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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Monday
Sep262011

The Commentariat -- September 27

I've posted a comments page on the question "Whatever Happened to the American Left?" on Off Times Square. You can write on this or something else.

** CW: Why I Love -- Frank Rich: "From the moment Obama arrived at the White House, the Beltway elites have been coaxing him further down the politically suicidal path of appeasement and inertia even as his opponents geared up for war.... Only when the tea-party cabal in the House took Washington hostage did it fully dawn on the Beltway gentry that the country was in danger." Rich goes on to blast the phony third-party advocacy groups (those of you who think these groups are a good idea, please read Rich) & his former colleagues at the Times -- except Krugman! "Extremism in defense of liberty may be a vice, but so is retreat in the face of extremism." ...

... Less eloquently put, but on the same track, here's Greg Sargent on the "centrist" Third-Party Solution: "Calling for a third party is a quick and easy way to get yourself booked for a round of cable TV appearances. But many of those calling for a third party are refusing to reckon with an inconvenient fact: One of the two parties already occupies the approximate ideological space that these commentators themselves are describing.... That party is known as the 'Democratic Party,' and it already holds many of the positions these commentators want a third party to espouse." ...

... AND like Rich, Paul Krugman manages to squish Tom Friedman on his third-party quackery. ...

... CW: After reading Rich's takedown of Brooks & Friedman, I wondered if one of the reasons he left the Times was to -- take down Brooks & Friedman. If Krugman --who lambasted Brooks several times during the past couple of months, & now dings Tommy Boy -- I may have to go, too.

Finally, Obama Is Listening to Us. CW: All of the sudden, President Obama is spouting what the left has been screaming to deaf ears: here's this from Mark Landler's New York Times report on yesterday's Linkedin townhall meeting (see also video of the event under yesterday's Ledes):

The income of folks at the top has gone up exponentially over the last couple of decades, whereas the incomes and wages of the middle class have flat-lined over the last 15 years. -- Barack Obama

Jeanne Mansfield in the Boston Review on "Why I was maced at the Wall Street protests." CW: well, actually, no there is no "why." There was no reason. Read Mansfield's account, which sounds truthful to me, then watch the video, which is a demonstration of police brutality reminiscent of the civil rights era, and see if you think the police acted "appropriately," as they claimed to the New York Times (linked in yesterday's Commentariat). ...

... Karen McVeigh of the Guardian: "A senior New York police officer accused of pepper-spraying young women on the 'Occupy Wall Street' demonstrations is the subject of a pending legal action over his conduct at another protest in the city.... The officer, named by activists as deputy inspector Anthony Bologna, stands accused of false arrest and civil rights violations in a claim brought by a protester involved in the 2004 demonstrations at the Republican national convention." ...

... Who's Minding the Store? Ben Smith: "It's Mike Bloomberg's third term, and it seems to be going pretty much like the third terms of many politicians who can't quite let go after eight years: Very badly."

CW: as I've said, the Solyndra debacle began with the Bush administration. Something I didn't know -- Dana Milbank: "Bush’s Energy Department apparently adjusted its regulations to make sure that Solyndra would be eligible for the guarantees. It hadn’t originally contemplated including the photovoltaic-panel manufacturing that Solyndra did but changed the regulation before it was finalized. The only project that benefited was Solyndra’s." And the most vociferous Congressional critics of the Obama administration's loan to Solyndra voted for the bill. The sponsor of the House bill was none other than Oily Joe Barton (R-Texas) who still can't figure out how oil got to Alaska. This forces me to once again embed this video, the funniest part of which is that Barton is so fucking stupid, he thinks he's stumped Energy Secretary & physicist Steven Chu, who obviously can't believe Oily Joe is, well, so fucking stupid:

    ... Barton later proudly tweeted that he had "baffled" physics Nobel laureate Chu. Yeah, he did. ...

... Steve Mufson & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post write an interesting overview of government-backed clean-energy loan guarantees. One takeaway from the report, which is largely critical of the Bush-Obama program: "Economists note that the government might never have gotten involved in loan guarantees if Congress had been willing to tax fossil fuels, introduce feed-in tariffs (a subsidized price) for renewable energy or approve a cap-and-trade policy that would penalize fossil fuels. Feed-in tariffs have made Spain, Italy and Germany the world’s largest markets for solar power. And they don’t anoint winners and losers."

