The Ledes

Thursday, October 31, 2024

New York Times: “Walker Buehler spread his arms wide and waited for his teammates to engulf him, the most fitting symbol of a season defined by persistent resilience. Called into emergency relief, Buehler closed out the World Series and shut the door on the New York Yankees as the Los Angeles Dodgers captured a 7-6 victory in a heart-stopping Game 5.... [Buehler's] scoreless frame stunned the crowd at Yankee Stadium and incited a mid-field jubilee from the Dodgers.”

New York Times: “At least 95 people have died and others were missing after devastating flash floods hit eastern Spain, according to the local authorities, in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the country in recent years. The catastrophic floods, fueled by an unrelenting deluge that began on Monday, washed away cars, inundated homes and knocked out power across eastern Spain. Rescuers waded through neck-high waters to reach some residents.”

The Wires
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The Ledes

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

New York Times: “Teri Garr, the alternately shy and sassy blond actress whose little-girl voice, deadpan comic timing, expressive eyes and cinematic bravery in the face of seemingly crazy male characters made her a star of 1970s and ’80s movies and earned her an Oscar nomination for her role in 'Tootsie,' died on Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 79.”

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.

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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.

Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

New York Times: In a collection of memorabilia filed at New York City's Morgan Library, curator Robinson McClellan discovered the manuscript of a previously unknown waltz by Frédéric Chopin. Jeffrey Kallberg, a Chopin scholar at the University of Pennsylvania as well as other experts authenticated the manuscript. Includes video of Lang Lang performing the short waltz. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Times article goes into some of Chopin's life in Paris at the time he wrote the waltz, but it doesn't mention that he helped make ends meet by giving piano lessons. I know this because my great grandmother was one of his students. If her musical talent were anything like mine, those particular lessons would have been painful hours for Chopin.

New York Times: “Improbably, [the political/celebrity magazine] George[, originally a project by John F. Kennedy, Jr.] is back, with the same logo and the same catchy slogan: 'Not just politics as usual.' This time, though, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and passionate Trump fan is its editor in chief.... It is a reanimation story bizarre enough for a zombie movie, made possible by the fact that the original George trademark lapsed, only to be secured by a little-known conservative lawyer named Thomas D. Foster.”

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

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." 

 

Contact Marie

Email Marie at constantweader@gmail.com

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A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -- Edward R. Murrow

Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Saturday
Jan012011

Murder by Economic Policy

Nick Kristof writes, "There’s growing evidence that the toll of our stunning inequality is not just economic but also is a melancholy of the soul." He cites the work of epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett.

The Constant Weader comments:


I call this murder by economic policy. Republicans and ConservaDems have been working for decades to take from the poor and give to the rich. The obvious effects of their policies are more hungry children, more poorly-educated children, young people's curtailing their educations & thus making themselves poor candidates in the shrinking job market, millions of Americans going without adequate health care (50 million Americans still have no health insurance), & seniors doing without the basic necessities of life. But Wilkinson & Pickett suggest it's worse than we think: those policies result in mental health disorders and unnecessary early deaths.

Another interesting finding of Wilkinson & Pickett was that these higher mortality rates & stress levels in iniquitous countries & states were true across all income levels (though they admit their raw data are sketchy for the top one percent). That is, don't think you're not at risk just because you're in a higher income bracket. Everybody (with the possible exception of the ultra-rich) suffers.

"The Spirit Level," partly because it is such a devastating condemnation of conservative "starve-the-government" public policy, has been the subject of a lot of criticism, the most sweeping charge being that the authors have not really "proved" a cause-&-effect relationship between income inequality & early death. But do we need "proof"? If, as the authors show, closing the income gap leads to lower mortality rates, it is unnecessary to know exactly why it works. What's important is that it does work. Denmark, where taxes are much higher than ours but where income inequality is much lower, is famous for being the "happiest" country in the world.

After listening to Republicans, teabaggers & most other stripes of politicians, including President Obama, you might not think that higher taxes will make you happier. But if those higher taxes go into public programs that help reduce income inequality, then higher taxes will, ultimately, cheer you right up. So will laws that promote income equality: a higher minimum wage, for instance, and unionization facilitation.

