First Looks category archive

A ceremony yesterday commemorated an event from a century ago (long story at the link): Three slaves escaped from working on Confederate defenses and fled to Fort Monroe, Virginia.

Today, we would say that they sought asylum. The Union forces did not know what to do.

After meeting with the three men, (General Benjamin–ed.) Butler decided that he didn’t have to return them to their owner, reasoning that the fugitive slave law wouldn’t apply in secessionist Virginia. He considered them “contraband of war,” akin to enemy horses or cannon, and put them to work for wages.

In the weeks and months after Butler’s ruling, thousands of former slaves marched into Union hands.

Today, persons descended from those men and women celebrate their having been classified as “akin to enemy horses or cannon” and consider it to have been a step up from their previous status.

“Singing in the fields” my anatomy.

I had decided to lay off the rapture snark (I still have a couple of items waiting in the wings), but this was just too good to pass up (emphasis added):

The end of the world starts at 6pm on 21 May, according to one of the usual American suspects, so you may still have time to make arrangements for the Rapture – the fundamentalist Christian equivalent of the last helicopter out of Saigon.

The entire column is, in fact, quite the giggle.

Also, do the rapture math.

Warning: Questionable taste; language.

The UPS guys’ knees are in bloom.

• What: Virginia Beach Democratic Committee Third Thursday Dinner
• When: May 19th, 6:00 PM
• Where: Kelly’s Hilltop Tavern, 1936 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 (map), in the nonsmoking section.

This week, there is a guest speaker:

Michael Signer, 2009 candidate for Lt. Governor, and current head of the Dominion Project PAC will be speaking about the New Dominion Project and its goals.

Show up, order off the menu (separate checks), socialize, and talk politics–or whatever else interests you.

These tend to be smaller gatherings, highly informal, and a lot of fun.

Also, don’t order the “Philly Cheese Steak.” It’s not Philly, and it’s certainly not a “Philly cheese steak.”

See the Facebook page for more information.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., talks with a veteran of the Freedom Riders,* young folks who offered their lives to end Jim Crow. The article appears today to mark tonight’s PBS documentary.

A nugget:

Everybody thinks they could get on that bus. It’s an easy thing to say. Then you remember the savagery, the violent attacks from people mortally outraged that these young men and women traveled in integrated groups and ignored segregation signs in bus-station restrooms and coffee shops. And you remember that the rules of engagement required pacifism: a willingness to get hit, and not hit back.

A bus was firebombed in Anniston, Ala. In Birmingham, police gave the Ku Klux Klan 15 minutes to beat riders to their heart’s content. Yet no Freedom Rider ever raised a hand in defense.

Get hit, don’t hit back. “You have to change your whole way of thinking,” Rip told me. “You have to love your fellow man, just like the Book says. He’s beating on you, kicking you, you’ve still got to love him.” It was not just a high Christian ideal, but also sound and effective strategy, the idea being that through the willingness to sacrifice your body, you made it clear as air to a watching world which side had the moral high ground, and which did not.

Which leads me to a thought I had the other day:

It’s common to hear folks say that “Americans are reluctant to talk about race.”

I have come to disagree.

White Americans are reluctant to talk about race, for to do so requires us to confront the legacy of white American society’s deeds.

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*Where I grew up, many of the grown-ups considered the Freedom Riders to be “outside agitators” come to destroy Our Way of Life(TM). Some persons still hold that point of view.

I have created a “Seen on the Street” category and aggregated all the “Seen on the Street” posts–pictures and reports of found items I find interesting, creative, striking, funny, or otherwise notable–under it.

You can access it from the sidebar, over there

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“Categories” is the next to the last item.

I’ve made my living with a keyboard almost my whole career.

Typewriters and mechanics like Fernandez went from being endangered to near-extinct species last week, with Godrej & Boyce in Mumbai making global news when the company put in sale its last 200 typewriters. The passing of the world’s last typewriter maker, seemed like a full stop on the whole typewriter era, and was mourned by media across continents from New York to London, Dublin to Delhi.

Raja Murthy, the author, goes on to survey the history of the typewriter and its last refuges of use.

Somewhere around here I have to old Royal manual portable that followed me from high school to college and onward. I haven’t opened the case in years, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away.

Off to drink liberally.

When I lived in Greater Philly Co-Prosperity Sphere, I visited Wildwood from time to time. and always enjoyed it. No place does tacky beach resort with more elan than Wildwood.

And Morey’s Pier was always a favorite stop.

Here, the owner of Morey’s and several other piers reveals the key to carny rides:

The result is “amazing,” Morey said. “There’s minimum confinement . . . and maximum fear in this one.”

Achieving that balance is where “the art and science of amusement-ride designing comes in,” Morey said. “The art is making a scary, thrilling ride and the science is in making sure the passengers are safe but they are unaware of the safety. That would take the thrill out of it.”

The first roller coaster I rode was at Morey’s piers.

Drinking Liberally is a support group for liberals, where you can realize you are not alone.

When: 6 p.

Where:
Jack Quinn’s Irish Pub*
241 Granby Street
Norfolk, Va. (map)

More about Drinking Liberally.
Street parking is tight at the tail end of rush hour, but the Freemason Street Parking Garage is two blocks away.

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*Firefox reports that Jack Quinn’s website may have been hijacked by crackers as of April 30.

Via TPM.

Here’s the headline.

Here’s the science.

Lilacs come earlier (emphasis added):

Every year has its own weather character, but the (Boston–ed.) arboretum’s celebrations marking the peak lilac bloom have migrated by three weeks over the last century. In 1920, Lilac Sunday was held on May 30; in 1983 it was May 22; in 2003 it was May 16; and this year it is May 8. Is it global warming? The arboretum is careful not to take a position.

To answer the question in bold, in the immortal words of a character (who can remind me who it was? I forget–a gremlin maybe?) from a Warner Brothers cartoon, “It ain’t Wendell Wilkie!”

They should have been banksters. They have the right instincts:

Nearly 100 drivers whose cars disappeared in the city during the last two years had those same harried thoughts, only to learn that their automobiles had met an even worse fate.

The cars, police spokesman Lt. Ray Evers said, were taken by eight crooked tow-truck drivers who sold the vehicles to a Hunting Park scrap yard for a small sum, usually between $300 and $500.

How long has it been since you’ve looked something up in a phone book? I think I’ve done it twice in the past three years, and both times it was Yellow Pages. Think of the landfill space this will save:

The Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) today granted Verizon the right to stop automatically distributing the phone books to customers in the state. The company intends to provide customers with an online, electronic version of white pages residential listings as the primary means to access such directory information. Customers also will be able to request a free printed or CD-ROM directory of residential listings.

Verizon will notify customers about how to request printed versions of the phone book through press releases and inserts in their bills, company spokesman Harry Mitchell told the Citizen.

Print directories containing business and government white pages, customer information pages and the yellow pages will continue to be delivered to all customers.

I can’t find a link, but my reading indicates that most of the opposition to this has come from companies that print phone books. They even tried claiming that it abridged their freedom of speech (apparently, speech is now spelled i-n-v-o-i-c-e).

Shaun Mullen remembers.

Mr. Feastingonroadkill a simple description of the modus operandi of right-wing media.

Addendum, the Next Day:

Helen gives an example, ripped, as they say, from the headlines.

Heh. From The Smoking Gun:

Thanks to the efforts of an elite team of American forces, Osama bin Laden will soon have criminal charges formally dismissed against him in federal court in New York City.

Documents at the link.

“We will be relentless in the defense of our citizens . . . .”

I give President George W. Bush credit for a gracious statement.