The Ledes

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Washington Post: “Rescue teams raced to submerged homes, scoured collapsed buildings and steered thousands from overflowing dams as Helene carved a destructive path Friday, knocking out power and flooding a vast arc of communities across the southeastern United States. At least 40 people were confirmed killed in five states since the storm made landfall late Thursday as a Category 4 behemoth, unleashing record-breaking storm surge and tree-snapping gusts. 4 million homes and businesses have lost electricity across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, prompting concerns that outages could drag on for weeks. Mudslides closed highways. Water swept over roofs and snapped phone lines. Houses vanished from their foundations. Tornadoes added to the chaos. The mayor of hard-hit Canton, N.C., called the scene 'apocalyptic.'” An AP report is here.

The Wires
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The Ledes

Friday, September 27, 2024

New York Times: “Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' to the acid-tongued dowager countess on 'Downton Abbey,' died on Friday in London. She was 89.”

The Washington Post's live updates of developments related to Hurricane Helene are here: “Hurricane Helene left one person dead in Florida and two in Georgia as it sped north. One of the biggest storms on record to hit the Gulf Coast, Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night as a Category 4 colossus with winds of up to 140 mph before weakening to Category 1. Catastrophic winds and torrential rain from the storm — which the National Hurricane Center forecast would eventually slow over the Tennessee Valley — were expected to continue Friday across the Southeast and southern Appalachians.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates are here.

Mediaite: “Fox Weather’s Bob Van Dillen was reporting live on Fox & Friends about flooding in Atlanta from Hurricane Helene when he was interrupted by the screams of a woman trapped in her car. During the 7 a.m. hour, Van Dillen was filing a live report on the massive flooding in the area. Fox News viewers could clearly hear the urgent screams for help emerging from a car stuck on a flooded road in the background of the live shot. Van Dillen ... told Fox & Friends that 911 had been called and that the local Fire Department was on its way. But as he continued to file the report, the screams did not stop, so Van Dillen cut the live shot short.... Some 10 minutes later, Fox & Friends aired live footage of Van Dillen carrying the woman to safety, waking through chest-deep water while the flooding engulfed her car in the background[.]”

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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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Friday
Nov252011

The Commentariat -- November 26

My New York Times eXaminer column contrasts former New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, who died yesterday, with the current crop of Times op-ed writers. See yesterday's Ledes for Wicker's obituary. The New York Times eXaminer's front page is here.

We have a Weekend Open Thread up for Off Times Square.

Christina Hoag of the AP: "Occupy LA, a 485-tent camp surrounding City Hall ... has remained largely a peaceful commune. Police arrive on site only when called in to investigate petty crimes. Marches have resulted in only about five spontaneous arrests — the other 70 or so involved protesters who deliberately got arrested to make a political statement. City leaders are now hoping that peace can withstand what could be its biggest test. The city has given campers a 12:01 a.m. Monday to clear out of the park, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a Friday afternoon news conference." ...

... Stacey Patton in the Washington Post: Black Americans are greatly underrepresented in the Occupy movement. Patton suggests some reasons. "Beyond a lack of leaders to inspire them to join the Occupy fold, blacks are not seeing anything new for themselves in the movement. Why should they ally with whites who are just now experiencing the hardships that blacks have known for generations?" ...

... I’m not mad at the tea party for being so loud. I’m mad at the progressives for be ing so quiet the past couple of years and not having that fire and that intensity at the grass-roots level to give both parties something to respond to that’s not just cut, cut, cut. You hear people talking about a disappointment [in Obama] and this kind of thing. I’m still of the view it was never, ‘Yes, he can.’ It’s supposed to be, ‘Yes, we can.’ And the ‘we’ was not evident in a couple of those years. -- Van Jones ...

... Joseph Williams of Politico: "While still a high-value target for conservatives, the charismatic [Van] Jones has ... become a superstar of the resurgent left, founding — with MoveOn.org — the American Dream Movement, a grass-roots political force modeled after the tea party. His issue is no longer just green jobs, but to push back against the right’s domination of economic policy and social issues that he dates to the 2010 election." ...

... Naomi Wolf in the Guardian: "As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.... Logic ... implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces ... to make war on peaceful citizens.... Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams." ...

     ... In a post titled "How Bullshit Magically Turns into Fact," Karoli, who also writes for Crooks and Liars, debunks Wolf's "sources." Wolf may not necessarily be wrong, Karoli concludes, but she's got bupkus on which to base her conspiracy theory. ...

