20 January—Alphabet, the Google people, are laying off 12,000 employees they had taken on during the novel coronavirus hiring frenzy. Wells Fargo’s corrupt management has canned hundreds so far this year. Who fires next? (As opposed to the fire next time?)

On the subject of firing, Alec Baldwin had better call Saul Goodman to drive up from Albuquerque to save his ass from the publicity-seeking clutches of Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies. Oh, wait a minute, Saul is indisposed at the moment.

It was only in July that DA Carmack-Altwies settled a lawsuit with a Santa Fe real estate investor who had been (and still is) critical of her for $25,000. She had blocked the guy from her official Facebook page. It was his third suit against the Santa Fe DA; he also won the other two, regarding FOI requests. It must have been embarrassing for the DA, who likely has political ambitions.

(Had Mary blocked the plaintiff from her personal Facebook page, there’d have been no case. But the subject page was used for official business, making the blocking a First Amendment issue.

Back to Alec Baldwin, then, the film’s armorer has been charged along with the actor with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. Certainly the armorer is culpable for not making absolutely sure there were no live rounds in the revolver or even around it. But I shouldn’t have thought an actor was responsible for checking the ammo.

On the other hand, the accused armorer is actually an armoress and one wonders whether DA Mary may be a feminist who just possibly can’t let a fellow female take all the blame without casting some on a male. And Baldwin was and is the jinxed film’s producer. So the buck must stop with him at least to some extent.

In all events, here’s a defense for Alec Baldwin: