First Looks category archive

Michael Hiltzik skewers the specious sophistries being used to push for raising the age of eligibility for social security. A snippet; follow the link, where he debunks more bunk.

As for whether it’s “easier” to work into one’s 70s than it used to be, that may be true for authors of think tank papers in air conditioned offices, but perhaps not for the millions of Americans who spent their careers hauling, digging, driving and building, outside in the elements.

Where were Crockett and Tubbs when Miami needed them?

Via All Things Amazing, an image site (some images NSFW).

Fox News gets pantsed.

Aside:

As they trade in fiction, one would think they would recognize fict–oh, never mind.

Afterthought:

It occurs to me, as I watch persons go about with their faces buried in their “devices,” that said devices’ algorithms, designed to “attract eyeballs” and “promote engagement,” lead said persons to forget that they are amidst real persons in a real world.

Sue Fothergill wonders why the Republican House has chosen to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics:

Is there a massive pro-corruption movement I’m not aware of that is demanding this?

Follow the link for the rest.

Kathy Reichs:

. . . emptier than a politician’s heart.

Reichs, Kathy, Mortal Remains (New York: Random House, 2010), p. 68.

Off to drink liberally.

But, as David Horn points out at The Roanoke Times, it is not necessarily the family that you may be thinking of.

An oxymoronic “responsible gun owner” welcomes in the new year by taking the life of yet another child as his (or her, but probably his) celebratory bullets fall back to ground.

We are a society of stupid.

Gil Duran, a self-described “local journalist with fewer than 7,500 followers,” tells his story of getting banned from Twitter for asking a question. He contends that Elon Musk’s rule of Twitter is increasingly authoritarian and arbitrary. An excerpt; follow the link for his evidence.

By banning some of us, Musk is sending a message to everyone else: Comply with the dictator or lose access. Twitter has become a virtual simulation of authoritarian rule.

Paul Krugman is not surprised at Elon Musk’s antics in this, our new Gilded Age. Here’s a bit from his article:

. . . I’m not shocked by the spectacle of Elon Musk’s reputational self-immolation. Fascinated, yes; who isn’t? But when an immensely rich man, accustomed not just to getting whatever he wants but also to being a much-admired icon, finds himself not just losing his aura but becoming a subject of widespread ridicule, of course he lashes out erratically, and in so doing makes his problems even worse.

The more interesting question is why we’re now ruled by such people. For we’re clearly living in the age of the petulant oligarch.

Follow the link for his answer.

Yet another responsible gun owner demonstrates that self-politeness is the politest kind.

If you have Netflix, watch the Netflix serious, Roman Empire.

However, do not watch it in the series order. Watch it in chronological order: Season Two, about Julius Caeser; then Season Three, about Caligula; then Season One, about Commodus.

And, if you have never read Marcus Aurelius, consider doing so.

PoliticalProf.

If you have not done so, I highly recommend that you read Lena Horne’s autobiography.

Give me a break.