... CW: In yesterday's Off Times Square, Valerie L. T. recommended watching the Democracy Now! panel discussion about the Occupy Movement. She writes, "If you don’t have the time to listen to the entire show, I encourage you to tune in to hear William Greider and Naomi Klein. They start speaking about 24 minutes into the show." I have not yet had a chance to listen (supersize it; this is a fussy video I can't enlarge):

Tom Hayden in Nation of Change: "The pepper spraying of eleven UC Davis students is a startling visual revelation of a pattern repeated over two decades: the widespread use of a potent chemical compound to subdue political protesters, prison inmates and inner city youths, in spite of numerous warnings by health officials of potentially life-threatening effects."

Here's the First Family standing with the Occupy Black Friday boycott:

Oh God! Joel Siegel of ABC News: "Critics of President Obama felt little holiday cheer after the president did not thank God in his Thanksgiving-themed weekly Internet address. They immediately took to Twitter and the Internet to voice anger and disbelief.... Obama mentioned God once in a closing "God bless you," to Americans watching the Internet address. However, the President explicitly thanked God earlier in the week in his written Thanksgiving proclamation.... Three of the Republican presidential candidates – Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum – issued Thanksgiving statements that omitted any references to God. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Perry mentioned God in their statements."

Right Wing World

Reid Epstein of Politico: "To hear the Republican presidential candidates tell it, the U.S. Constitution is the guiding light of democracy, a bedrock document so perfect and precise that it shouldn’t be challenged, interpreted or besmirched by modern-day judges. Except for all the parts the GOP candidates themselves want to change. The same candidates promising to appoint strict constructionist judges clearly think the Framers, for all their wisdom and foresight, forgot a few things, which they now want to tack on with an array of proposed constitutional amendments that would bulk up the document." ...

... They probably got their ideas from John Hodgman:

Gail Collins reads Ron Paul: "Basically, Paul seems to want to revert to the 18th century, when every bank could set its own monetary policy and every community ran its own schools — presuming, of course, the community wanted to pay for them. 'The founders of this country were well educated, mostly by being home-schooled or taught in schools associated with a church,' he reasons. Those of us who were not born in the gentry could presumably go back to sewing and reaping hay."

CW: I tried to watch this video of David Brooks & Charlie Rose bewailing Obama's failure to force Democrats on the defunct Supercommittee to "cut entitlements," followed by Brooks' applauding Mitt Romney for his plan to partially privatize Medicare. I quit about halfway thru, but maybe you can tough it out. As Heather of Crooks & Liars asks, "Who needs Fox News when we've got PBS?"

The Ledes

AP: "Pakistan on Saturday accused NATO helicopters of firing on two army checkpoints in the northwest and killing 25 soldiers, then retaliated by closing a key border crossing used by the coalition to supply its troops in neighboring Afghanistan.The incident Friday night was a major blow to already strained relations between Islamabad and U.S.-led forces fighting in Afghanistan." New York Times story here.

AP: "U.S. Marines will march out of Afghanistan by the thousands next year..., senior U.S. military officers say. At the same time, U.S. reinforcements will be sent to eastern Afghanistan in a bid to reverse recent gains by insurgents targeting Kabul, the capital."

It's a Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood. "Black Friday's typical jostling and jockeying took a more ominous turn during this year's bargain-hunting ritual with a shooting, a pepper spraying and other episodes of violence that left several people injured."

Los Angeles Times: "The City Hall park where Occupy Los Angeles protesters are camped will be closed at 12:01 a.m. Monday, according to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, triggering what officials hope will be an end to the nation's largest remaining Occupy camp. But police might not immediately begin removing protesters who linger.... Officials hope in the coming days to help protesters move their belongings and to find beds in homeless shelters for those at the camp who need them."

AP: "Three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo caught flights out of Egypt early Saturday, according to an airport official and an attorney for one of the trio."

AP: "NBA players and owners ... reached a tentative agreement early Saturday to end the 149-day lockout and hope to begin the delayed season with a marquee tripleheader Dec. 25. Most of a season that seemed in jeopardy of being lost entirely will be salvaged if both sides approve the handshake deal."

Reuters: "Arab officials will prepare plans for sanctions against Syria on Saturday over its failure to let Arab League monitors oversee an initiative aimed at ending a violent crackdown on protesters seeking an end to President Bashar al-Assad's rule."

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