First Looks category archive

The weather here is very nice, but I’m under it.

When fellowship is needed, join us . . . .

When: Thursday, September 14, 6 p.

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

More here.

Bruce Lowry observes the eraser marks:

Indeed, in many parts of this country, we run from our history, or at least its unsavory parts. A couple of years ago, the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., issued a ground-breaking report titled “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror.”

The report found that “very few public commemorations of African Americans’ suffering during the post-slavery era exist today” and that “no prominent monument or memorial” existed to mark the deaths of the nearly 4,000 Southern lynchings that had been documented at the time of the EJI’s report in 2015.

Follow the link for the complete article.

Redacted Tonight’s Natalie McGill lampoons corporations’ “corporate responsibility theatrics.”

In The Roanoke Times, historian Robert Willingham points out just who, exactly, is guilty of “whitewashing history.” A nugget; follow the link for the rest:

If we leave those statues unchallenged we assent to the assertions of their erectors: that the Confederate cause was just, and that the emerging* racial order in the south was justified and virtuous.

__________________

*The statues were erected during the beginning of the Jim Crow era, roughly about a century ago.

Shaun Mullen investigates.

Dick Polman considers why Trump keeps bashing the press. A snippet:

Trump’s sole ideology is self-preservation, and what he sorely needs – as his relations with Hill Republicans continue to erode, as his legislative agenda teeters toward DOA, as Bob Mueller and the congressional probes continue to tighten the noose – is love and reassurance from his loyal 35 percent. If he can keep them happy, distracting them from his own failings by feeding them an enemy, by professing to hate the same “elites” they hate, he’ll have the best shot at hanging onto his job.

Will Bunch marvels at the ability to Trumpkins, even Trumpkins who have since regretted their support of Trump, to look at Donald Trump and see a person who does not and never has existed.

Aside:

I read the same article that Bunch writes about. The author’s talent for rationalization does rather take one aback.

I’ve figured out and fixed why, if you came to the main welcome page for this site and clicked the link for the blog, you would get a malformed nada, nothing, zilch.

It was a typo.

Blasted computers, wnat you tu splet stuf rite.

In related news, my local rag reports that there might be some cracks appearing in the base.

Aaaah, did ooo’s ittle for profit law school go bust?

Afterthought:

My brother and I agreed yesterday that, if all you have to support your self-esteem is the color of your skin, you don’t have much.

Off to drink liberally.

At The Roanoke Times, Dick Bauman adds commentary.

When fellowship is needed, join us . . . .

When: Thursday, August 10, 6 p.

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

More here.

A polite family is a close family.

Police said the rifle was laying on the backseat floorboard of a Chevrolet pickup when the man, 46, attempted to lift an ice chest into the backseat.

At the same time, his daughter, 17, was placing a phone into a pocket in the truck’s door when the gun discharged. The single shot hit the man in the hip area and struck his daughter in the arm.

Read more »

(Part One is here.)

This is what happened during voir dire, that phase of jury duty during which the jury pool is narrowed down to the jury. I may not have the sequence exactly correct, but, if I have a few questions out of sequence, it will not impeach my larger goal, which is to dispel the Bull* (with apologies to Michael Weatherly), that television and movies promulgate.

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Once before in these electrons I’ve mentioned being called for jury duty. On that occasion, we assembled in a room and waited. Once all the juries for the day were empaneled, those of us remaining were sent home.

This was a much different experience from that one. It was also much different from what you see on TV courtroom shows. Oh, the TV may have the shape of the model correct, but they dress it up in unrecognizable garments.

I decided to post about my experience because most persons resist jury duty like the plague and because those who have not been called might like to know to expect. Please note that the experience may vary in different jurisdictions.

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