First Looks category archive

Over the years, I’ve posted a number of images from a site named “All Things Amazing” (always attributing the source), a site based in Russia (the URL was a *.ru URL). I appreciated the webmaster’s love for the outre and the impish.

Today, this came into my rss feed. Note that, by the time you read this, the link may not work, or, at least, may not work fully.

(Russian text snipped.)
________________________________________________________________________________________________

yesterday I received this notice
“ATTENTION
On 10.03.2022, the site radikal.ru ceases to work.
From this date, videos and pictures will not be available.
To avoid losing your content, save it to your disk.”

this will be the end of the legendary retro_dome and adski_kafeteri, because 90% of images in these communities were uploaded and stored on this photo-host.

if you don’t know who to thank for the holes instead of images in this community, write a collective letter of gratitude to Putin and his war.
but the holes in this community are incalculably easier to survive, than the holes instead of the windows of Ukrainian residential buildings, hospitals and schools.
Full article
https://adski-kafeteri.livejournal.com/3079318.html

It’s not much, but it is a straw at which to grasp in these troubled times.

I always associated that phrase with the old Superman television show starring George Reeves, in which it was often uttered by Perry White, Clark Kent’s editor at The Daily Planet.

I don’t know the origin of that phrase, but I just learned that it is much older than the 1950s, as it occurs in Mary Roberts Rinehart’s More Tish, which Rinehart wrote a century ago after her stint as a war correspondent in WWI.

Mangy comments at the Youtube page:

Only really weak, insecure, pathetic, or painfully obsequious individuals like Tucker Carlson or Donald Trump would admire and praise Vladimir Putin, a coward who hides from his own people, while sending troops to carry out bloody attacks on citizens of a friendly neighboring country. Such a person is not “manly”, but merely a sociopathic madman. The weaklings that admire him only do so because they believe they are powerful by association.

One more time, “social” media isn’t.

Yes, anti-vaxxers are wearing them now. For real. In New Zealand.

Psychologist Robert Bartholomew says, “Blame the Nocebo Effect.”

Stuart Brotman points explains how the perfect is the enemy of the good. Here’s a bit; follow the link for the evidence.

My point here isn’t that we should lower our collective standards of excellence as a way to diffuse polarization across the ideological spectrum. Rather, we must recognize that in much of life, the 100 percent test is not the one that we should be applying.

More Tish, by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

This is an absolute hoot!

Vicky Van, by Carolyn Wells.

Yes, the conclusion is nonsensical, but it is a darned good tale.

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

At the Tampa Bay Times, retired economics professor Murad Antia takes a calm and reasoned look at the slight rise in the rate of inflation that has many, to quote Bob Cesca, losing their spadonkle. Here’s a little bit.

As you can see in this chart, the inflation rate for those economies (Canada and Europe–ed.) was about 5 percent. So, I would estimate that about 2 percentage points of the inflation can be blamed on over-stimulation. Most of the rise is due to bottlenecks in the supply chain and also on some of Donald Trump’s and Biden’s policies.

He goes on the specify the policies referenced above and their effects in detail. Given the hysteria about some higher prices, it is well worth your attention.

Yet another responsible gun owner discharges his responsibility.

I’ve added a new site to the blogroll, over there ——> on the sidebar.

Off to drink liberally.

The Deep Lake Mystery, by Carolyn Wells.

It’s not a great mystery, but it’s a good story.

I must admit that the conclusion is rather contrived. Nevertheless, the author’s use of language to create atmosphere is exceptional. Indeed, I have downloaded several more of her stories from Librivox and look forward to listening to them.

John Young has a quibble with dis coarse discourse:

It’s odd. I just watched one of those dreary year-anniversary treatments of the Joe Biden presidency, and it left out his most important achievement.

Follow the link to find out what was left out.

The Local offers a fascinating look at why translating profanity from one language to another poses peculiar problems.

At AL.com, John Archibald explores the toxic effects and racist origins of policing for profit. A snippet:

Using the law to control and profit off poor people in general, and poor Black people in particular, continued through the 20th century. Especially in the South, where the convict-lease system incentivized incarceration to provide cheap labor and enrich private contractors. It survived through that whole century and stormed again into the 2000s, as private probation companies invaded states like Georgia and Alabama and many more. The fines those companies charged hit especially hard after the financial crisis in 2008. In Harpersville in Shelby County, then-Circuit Judge Hub Harrington was so shocked at the way poor people were squeezed by ballooning fines and fees that he famously declared it a “debtor’s prison’’ and shut it down.

It is still happening in places like Marion County, where a number of people — including U.S. Army veteran Charles Anderson — were jailed last year for their inability to pay old court fines. In Castleberry in southern Alabama, media scrutiny of a revenue-driven speed trap a few years ago led, at least temporarily, to the dissolution of the police department.