First Looks category archive

Franklin D. Roosevelt (I think I shall keep this one on the front page for a while. It needs remembered):

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

Via True Blue Texan, “It gets better”:

Via Donviti, “It gets worse”:

This has been another edition of What Brendan Said.

.

“I am not a racist.” At the 45 second mark.

Er, yeah . . . .

We can perhaps cut her some break because she is a child of another time; any white persons born in 1920 grew up in a time of open racism and racist imagery–not just the brutal KKK type, but the more subtle Stepin’ Fetchit-Ole Black Mama-loyal family retainer type (heck, such imagery was common when I was a young ‘un, and I’m two-thirds her age). Given that we have–most of us have–come to agree that racism is a social and moral evil, a racist remark must needs a foxhole in which to hide.

Methinks her denial is more for herself than for any other.

But sayin’ don’t make it so.

’tis a commentary on how difficult letting go can be.

Via Ta-Nehisi Coates, who asks a question I can’t answer.

Afterthought:

A test for nascent racism and bigotry:

If you consider the color of persons’ skins (or persons’ countries of origin, or whatever) as determinants of their characters, rather than as adjectives, you are on your way.

The banksters’ mortgage foreclosure fraud explained, with illustrations (as children’s books used to say), via Atrios.

TPM lists whose in the crosshairs of the hit:

Details below the fold.

Read more »

You may tell yourself, “No one will vote for such a dummy.”

Therefore you sit there, eat Cheetos healthful whole grain snacks with celery stalks on the side, and watch YouTube educational documentaries.

Vote or be ruled by dummies.

More lockouts in Florida.

Via Atrios.

Dick Polman considers the rise and fall of Rick Sanchez:

CNN wanted an edgy, controversial personality, somebody who would create buzz. After all, that’s what the game is all about. But CNN didn’t want Sanchez to, as we say, “cross the line.” (Whatever that line is. Nobody ever quite defines it, given that the line keeps moving all the time, further into tawdry territory.) CNN wanted Rick to be Rick – without being too Rick. Yet it seemed inevitable that he would finally go beyond the pale, given the traits he brought to the table – traits that CNN sought out six years ago, in its desperation to boost viewership.

That’s the real crux of the Sanchez story.

(snip)

Exit traditional dispassion, hello passion. That’s why Campbell Brown’s journalistically responsible prime-time show (which, naturally, tanked in the ratings) will be officially supplanted tonight with a ‘tude and opinion show that pairs a (talented) conservative columnist with a fallen governor who digs hookers.

The glitz factor is why Rick Sanchez got tapped for stardom in the first place, so that’s why I’ll cut him a break. He didn’t dumb down the news discourse. In the final analysis, we did.

Victoria Coren, writing at the London Observer, makes the case that cheer leading is not a sport.

She has a point.

There are many endeavors which require athletic ability, but are not sports, such as tight-rope walking and band marching. There are others which require little or no athletic ability, but are considered sports, such as auto-racing and golf (especially golf–I live next to a golf course, I see golfers, don’t argue).

A nugget from her take down:

They aren’t doing sport. They are waggling their arses near boys who are doing sport. The boys are motivated to compete harder and triumph in the subliminal (or not so subliminal) hope that they’ll get first pick of these little minxes on the sidelines. Even if you don’t think it’s sexual – and I do; I think these girls might as well be bent over a rock, waiting to be mounted by whichever caveman gets back first with a rabbit in his hand – at best, their job is to support the action rather than take part in it.

I’m reading an old murder mystery that I’m having trouble understanding.

It involves something called “poison pen” letters prepared on a device referred to as a “portable typewriter” and delivered by something called the “post.”

On the road taking care of business at the farm.

Regular insanity will resume tomorrow.

Irregular insanity may resume earlier.

Robert Reich on Fresh Air:

And if most of the American economic gain goes to the top, if the top are taking home almost a quarter of all income that is generated in society, the vast middle class just doesn’t have the purchasing power.

They can’t go deeper and deeper into debt. They can’t work longer hours. They’ve just, they’ve exhausted all of their coping mechanisms. And meanwhile, people at the top are taking home so much that they are almost inevitably going to speculate in stocks or in commodities or in whatever the current speculative vehicles are going to be, which causes the economy to become unstable anyway.

And that combination of a kind of unsustainable debt loads for the middle class, in fact, now the middle class can’t even go back into debt, there’s not nearly enough demand for all the goods and services the American economy could produce and can produce at full employment coupled with a lot of speculation.

Follow the link above to read the whole transcript or listen here.

My friend heard on the telly vision this afternoon that we have had 16 inches of rain so far this week.

And three to five more inches are predicted for tonight. From the sound of things, the prediction is not far off.

The Pew Survey on Religious knowledge has been in the news lately.

Take the quiz.

I got one wrong, confusing two eastern religions with knowlege based on an extensive reading of Kipling when I was young.

One of the aspects of human nature that enables cons to succeed is that persons see what they expect to see. (Actually, without any desire for personal gain, I have taken advantage of this aspect of human nature. It does indeed hold true.)

The Slactivist expands on this principle. A nugget:

Tea partiers tend to revere the U.S. Constitution in much the same way that many American evangelicals revere the Bible, which is to say they read it without comprehension, looking only for ammunition that can be used against their enemies. And since neither text was written for such a purpose, this so-called reverence is an exercise in illiteracy.

Read the whole thing.

In 2006, a real estate columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer said that a pretty good sign that we were in a housing bubble was that persons were starting to ask whether or not we were in a housing bubble. (I mentioned it at the time.)

Similarly, a pretty good sign that we are quagmired in Afghanistan is that persons are now arguing that we must stay in Afghanistan because we are in Afghanistan.

But Tangier Island is determined to try:

But the islanders’ way of life is threatened by erosion that takes up to 30 feet of shoreline per year and has reduced Tangier’s size from 2,200 to 730 acres, according to figures cited in a form letter distributed to residents recently to mail to federal and state officials.

About 275 people showed up at a July meeting on the island where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, at the town council’s invitation, presented an overview of the civil works projects process. The letter campaign began in earnest soon after that meeting.

You remember the Army Corps of Engineers. They’re the folks who did such a good job protecting New Orleans.

With pro (and big-time college) sports.

Except for the Phillies, who in what seems to be a tour de force have had no one arrested, no one suspended, and no one called to testify before Congress in recent memory.

Across the Big Pond, discontent also blossoms:

Sportism was a religion. We never questioned that the team which finished top of the old footballing first division was the best that year because in the world of sport everybody got what they deserved. The proof was there for us all to see – Nottingham Forest could win the European Cup, Wimbledon could win the FA Cup, if they tried hard enough.

(snip)

So what happens when those very foundations of your existence are shaken to the core? When you begin to realise that not everybody has been playing by the rules? Trauma, that’s what. We sportists have just experienced a summer of unparalled trauma. First, there were the shocking allegations that Pakistan’s cricketers might not have been playing cricket at all – that they were deliberately bowling no-balls to assist betting syndicates. I have not watched a cricket match since.

The turning point: Sports stopped being “sports” and began to be “entertainment.”