First Looks category archive

From my recent visit to my dentist (who is excellent, by the way) to have some old fillings repaired:

Dentist: Now let’s numb this other tooth. Be ready for a sting–maybe worse than last one. This may hurt a bit.

(Dentist applies syringe. I hardly feel a thing, but I still flinch, as years of evolution tell us not to allow others to stick pointy things into our bodies.)

Me: I barely felt a thing. Is that some kind of psychological tactic to make me think it wasn’t as painful as it might have been?

Dentist. Well (long pause) yes.

By the way, he is a highly skilled and extremely competent dentist and I am very happy to be among his patients.

For example.

Afterthought:

Fast and stupid is still stupid.

Rebecca discusses the cavalcade of crazy surrounding the fires on Maui.

If you prefer, you can read the transcript.

Via Yellowdoggranny.

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.