The Ledes

Thursday, September 19, 2024

New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”

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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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Wednesday
Oct062010

The Commentariat -- October 7

Running for President is like having sex: you don’t do it once and forget about it. It has a high, high recidivism rate. -- James Carville, on whether or not Hillary Clinton will run for President again

Nicholas Kristof demonstrates that in the most elemental economic issues, the Democrats' programs are far more effective than Republican proposals. Kristof provides a good summary you can share with your neighbor: outside analysts say the Democrats' programs produce more jobs, reduce the national debt more & mitigate the disparity between rich & poor. ...

... AND do read Kristof's blogpost reaction to Sen. Jim DeMint, who said gays or an unmarried women "sleeping with her boyfriend" should not be allowed to teach children. Kristof's remarks on Republican "values" are something else you can share with your friends.

Peter Nicholas & Christi Parsons in the Los Angeles Times: "As President Obama remakes his senior staff, he is also shaping a new approach for the second half of his term: to advance his agenda through executive actions he can take on his own, rather than pushing plans through an increasingly hostile Congress."

The truth is: all that will be remembered of the [2008 presidential] campaign is that America’s original sin was finally expunged. That’s all. In history, that’s all. The real McCain will be lost to history.... The narrative is the narrative, completely untrue and unfair, but he is the old guy who ran a derogatory campaign and can’t remember how many houses he had. -- Mark Salter, long-time top aide to John McCain

"The Man Who Never Was." Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair: "Desperate to keep his Senate seat, John McCain repudiated his record, his principles, and even his maverick reputation, entrenching himself as the anti-Obama. Which raises the issue of whether the leader so many Americans admired—and so many journalists covered—ever truly existed."

Jia Lynn Yang of the Washington Post: "For months, companies have been sitting on the sidelines with record piles of cash, too nervous to spend. Now they're starting to deploy some of that money -- not to hire workers or build factories, but to prop up their share prices. Sitting on these unprecedented levels of cash, U.S. companies are buying back their own stock in droves."

W. J. Hennigan of the Los Angeles Times: "... after one of the biggest military buildups in decades..., thousands of aerospace suppliers across Southern California [are] bracing for a downturn, a slide that could have gut-wrenching consequences for an economy struggling to recover."

 

 

Axelrod on Letterman -- of witchcraft, Fox "News" & Trump:

Here's the Top Ten list Axelrod mentioned:

Dana Milbank: an on-the-record, off-the-teevee press briefing by Robert Gibbs was a lot more productive than the usual briefings where both Gibbs & reporters perform for the cameras.

We are going for a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look. These characters are from West Virginia so think coal miner/trucker looks.... Clothing Suggestions: ... jeans, work boots, flannel shirt, denim shirt, Dickie’s type jacket with t-shirt underneath, down-filled vest, John Deer [sic] hats (not brand new, preferably beat up), trucker hats (not brand new, preferably beat up). --  National Republican Senatorial Committee casting call for a West Virginia ad (abridged) ...

... Here's the resulting ad. "Hicky" enough for ya? Update: Ha, ha. The ad has been pulled. Here's Michael Shear of the New York Times with more. Update 2: Ah, fortunately, the ad is preserved for us elsewhere on YouTube:

Rand Paul hires an Obama impersonator to read his campaign ad script. The ad is kind of funny when you know it isn't Obama speaking, but some of those "hicky" Kentucky viewers could be fooled:

Alexander Burns of Politico: EMILY's list has launched a campaign to turn out Democratic & Democratic-leaning female voters. CW: big  surprise: their research shows women don't know much about the issues but are moved by "narrowly-tailored attacks." I'd say the same is true for male voters.

Lamest Endorsement Humanly Possible. Matt Finkelstein of Media Matters: "Leaked emails revealed a dispute between Todd Palin and Tea Party-backed Senate candidate Joe Miller (R-AK) over Miller's apparent hesitation to say Sarah Palin is qualified to be president." When repeatedly pressed, Miller told Fox "News" that Palin was qualified under the Constitution. CW: yeah, so am I. Media Matters has the video.

Isabel Macdonald of The Nation: "... with his relentless diatribes against 'illegals' and their employers, [Lou] Dobbs is casting stones from a house—make that an estate—of glass. Based on a yearlong investigation, including interviews with five immigrants who worked without papers on his properties, The Nation and the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute have found that Dobbs has relied for years on undocumented labor for the upkeep of his multimillion-dollar estates and the horses he keeps for his 22-year-old daughter, Hillary, a champion show jumper." CW: Dobbs has hinted he will run for President in 2012. ...

     ... NBC Update: I have never, nor has The Dobbs Group at any time, hired an illegal immigrant. -- Lou Dobbs

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