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[.]”

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

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OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

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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Monday
Oct172011

The Commentariat -- October 18

I've put up a comments page on Off Times Square. Write on anything you want.

"I Am Not Moving." Video by Corey Ogilvie, uploaded October 11. Thanks to reader Bonnie:

Greg Sargent: "Working America, the affiliate of the AFL-CIO that organizes workers from non-union workplaces, has signed up approximately 25,000 new recruits in the last week alone, thanks largely to the high visibility of the protests." Karen Nussbaum, the director of Working America, "acknowledges that conservatives might have some success discrediting the movement 'if they can change the subject to what the occupiers are wearing. But if we keep the subject on jobs and democracy, we’ll keep those working class moderates in this fight." CW: seriously, kids, if you want maximum effectiveness, show up for marches dressed as if you're going for a job interview in a red state.

     ... For more info on Playing for Change, go here.

Nate Silver on where the protesters are -- as it turns out, there are more on the West Coast than in New York and the East Coast.

Annie Lowrey of Slate: Why does Wall Street hate President Obama? While the reasons likely include his policies, his perceived ideology and their own psychological aberrations, Lowrey suggests the recent sudden turn from "cautious ingratitude" to "angry opposition" may be plain ole economics: Wall Street is not as profitable as it was even six months ago, and as many Americans do, the cats blame the President when they're not getting fatter. ...

... BUT Wall Street Loves Mitt (in case you can't read the legend, the big tall violet cylinders represent financial sector contributions to Romney, the blue are Obama & the little teeny red ones are Perry)"

... AND why not? After all, President Obama is not doing enough for Jeff Immelt, Obama's jobs-cutting jobs czar who is the CEO of the non-taxpaying GE. Scott Malone of Reuters: Immelt "held out Germany -- home to one of GE's biggest rivals, Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE) -- as an example of a wealthy country that has been successful in pushing exports. 'Chancellor (Angela) Merkel flies from Berlin to Beijing, there's 25 German CEOs that go on the plane right behind her. And they connect the dots. They play hard, they play to win,' Immelt said. President Barack Obama, he added, 'has been out driving and pushing to try to double exports in the next five years. I think we can compete very well. But we're not all-in the same way that the Germans are all-in.'" CW: This is the same whine Immelt made in his "60 Minutes" interview, which I posted last week. It's all about Jeff. 

Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Democrats in the Senate will this week start to advance elements of President Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan piece-by-piece, challenging Republicans who have already nixed the package as a whole to likewise take vote after vote against its various planks."

David Crary of the AP: "As of Oct. 31, according to the U.N. Population Fund, there will be 7 billion people sharing Earth's land and resources.... Experts say most of Africa — and other high-growth developing nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan — will be hard-pressed to furnish enough food, water and jobs for their people, especially without major new family-planning initiatives. 'Extreme poverty and large families tend to reinforce each other,' says Lester Brown, the environmental analyst who heads the Earth Policy Institute in Washington. 'The challenge is to intervene in that cycle and accelerate the shift to smaller families.'"

You probably should not miss this -- Herman Cain, then CEO of Godfather's Pizza, at a 1991 Omaha Press Club meeting. Dave Weigel has the lyrics:

Right Wing World *

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: Chris Wallace of Fox "News" forgot where he worked Sunday & repeatedly pressed House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) about the economic analyses for the Republicans' so-called jobs plan. "Cantor kept dodging the question. He has no answer. Republican leaders in the House and Senate have each put out job plans. But the plans have slogans, not specifics: Less regulation, repeal Obamacare, cut taxes, and so on. Professional forecasters can't make serious estimates without more information." With video. ...

... Really, this is from Politico, not from The Onion. Jake Sherman: "Friday: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor ... is heading to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania to talk about income disparity and how Republicans believe the government could help fix it." CW: probable suggested "fixes": cut taxes on the rich & eliminate regulation of Wall Street. Oh, Eric Cantor feels your pain.

Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine: Herman "Cain himself does, in fact, invoke race constantly. The context is almost always to absolve conservatives of racism, to assure them that they are less racist than the left. He ... [refers] to the "Democratic plantation." He ... [says] that, 'A lot of these liberal, leftist folk in this country, that are black, they're more racist than the white people that they're claiming to be racist.' He ... [announces] that 'most people have gotten past color, especially the Republican party.' Even if Cain decided midstream to switch from business plan pseudo-candidate to actual candidate, it is difficult to believe that many of his putative supporters would actually pull the lever for him."

Sick "Jokes" Have Consequences

We'll have a real fence, 20 ft. high with barbed wire, electrified, with a sign on the other side that says, 'It can kill you.' What do you mean insensitive? What is insensitive is when they come to the United States across our border and kill our citizens and kill our border-patrol people. -- Herman Cain, Saturday, to raucous applause

That is not a serious plan. I've also said America needs to get a sense of humor. That is a joke, O.K.? -- Herman Cain, Sunday, on "Meet the Press"

How can you joke about killing poor people who are searching for a better life? Jaime Carrillo, an accountant

Ioan Grillo of Time: "... when Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain joked about a killer electric fence to keep migrants out, political electric shocks surged rapidly south of the Rio Grande. From pulpits by the border to editorial offices in the capital [Mexico City], priests and editors vented their anger at comments they called 'stupid,' 'barbaric' and 'shameful.'"

CW: Playing "Can You Top This?" when it comes to identifying instances of Republican hypocrisy is a never-ending game in which the answer is always "Yes." Here's Alec MacGillis of The New Republic on Newt Gingrich & "death panels." Newt's duplicity is stunning, even for Newt.

* Where an interview is defined as saying something unrel ated to every question asked.

News Ledes

President Obama spoke at Greensville County High School in Emporia, Virginia this afternoon:

President Obama spoke at Guilford Technical College in Jamestown, North Carolina this morning. The video is here.

President Obama held a roundtable with educators in in Jamestown, North Carolina this morning. AP: "For President Barack Obama, the bus is back. That's the sleek, million-dollar, Secret Service-approved bus that's been carrying Obama along North Carolina's winding mountain roads, giving the president a chance to take in the fall foliage and bask in some small-town Southern hospitality."

New York Times: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton landed [in Tripoli] on Tuesday to demonstrate support for Libya’s new transitional government even as a senior administration official expressed concern that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi remained a 'lethal nuisance.' Mrs. Clinton, the administration’s most ardent champion of the NATO-led intervention year, arrived here from Malta at noon to meet with the country’s new leaders, including the chairman of the Transitional National Council, Mustafa Mohammed Abdul Jalil."

New York Times: "An Israeli soldier held for more than five years by the militant Palestinian group Hamas was traded on Tuesday for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in an elaborate exchange that could shake up regional politics.... The soldier, Sergeant First Class Gilad Shalit, was taken from Gaza, where he had been held since being abducted in a cross-border raid in 2006, into Egypt and from there to Israel, where he was given a quick medical check and declared in good health."

New York Times: "Just before the American-led strikes against Libya in March, the Obama administration intensely debated whether to open the mission with a new kind of warfare: a cyberoffensive to disrupt and even disable the Qaddafi government’s air-defense system, which threatened allied warplanes.... But administration officials and even some military officers balked, fearing that it might set a precedent for other nations, in particular Russia or China...."

AP: "Bank of America says it earned $6.2 billion in the third quarter, largely from accounting gains and the sale of a stake in a Chinese bank."

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