We don't have to be a second-rate country, or as Mr. Kristof pointed out last year, Worse than a Banana Republic. But we've chosen legislators & Presidents & state governors who have pledged through their policies, to take us down.

Saturday
Jan012011

White House photographer Pete Souza has compiled 72 of his favorite White House photos of the year. Click here to see the slide show.

"Because of a predicted snowstorm, I spent the night sleeping in my office knowing how bad the roads would be the following day. Early the next morning, I walked around the White House grounds and made several photographs using a tripod so I could shoot at a slow shutter speed. Mrs. Obama liked this picture so much that she chose to use it on the official White House Christmas card." -- Pete Souza. Photo dated February 2, 2010. CLICK PHOTO TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.

Friday
Dec312010

The Commentariat -- January 1

New Year's Eve, Times Square, New York City, 2011. CLICK TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.New York Times readers pick their top political moments of 2010. The Caucus writers pick a few more.

Robert Reich has a realistic; i.e., depressing, prediction for the U.S. economy in 2011.

Filibuster "Reform." Look for a watered-down, meaningless change you can't believe in:

     ... Brian Beutler of TPM: "A handful of junior Democrats, including Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), have done an impressive job building momentum for a package of modest, but meaningful, changes to the Senate's filibuster rules. But their plan could be completely upended and replaced by even more modest reforms, if Democratic and Republican leaders successfully negotiate a bipartisan rules reform compromise. In a phone interview with me Wednesday, Udall described negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) as a 'separate track' from his own efforts." ...

     ... David Waldman of the Daily Kos has a little on the history of "negotiated filibuster reforms." ...

     ... David Dayan of Firedoglake on the elements of the Merkeley plan. ...

     ... Here's more from Beutler on how the arcane procedure for changing procedures is supposed to proceed. ...

... Speaking of the do-nothing Senate, Steve Benen has more on Chief Justice John Roberts' plea to them to get off the dime on judiciary appointments. Senate Judiciary Committee Pat Leahy concurs with Robets. And Benen opines,

... Senate Republicans will do what they've been doing -- slowing everything down, blocking as many nominees as they can. But don't forget, the Senate will have very little else to do for the better part of two years. Over the last two years, Reid and the Democratic leadership had a lengthy to-do list, and couldn't eat up the calendar on nominees. GOP obstructionism meant it took at least three days for the Senate to consider one nominee, during which time the chamber could do nothing else, so more often than not, Reid just didn't bother. But that won't be much of a hindrance in 2011 and 2012, when the entire lawmaking process goes from difficult to impossible. ...

     ... Ezra Klein on filibustering judicial nominees.

Politico's "most memorable moments" video is okay till the end, which devolves into Palinostalgia:

      ... Stephanopoulos does a much better job:

I don't call [President Obama] a socialist because he's not. I don't doubt that he was born in Hawaii because he was. I don't call him a Muslim because he says he's a Christian. And I didn't say anything about death panels because there weren't any in that health care bill. -- Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC), on why he lost his primary race to a teabagger

Irony Alert! Amy Gardner of the Washington Post profiles Gena Bell, a grassroots tea party activist who was so opposed to President Obama & all that government spending -- that she decided to take a job with the government.

Rose Aguilar in Common Dreams: the public believes myths because well-paid spinmeisters repeat them over & over again & "teach" them to members of Congress who repeat them, and reporters & interviewers seldom or never challenge the spinners.

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones makes what amounts to a general apologia for liberal compromisers (oh, you may want to think President Obama here). CW: personally, I'm not buying it. I think liberals compromise because they've done a piss-poor job -- compared to conservatives -- of explaining why their programs are better than conservative programs. Liberals compromise because they have failed to gain support for causes that are good for the majority of the public.

Linda Greenhouse interviews retired Justices Sandra Day O'Connor & David Souter on civics education. The interview begins about 7 min. in:

Evelyn Rusli of the New York Times: "U.S Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ... sold his Washington D.C. home at a $1 million loss last week.... Mr. Paulson ... first put his home on the market in April.... But don’t feel too bad for the former Treasury secretary. As Reuters pointed out, the loss will barely dent Mr. Paulson’s personal fortune, last estimated at $700 million."