First Looks category archive

This column appeared in the local rag several weeks ago, but only recently became available on line.

The writer interviews two persons who participated in the real Cannonball Run. A nugget:

The cockpit of the Ferrari 308 is far from spacious, less so when equipped with two radar detectors – one in front, one in back – and a CB radio. Add the constant drone of engine and road noise, and you have some idea of its ambience.

“Things were getting bad,” Baker recalled. “We had scheduled where the gas stops were to be and I blew by it at 12 o’clock when nothing else is open, only because a state trooper is on me.”

Follow the link for the rest.

Via Feastingonroadkill.

CSI: Seoul version.

There will be a solar eclipse tonight, midnight, June 1, Norway daylight savings time, which is 6 p. m. US EDT. Norway is UMT +1.

You can watch it on line here.

H/T Susan for the link.

Addendum, Later That Same Day:

Screen captures tomorrow.

In the Boston Globe, Alex Poulos foresees the growth of surveillance, not by the government, but by business, not for “security,” but for “marketing purposes, to enhance your shopping experience” (not his words; my paraphrase of marketese).

He predicts a presence that is increasingly intrusive, invasive, horizontally integrated (so there’s no escaping it), and interactive (in the computer sense).

Here’s a snippet from his comments. Follow the link for the rest.

INTERACTIVE. In-person shopping will be a performance art. “Real life’’ will mean what you do online — work, socialize, train your virtual pet, and “grow’’ your avatar’s personality so it’s “more you’’ in networking with other avatars while you sleep. . .

Soon 3-D ads will be common. But later, we’ll have 4-D advertising — smell will be produced, to stimulate appetite.

Special wingnut edition.

By Gerardo Mena:

Via the Rude One.

Date: Saturday, May 28th.

Special Guest Speaker: LaDrew Bennis, Political Coordinator for Teamsters Local Unit 822.

Location: Bubba’s Deli & BBQ, 3600 Dam Neck Rd, Virginia Beach (Map).

Cost: Adults $10.00, Under 12 $6.00 for all-you-can-eat buffet (it’s a good value for the price).

More information here.

H/T Susan for the link.

Off to drink liberally.

From Andy Borowitz. A snippet:

Elsewhere, Harold Camping, the preacher who predicted that the world would end on May 21, issued the following brief statement: “”The world doesn’t end this week. Oprah does. My bad, sry.”

More at the link.

Fun and fellowship for liberals. Join us.

When: Wednesday, May 25, 6 p

Where:
Kelly’s Tavern
1936 Laskin Rd, # 201
Virginia Beach, Va. (Map)

More here.

I’ve added several more old time radio links to the Old Time Radio item over there

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on the sidebar.

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.