First Looks category archive

Another case of neighborly politeness:

Police responded for a report of a woman shot in a home along the 300 block of Emerson Avenue around 9 a.m. A spokesperson for the Modesto Police Department said a man was clearing his gun and accidentally shot off a round that went through the wall and hit an 83-year-old woman.

The woman was taken to hospital but ultimately died.

(snip)

No charges were filed. Police said the shooting appears to be a tragic accident at this time.

How shall I put it?

Any “responsible gun owner” who cleans a firearm without first making sure it’s unloaded is not in any way “responsible.” He or she is negligent.

I suspect that, if police would stop calling these events “accidents” and start calling them what they truly are–negligence–well, it couldn’t hurt and it might help.

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Kurt Vonnegut:

If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

Off to drink liberally.

Wendi Peters, in the voice of Lynda Babbage:

If there were any justice, my Cyrus would be master now. But justice is just for the rich and powerful.

Nadine Gordimer:

The facts are always less than what really happened.

Sam speaks with Bruce Schneier about whether Uber is good or bad or some of both.

Methinks my old Phlly DL friend Noz is onto something.

Yet another oxymoronic responsible gun owner exposes her child to politeness.

We are a broken society.

They live in their own little world.

(Of course, occasionally, the bubble bursts and spews its noxious comments about.)

In his remarks, the artist notes that

Competition for elite colleges, whatever that means, is fierce. Over the past several decades these august institutions of higher learning have squeezed enrollment to the point where the only way to get in is to be extraordinary or have your dad donate a library.

Michael Westerhaus follows the money.

Michael in Norfolk connects the dots. A snippet:

In their quest to erase “divisive topics” from public education – namely accurate black history, LGBT individuals and non-Christian faiths – both Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin are striving to pander to and endear themselves to white Christian nationalists who want America to be a quasi-theocracy with themselves dictating acceptable beliefs and a sanitized version of history that omits the sins and horrors perpetrated by whites of previous generations.

Recently, the Supreme Supremacist Court ruled that Alabama had to redraw its House districts because black persons, who make up a quarter of the state’s population, were under represented. Instead of one majority black district, said the Court, there must be at least two. Alabama has indeed redrawn its districts, once more with only one majority black district, ignoring the Court’s ruling.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Gene Collier has a theory as to why:

. . . I’ll refer you to one of the first interviews (Alabama Senator Tommy) Tuberville did after getting elected in November of 2020, in which he identified the three branches of American government as “the House, the Senate, and the executive.”

See, there is no judicial branch, and thus no Supreme Court. So if you hear from SCOTUS on something, you can comply, don’t comply, up to you.

Follow the link for the complete article.

Thom runs the numbers, then finds a straw at which to grasp.

Out-of-town visitors.

At the Kansas City Star, Jessica Piper cautions that, if you’re going to point the finger of blame, you should point it in the right direction.