So far this year in the US there have been 15,897 gun deaths from shootings other than suicide. (More people than that have killed themselves via guns, the #1 use of a gun in the US is to kill yourself.)

1,435 of those non-suicide gun deaths were children.

There has been more than one mass shooting per day this year ( Read more... )

Soon after we got together, we attended a dinner party at which a (presumably straight, or at least straight-married) woman who’d known Harry for some time turned to me and said, “So, have you been with other women, before Harry?” I was taken aback. Undeterred, she went on: “Straight ladies have always been hot for Harry.” Was Harry a woman? Was I ( Read more... )

Can't grade this film yet, I'm still in shock from the gruesome turns at the end. The mutilation. Even though I previously saw The House That Jack Built with K and should've known ...

I think only my second von Trier film?

Still in shock. Maybe I'll have more words for it tomorrow.

"We are at least convinced we're watching a film precisely as ( Read more... )

I'm hearing Israelis refer to the Hamas militants who attacked Israel over the weekend as "animals" or "not even animals". It's difficult to accept that the people attacking you are still people like you. And that they may feel motivated to attack you because of what your country has done to them.

"Every day a person is born in Gaza into an open ( Read more... )

Other than the spectacular bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines last year, the first year of this Russian invasion of Ukraine was well-confined to the territory of Ukraine. The US & NATO, while supplying tens of billions of dollars in military and economic aid to Ukraine, insisted that Ukraine keep the conflict within its own territory ( Read more... )

Was talking about politics with a friend, specifically what I continue to think is the disaster of the "Defund the Police" slogan, which has been popping up more frequently again with the anniversary of George Floyd's murder. This friend repeated an argument I've heard before, that the level of crime is way down since the 1990s so we don't need to ( Read more... )

As T read the verdicts to me while I was cooking dinner last night, the first thing I thought was:

They can't convict him on all three charges, that makes no sense.  The defense will appeal, and it is likely the appellate court will throw out some of the charges.  The charges were meant as multiple choice, not all of the above.  Juries of non- ( Read more... )