"Governments Don't Rule the World -- Goldman Sachs Does": Alessio Rastani, an independent trader, talks to the BBC about how he views what he's certain is a coming crash of the market & the Euro. "Tyler Durden" of the Business Insider comments on the anchor's "gobsmacked" response:

Right Wing World * 

Mark Benjamin of Time: what Rick Perry knew -- and when -- about forensic evidence in the Cameron Todd Willingham case. Bottom line: both Willingham supporters and Perry's own staff confirm that Perry knew in the hours before Willingham's execution that there was powerful forensic evidence refuting the claims of so-called expert witnesses who testified at Willingham's trial. The recognized expert said arson was not the cause of the fire that killed Willingham's three daughters & for which he was no doubt wrongfully executed. With the evidence in hand, Perry refused to stay Willingham's execution.

CW: Yesterday I ran a link to a story by Howie Kurtz, who claimed that Fox "News" was moving toward the center after becoming disenchanted with teabaggers. So here are Keith Olbermann & Markos Moulitsas discussing Howie's Excellent Analysis. Um, apparently they're not buying it:

* ... Is apparently still right-wing.

Local News

Terry Van Oot of the Sacramento Bee: "Three wealthy Californians have launched a new effort aimed at helping elect state legislators who demonstrate the 'courage' to tackle major issues facing the Golden State. "Govern for California" is backed by Democrat David Crane, who worked as an advisor to former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican investor Ron Conway, and Greg Penner, a WalMart Board of Directors member who is registered decline-to-state." Thanks to reader James S. for the link.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey failed to address intense speculation about his presidential ambitions Tuesday night as he delivered a foreign policy speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California."

President Obama spoke at a Denver, Colorado, high school this afternoon. New York Times: "After two days of energetically raising money in the rarefied precincts of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, President Obama stopped at a big-city high school [in Denver, Colorado] on Tuesday to push for new ways to spend money."

AP: "President Barack Obama's chief political adviser on Tuesday conceded that a dark cloud looms over the American economy and Obama's political future, describing the president's road to a second term in the White House as 'a titanic struggle.' ... [David] Axelrod said the president would ultimately win re-election, in part because of the flawed field of Republican candidates. He characterized their plans to repair the nation's ailing economy as the same kind of deregulation and tax cuts that caused the downturn in the first place."

AP: "As many as 14 people have died from possible listeria illnesses traced to Colorado cantaloupes, health officials say — a death toll that would make the food outbreak the deadliest in more than a decade. The Centers for Disease Control said last week that 55 illnesses and eight deaths were linked to the outbreak. Since then, state and local health departments in Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming have reported six additional deaths that may be linked to the tainted fruit." ...

... New York Times: "Faced with a lawsuit by a major produce grower, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday lifted import restrictions on cantaloupes from a Guatemala farm that had been linked to a multistate salmonella outbreak. That outbreak, which led to a recall in March by the importer, Del Monte Fresh Produce, is not related to the current deadly outbreak of illness from another pathogen, listeria, which has been linked to tainted cantaloupes grown in Colorado."

The National Park Service released this video, shot by a fixed security camera inside the Washington Monument as an earthquake with its epicenter in Virginia hit in August. The camera was in the observation deck near the top of the monument:

Washington Post: "The National Park Service said Monday that the Washington Monument will be closed indefinitely and that the 5.8-magnitude earthquake in August had done more damage to it than had been previously disclosed. Officials said a “debris field,” made up mostly of mortar that had fallen during the quake, had been found at the base and that more substantial pieces of stone had fallen loose inside the monument." See video above. ...

     ... AP Update: "Bad weather delayed the daredevil work of engineers who will rappel down the Washington Monument for a visual inspection, but ... for several hours, engineer Dave Megerle was perched atop the 555-foot monument, setting up a rope system and other equipment that will allow the rappelling team to traverse the exterior of the monument looking for cracks, chips and other damage. To get there, he climbed through a hatch that hadn't been opened in 11 years."

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