First Looks category archive

As of today, this blog has spent 17 years chronicling the decline of the American polity.

Of course, that was not the original intent.*

But that seems to be what it has become.

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*The original intent was to simply self-host a website from a server in my guest room and learn stuff because I could, after an acquaintance told me that, by using Linux, I could self-host my website. I moved my existing website from members.aol.com to my home web server, one of the original IBM Pentiums which a coworker had given to me, and, on a whim, I added a blog. I brought the site live from my guest room with the help of noip.com on Slackware v. 10.x 17 years ago today.

Of course, I no longer self-host, and the blog is all that remains of my original site, as the rest of it became so outdated as to be no longer relevant to anything. But I shall keep the blog relevant . . . .

At Psychology Today Blogs, Suzanne Degges-White explores how “social” media isn’t.

Family matters.

Blogging will be sporadic this week.

When I was a kid, I would come home from school and then go on long walks or, later, bicycle rides (being, as I was, out in the country surrounded by woods and fields). Today as I drive around my neighborhood, I rarely to see children playing outside.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Jenny Perkel argues cogently that children who remain inside their rooms hidden behind their screens are losing out on valuable growth experiences.

Honest to Betsy, you can’t make this stuff up.

Off to drink liberally.

At Above the Law, Joe Patrice decodes de code:

. . . Originalism is brilliant public relations, invoking the visceral sense that “original” means “authentic” to cover a lot of nonsense.

Follow the link for Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, Exhibit D . . . .

Aside:

I would not be surprised if the “originalists” are awaiting breathlessly to re-implement the 3/5ths clause, with all that it entails.

After all, racism is their driving force.

The theme to the BBC radio series of Lord Peter Wimsey murder mysteries.

What can I say? I’m a mystery buff. I’m currently working my through the original Ellery Queens. (I must say, in the early stories, Ellery was rather a supercilious jerk.)

Good news is ipso facto no news.

And, when something goes viral enough, it becomes a pestilence.

One more time, “social” media isn’t.

Stanford’s Sam Wineburg and Nadav Ziv point out that the clock is TikToking.

One more time, “social” media isn’t.

As Mark Twain once pointed out, “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

A long-time Idaho Republican is less than optimistic about the direction his state party has taken.

Politeness takes practice.

Once again, we see that “responsible gun owner” is an oxymoron.

Kimberley A, Johnson’s interview of Keri Blakinger, particularly the second half, in which Blakinger describes her experiences in prison.

Mark Hermann wonders why the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, both owned by Rupert Murdoch, decided to pirouette about Donald Trump almost simultaneously. A snippet:

So I knew that Trump did nothing to stop the violence during his three hours of silence on January 6. And Mitch McConnell knew it. And Kevin McCarthy knew it. And any sentient human being knew it.

But the editors at the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post somehow didn’t know it?

Why did it take the Journal and the Post 18 months to be shocked — shocked! — to learn that the Capitol Building was ransacked on January 6 and that the president did nothing for three hours to stop it?

Aside:

I suspect it’s to give Murdoch some cover as his primary outlet, Fox News, continues to shamelessly pimp for Trump and Trumpettes in prime time. But I’ve always been a touch on the cynical side.

David discusses the disassociation between Republican talking points and reality, focusing on Florida Senator Rick Scott’s claim that “we need to get Americans back to work” when unemployment is at the lowest level in four decades.

No, not that eagle. This eagle.