemen was successfully infiltrated by an inside source who secretly worked for the CIA and several other intelligence agencies, authorities revealed to ABC News." ...

... New York Times Update: "The suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the mission, American and foreign officials said Tuesday. The suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the mission..."

New York Times: "With a polarized Congress already on the defensive, President Obamaon Tuesday will outline a five-point 'to do' list for lawmakers that packages job creation and mortgage relief ideas he has proposed before, administration officials say." ...

... Yahoo! News Update: "President Barack Obama pressed Congress on Tuesday to act on a modest five-item 'to-do list' to fight unemployment, showcasing the tasks on a virtual Post-It note he mockingly said would not 'overload' lawmakers."

There are elections today in Indiana, Wisconsin & North Carolina:

... Indianapolis Star: "Polls opened at 6 a.m. today as Hoosiers make their final picks for Republican and Democratic nominees for the November election. Headlining today's election is the Republican race for U.S. Senate between Sen. Richard Lugar and Treasurer Richard Mourdock." ...

... Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "The four Democratic candidates Monday rolled into their final day of campaigning before the primary election in Wisconsin's historic gubernatorial recall."

... Raleigh News & Observer: "A final poll of likely North Carolina voters conducted over the weekend continues to give a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions an easy margin of victory in Tuesday’s election while the Democratic contest for governor is tightening." The News & Observer election page is here.

AP: "The Senate is steaming toward a showdown on a Democratic proposal to keep student loan interest rates from doubling for 7.4 million students. In a measure of how the upcoming election is driving work in Congress these days, it's a vote Democrats won't terribly mind losing -- which is probably what will happen."

New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the chairman of the opposition Kadima Party struck a deal early Tuesday morning to form a unity government, a surprise move that staves off early elections and creates a new coalition with a huge legislative majority."

New York Times: "Chen Guangcheng, the blind activist whose escape last month from house arrest and subsequent flight to the American Embassy here triggered a diplomatic crisis, said Tuesday that Chinese authorities have begun to assist him in applying for permission to travel to the United States."

New York Times: "Late last year, fishermen began finding dead dolphins, hundreds of them, washed up on Peru’s northern coast. Now, seabirds have begun dying, too, and the government has yet to conclusively pinpoint a cause."

Washington Post: "U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter announced to his staff Monday morning that he was stepping down this summer after serving less than two years on the job."

Washington Post: "Rick Santorum, who bowed out of the Republican nominating contest after capturing 11 states and some 3 million votes, endorsed Mitt Romney late Monday. In a letter to his supporters, the former Pennsylvania senator said that he was impressed with Romney's 'commitment to economic policies that preserve and strengthen families.'”

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Regarding the belated efforts on the part of the mainstream media to out Romney as the shameless liar that he is, I'm reminded of a famous Twilight Zone episode starring the inimitable Andy Devine.

In it, Devine played a small town's chronic liar who spun out massive whoppers for the consumption of anyone gullible enough to listen. While pumping gas for newcomers to the town he claims to have been the one who told Henry Ford how to construct his cars. The newcomers (like many Republicans) and unable to discern fact from fiction. They are aliens for whom lies are an unknown. They take even the craziest statements at face value and determine, pretty quickly, that Mr. Devine must be the smartest man on the planet and so, abduct him, for removal to their home planet.

We can only hope for a similar fate for Willard, with the understanding that no matter how weird the alien culture into which he is absorbed (the modern GOP), he will be weirder still.

May 8, 2012 |

Akhilleus

Oh yeah, I meant to pass this along earlier.

This is a reminder of the glory that used to be the New York Times. Back in 1951, the Times Magazine published what has come to be known as a Liberal Decalogue, written by British gadfly, philosopher, activist, and occasional pain in the ass, Bertrand Russell. Now whatever your personal feelings about old Bertie, you have to at least give the guy credit for coming up with a thought experiment on definite descriptions with an unforgettable name: "The Present King of France is Bald."

Here then is Russell's prescriptions for a better world.

Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it.

The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.

4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

The name of Russell's article, by the way, was "The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism."

Ain't it the truth.

May 8, 2012 |

Akhilleus

CW,
For today's post, take a bow. Not being a learned person,
I could never marshal the words you use to shred the gentleman's column. Thank you doing this site daily.
Mae Finch

May 8, 2012 |

Mae Finch

Mr., Ms. Republican candidate please let me know what you think of taxes.
Bachmann : God told me to work at the IRS so I know a lot.
Perry: Uh, duh, what exactly do you mean?
Cain: Sorry, it is now sex time.
Gingrich: This is not important enough for a mind like mind to address.
Santorum: In the year 1200, taxes were a item given by the poor to the rich. Some things should not change.
Paul: Taxes should be voluntary.
Romney: Just tell me what you think, I am sure I will agree.

Welcome to America.

May 8, 2012 |

Marvin Schwalb

@Akhilleus--

I might re-name Russell's "Liberal" Decalogue slightly differently, and call it "The Rational Thinker's Decalogue." I see nothing inherently "Liberal" about it, except perhaps in the tradition of Lockean and Burkeian "Classical Liberalism," which, I think, does not correspond to modern-day conceptions of "Liberalism."

Still, words to live by, especially for one like myself, who values "doubt" as an important character trait in and of itself.

As to whether or not "The Present King of France is Bald," well, I'll leave that important question to philosophers and logicians to parse out, if they can.

May 9, 2012 |

Zee

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