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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
Nov282010

The Commentariat -- November 29

I see [us Americans as] an insular people who are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing our place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined.
-- Edmund Morris, historian, on "Face the Nation"

Paul Krugman comments on President Obama's decision to freeze the wages of non-military government employees:

Yep, that’s exactly what we needed: a transparently cynical policy gesture, trivial in scale but misguided in direction, and in effect conceding that your bitter political opponents have the right idea. ...

    ... That's all he wrote. Here's the backstory.

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "As President Obama’s fiscal commission faces a deadline this week for agreement on a plan to shrink the mounting national debt, liberal organizations will unveil debt-reduction proposals of their own in the next two days, seeking to sway the debate in favor of fewer reductions in domestic spending, more cuts in the military and higher taxes for the wealthy.... On Monday, the progressive policy organizations Demos, the Economic Policy Institute and the Century Foundation will unveil a liberal blueprint.... On Tuesday, a separate coalition ... — the Citizens’ Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America’s Economic Future — will release a similar outline. Both plans are comparable to one recently proposed by Representative Jan Schakowsky, a liberal Democrat from Illinois who is a member of the Bowles-Simpson commission." CW: here's an overview of Schakowsky's plan, and here's a pdf of the detail. ...

... Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the AP: "Job-based health care benefits could wind up on the chopping block if President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans get serious about cutting the deficit. Budget proposals from leaders in both parties have urged shrinking or eliminating tax breaks that help make employer health insurance the leading source of coverage in the nation and a middle-class mainstay." ...

... Elisabeth Bumiller & Tom Shanker of the New York Times: Defense Secretary Robert Gates is attempting "... to contain the exploding cost of health care for nearly 10 million eligible beneficiaries against the pain and emotions of those who say they have already 'paid up front' with service in uniform, particularly those who deployed to America’s two current wars. The 10 million figure includes active-duty personnel, retirees, members of the National Guard and Reserves and their families."

Shannon McCaffrey of the AP: "At least 13 state lawmakers in five states have defected to Republican ranks since the Nov. 2 election, adding to already huge GOP gains in state legislatures. And that number could grow as next year's legislative sessions draw near."

American Exceptionionalism. Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "... with Republicans and tea party activists accusing President Obama and the Democrats of turning the country toward socialism, the idea that the United States is inherently superior to the world's other nations has become the battle cry from a new front in the ongoing culture wars. Lately, it seems to be on the lips of just about every Republican who is giving any thought to running for president in 2012.... Some, however, wonder whether Obama's conservative critics are sounding an alarm about the United States' place in the world - or making an insidious suggestion about the president himself." CW: Tumulty is a straight reporter, but her report zeroes in on the insidious us-against-them demagoguery that we will be subjected to for the next two years. ...

... New York Times Editorial Board: "... more than 70 percent of voters in Oklahoma still approved a state constitutional amendment [against the enforcement of Islamic law]..., apparently persuaded by anti-Islamic activists, and a few cynical politicians, that Oklahoma was about to be brought under Islam’s heel.... It is fear-mongering, of course, and all too successful.... The issue helped drive the high Republican turnout at the polls in Oklahoma.... The voters of Oklahoma were badly misled by demagogues into passing a profoundly un-American measure."

Michael Pollan & Eric Schlosser in a New York Times op-ed: "The Senate should pass the food safety bill that would allow the F.D.A. to prevent food safety problems, rather than respond only after people have become ill."

William Glaberson of the New York Times: "As part of his annual budget, New York’s chief judge [Jonathan Lippman] will propose a $100 million increase in state financing for lawyers who represent the poor in civil cases that deal with 'the essentials of life' like eviction and child support, according to people who have worked on the plan.... If approved by the Legislature, it would ... be a striking acknowledgment that the state’s court system is being overwhelmed by some 2.3 million people a year who cannot afford representation." CW: bear in mind that, with the exception of small claims, this still leaves out the poor & middle class who still cannot afford to bring suit against parties they believe have wronged them.

** Happy Birthday, Bush v. Gore. Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker: "Over [the] decade, the Justices have provided a verdict of sorts on Bush v. Gore by the number of times they have cited it: zero.... [But] Bush v. Gore would resonate.... The case didn’t just scar the Court’s record; it damaged the Court’s honor." For more on Bush v. Gore, listen to one of the dissenters below.

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