Game of Thrones Bookclub – Week Three Spoiler Thread
The main discussion is here. If you want to talk about spoilers, you can talk about them in this thread.
Tags: game of thrones
Erik Kain
Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.
August 15, 2019
July 22, 2009
November 3, 2009
[caption id="attachment_361266" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screengrab from WIVB Buffalo Channel 4 News[/caption]
Still a developing story, but what we know so far points to an utterly depraved act of violence at a Buffalo supermarket.
Comment →Ten people were killed and three others suffered non-life-threatening injuries and were transported to local hospitals after a mass shooting at a supermarket on Buffalo’s East Side Saturday afternoon.
The shooter was an 18-year-old white male who was heavily armed with tactical gear and was live-streaming during the mass shooting, officials said. City of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said the shooter is not from Buffalo and traveled “hours” from outside the area.
“This was pure evil,” Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said. “A straight-up racially motivated hate crime.”
The shooter was identified in court Saturday evening as Payton S. Gendron of Conklin, New York, about 200 miles southeast of Buffalo.
Gendron was arraigned on one count of first-degree murder without bail.
The 18-year-old will be back in court on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. for a felony hearing.
When Gendron exited his vehicle at the supermarket, authorities said, he shot four people in the parking lot. Three of them died and one is in the hospital. The shooter entered the store and opened fire on customers.
Twitch deletes shooter’s live-stream video of Buffalo mass shooting
A retired Buffalo Police officer, Aaron Salter, who was working as a security guard, shot Gendron but he was unharmed because he was wearing armor, Gramaglia said. The retired officer was shot and killed.A law enforcement source told CBS News that the gunman had a racial slur written on his weapon. The attack is being treated as a hate crime.
Erie County District Attorney John Flynn will not confirm the existence of the shooter’s manifesto. He said they believe there was a “racial component” to the attack but won’t say more.
This attack is being investigated by the FBI as a hate crime and as violent extremism.
Police officers could frame people, file bogus charges, conjure evidence out of thin air—and, in most of the U.S., they would still be immune from facing any sort of civil accountability for that malicious prosecution. Until yesterday.
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Yesterday, the highest court in the country struck that requirement down, ruling that Thompson should indeed have a right to sue the officers at the center of his case. "A plaintiff such as Thompson must demonstrate, among other things, that he obtained a favorable termination of the underlying criminal prosecution," wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court. "We hold that a Fourth Amendment claim…for malicious prosecution does not require the plaintiff to show that the criminal prosecution ended with some affirmative indication of innocence."
From THOMPSON v. CLARK ET AL.:
Held: To demonstrate a favorable termination of a criminal prosecution for purposes of the Fourth Amendment claim under §1983 for malicious prosecution, a plaintiff need not show that the criminal prosecution ended with some affirmative indication of innocence. A plaintiff need only show that his prosecution ended without a conviction.
Thompson has satisfied that requirement here.
Thompson v. Clark was decided 6-3. (Alito wrote the dissent, with Thomas and Gorsuch joining.)
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Recently comments that included the strings "zed" or "doug" were sent immediately to trash. This should be fixed now.
Perhaps the most striking example of Starkdom, it seems to me, is Sansa. And I think she provides a lense through which to see the rest of the family. Sansa believes in a world of beautiful things and this guides her decision-making process to many faults. She doesn’t understand what’s really at stake. She just knows the world that she wants to live in and seems to think it will come about through the power of assumption. At least Eddard realizes that there are games being played.
Now, we can more easily forgive Sansa on account of her youth. But I think her untempered nature is partly what makes Eddard easier to understand. One imagines, when he was younger, he was much the same way. Time and experience revealed a more complicated world, but when push comes to shove, it’s the uncomplicated world that he retreats to. The higher the stakes, the more he retreats. So he knows that Littlefinger is a bad dude, and yet in the thrust of events, he acts otherwise, retreating into the world he better understands.Report
That’s a very interesting way to look at Sansa. I hadn’t considered that angle, but it makes a great deal of sense. Perhaps Arya is not so different in a way, imagining a world where even little girls can become lords and sword-fighters. Just another refusal to believe in the world as it actually is. Even their gods are long-dead.Report
Harsh on their Gods E.D. since later in the books it looks like the Weirwoods have plenty of power still left in em.Report
I really like Sansa and can’t help but agree there. Having her learning the game at Littlefingers knee strikes me as a fearsome potential combination. All those Stark morals and dreams poured into the tempered vessle of Littlefinger’s razor sharp cynical scheming? And then frosted over with her burgoning beauty? The Queen had best watch her back.Report
That’s the best part, Cersei is too busy sparring with Margery. She won’t even see Sansa coming.Report
I wanted to also note that Jaimie Lannister has a bit of the Stark in him, and this begins to come out more in the third book. He’s never the schemer that his siblings are, nor as ambitious and power-hungry as his father or Cersei. And really, he can’t play the game either.Report
I don’t know if the fact he’s not a schemer make him Stark-like. I think it’s just that he’s too impulsive to scheme. If he wants somethign he just takes it, if that gets him into trouble he falls back on his sword. Sure things might go wrong and kill him, but I don’t think he cares much.Report
Jaime’s character develops as the books progress especially after his hand is lopped off. After some life-changing moments it looks like that if not for his unnatural attachment to his sister Cersei (Lady Macbeth) Lannister h would hav been a decent sort. As his Aunt says:
You smile like Gerion and fight like Tyg, and there’s some of Kevan in you, else you would not wear that cloak . . . but Tyrion is Tywin’s son, not you.
Jaime Lannister is in a way a tainted and fallen hero. While we see his worst side first in the beginning, as with Sandor Clegane, we find that they are not without redeeming qualities. It may be that pushing Bran did sort of push him off the moral event horizon (as well as screwing his own sister) But his own efforts to restore honour and dignity to the Kingsguard as well as to behave honourably with respect towards Ctelyn Stark and his promise to her as well as Brienne of Tarth and his subsequent severing of ties with his sister is making me want to re-appraise him. It is easy to perceive him as having shit for honour, but it is clearly not the case.Report
Why do you like to hate Littlefinger? I’m pretty much entirely in awe of him and can’t quite understand those who loathe him.Report
I feel similarly, he’s too much of a Magnificent Bastard for me to hate him.Report
It’s slightly OT, but that line is my favorite from any movie ever.Report
Now you have doomed us all TVtropes will ruin your lifeReport