First Looks category archive

And it looks like all of us are becoming plastic people:

And new research estimates that tens of thousands of the little particles (of plastic–ed.), often smaller than the eye can see, find their way inside our bodies each year.

The study estimates that adults consume and inhale at least 98,000 of the particles each year, based on a review of previous research about microplastic intake from things like seafood, honey, bottled water and beer.

Many more particles at the link.
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*With apologies to Frank Zappa.

Leave the gate open for politeness.

Whenever (sic) deputies arrived at the scene, they saw a 16-year-old male suffering from a gunshot wound to the lower back.

According to statements received on the scene, officers learned two young men fired a couple of rounds, they returned home. The victim walked through a partially opened privacy gate followed by the second young man. When the second young man attempted to open the gate fully, the weapon discharged, striking the victim in the lower back.

Joe Pierre was once interviewed by the Spanish newspaper El Pais Semanal about the apparent increase in flat earth flatulence from flat earther believers.

The interview was not published, so he has chosen to share the transcript at Psychology Today Blogs. It is worth your while, because the dynamic he discusses pervades dis coarse discourse; here’s bit:

It’s hard to know whether there are really more “flat earthers” today, but the internet certainly seems to have played a role in popularizing fringe beliefs like this one. Whereas typical in-person social discourse makes it difficult to maintain unconventional beliefs in the face of ridicule, anonymous online communication through social media and forums like Reddit and 4chan affords people easy access to like-minded individuals around the world who can rally around beliefs that most of us might find ridiculous. In addition, the internet business model based on monetization of “hits” has created an online environment in which headlines have become more sensationalized and objective news lies alongside, and has become conflated with, subjective opinion.

The owners of Maximum Security, the first Kentucky Derby winner to be disqualified for a rules violation, have looked up from their mint juleps long enough to sue in Federal court.

Read more »

Off to drink liberally.

May you join us this month.

When: Thursday, April–Drat May 9, 6 p. m.

Where:
Croc’s 19 Street Bistro
620 19th Street (Map)

Read the chapter blog and sign up to have your inbox flooded with one or two emails a month here.

Via Job’s Anger.

Meanwhile, Dick Polman marvels at Republican pols’ willingness to serve the anti-vaxx Kool-Aid.

Off to drink liberally.

Charles Blow suggests that, to his sycophants and idolizers, Donald Trump has become a folk hero. He posits that, rather than being blind to his venality, they treasure it. A snippet:

Like (Louisiana Governor Edwin–ed.) Edwards and Bonnie and Clyde and El Chapo, Trump’s Br’er Rabbit-like ability to avert the best attempt by authorities to hold him accountable, at least for a while, only increases the chorus of applause.

Perhaps one of the most popular folk heroes in the world is mythological: Chinese folklore’s Monkey King.

The British Council wrote of his legend:

“Despite his superpowers, at the heart of the Monkey King’s appeal is his human fallibility — he is greedy, selfish, and prone to sudden changes of mood and outbursts of exceptional violence. He defies divine authority, laughs at attempts to be controlled, and leaves chaos in his wake. But we know that there is fundamental good within him. He is the misbehaving child who only needs a firm hand and a sense of purpose to come good.”

Celebrate April’s Fools with us.

When: Thursday, April 11, 6 p. m.

Where:
Croc’s 19 Street Bistro
620 19th Street (Map)

Read the chapter blog and sign up to have your inbox flooded with one or two emails a month here.

. . . but, so far, reading it has been Barred.