Source: NY TIMES

A Connecticut state representative on his way home from an inaugural ball to kick off the new term was killed when a wrong-way driver hit him head-on early Thursday, state police said.

Officials from across the state mourned the loss of State Representative Quentin Williams of Middletown, a city about a 20-minute drive south of the capital, Hartford. Gov. Ned Lamont ordered the state flag to be lowered to half-staff in honor of Mr. Williams, calling his loss “devastating.”

The crash occurred on Route 9 in Cromwell, just north of Middletown, at about 12:45 a.m. The Connecticut State Police said that Mr. Williams was traveling south when he was hit by a vehicle traveling north in the southbound lane. The driver of that vehicle, 27-year-old Kimede Katie Mustafaj of Manchester, Conn., was also killed.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/05/nyregion/connecticut-quentin-williams-killed-crash.html

---

I met Q a few times at Young Democrats of America conferences. He had a great sense of humor and infectious positive attitude.

... On Sunday Night Football. Pretty cool.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47380/in-flanders-fields

I posted this awhile ago. But since we take tweets as reality I think this article should be posted again because we all need a reminder.


I don’t have anything against cultural and ideological bubbles. My family is a bubble. We have a host of in-jokes that no one else will get, and a bunch of tastes that many others do not share. We regularly eat a dish called “tuna quiche,” which brings us joy even as it causes others to break for the nearest exit. This dynamic holds true on a larger scale, from religious communities to pop-culture fandoms: Most bubbles are a wonderful way to unite people through shared experience. They only become toxic when their members start believing in toxic things and then attempt to impose them on others—sort of like if my family got really into cyanide quiche and started bringing it to synagogue and insisting everyone try it. In the real world, this looks like conspiratorial cultures, from QAnon to societal anti-Semitism to 2020-election truthers. Thankfully, most bubbles are not like this.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t have negative impacts. Some bubbles don’t literally poison the minds or bodies of adherents, but they do disconnect individuals from the broader community and make it harder for them to relate to the people around them, which has negative consequences for society at large.

Lately, something like this has been happening in our cultural discourse.



https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/deep-shtetl/61e06b2c55e52500217add01/your-bubble-is-not-the-culture-lin-manuel-miranda-harry-potter/

https://www.facebook.com/Yankees/videos/408781624661457

https://www.facebook.com/Yankees/videos/408781624661457

An amusing story of The Queen.