More than 6,000 Texas smoke shops and related businesses could be forced to shut down if the ban goes into effect next November as scheduled.

A guide to exhibitions opening in spring 2026 at Houston area art museums and institutions, including the Blaffer Art Museum, the Galveston Arts Center, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Moody Center for the Arts, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and more. 

Blaffer Art Museum

The Uncanny In-Between puts a contemporary, subversive twist on traditional Korean ceramics. Curated by Sso-Rha Kang and running from January 10 to March 14, 2026, the exhibition features work by Audrey An, Wansoo Kim, Hoon LEE, Hayun Surl, and Hae Won Sohn. According to the Blaffer website, “Despite commonalities of Korean heritage, these artists navigate the nuances of cross-cultural influences culling from personal, familial, and cultural histories.”

Mud + Corn + Stone + Blue, running January 17 to March 14, 2026, will consider historical entanglements between the United States and Central America, with artwork from the U.S. Corn Belt and from Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras. The traveling exhibition hinges on major regional conflicts dating to the 1960s, touching on how these histories are entwined with the U.S. corn industry. Mud + Corn + Stone + Blue will be presented at both Blaffer Art Museum and Lawndale Art Center (February 27 to May 2, 2026).

Galveston Arts Center

Bruce Lee Webb: CURIOS, in the Strand Gallery from January 10 to April 4, 2026, features the work of Waxahachie and Fort Davis artist Bruce Lee Webb with the added context of artworks and objects he has collected across decades. According to the Galveston Arts Center website, Mr. Webb’s “studies of characters and culture have guided his fascination and research into topics, including honky-tonk cowboy music, visionary art, occult oddities, fraternal order societies, and antiquarian books.” The artist’s work features “musicians, folklore, and locales of personal significance painted in ink on vintage cotton seed bags and waxed cotton.”

Lawndale Art Center

End Cash Bail A Poetry & Visual Art Exhibition, January 14-17, 2026, at Lawndale Art Center, will take a firsthand look at the impact of incarceration in Texas jails through poetry, paintings, collages, cyanotypes, photography, and more. Curated by ACLU of Texas Artist-in-Residence KB Brookins, the exhibition aims to reveal the wide-ranging impacts of the Texas jail system.

Art League Houston

Art League Houston (ALH) will present three exhibitions, opening January 16 and running through April 19, 2026. 

The photography-based exhibition magic mirrors, by interdisciplinary artist Jamie Ho, will place the Han Dynasty-era magic mirror as its centerpoint. In a description provided by ALH, “When a beam of bright light hits convex, polished surface of a magic mirror, an image is reflected onto the wall. The object is considered synonymous with how the Western world views China, as both technically advanced and shrouded in mystery.” Ms. Ho’s work uses GIFs, sculptures, new media, and installation to generate mirror images that trouble the long history of public spectacle and display of Chinese American women and femme bodies. She generates a world that prioritizes queer modes of joy, humor, and play as an act of resistance against assimilation into the hegemony of American culture.

The River Entered My Home, by Austin-based collaborative duo Hammonds + West, engages “grief work” in sculptural installations incorporating drawings and poems that articulate the experience of living amid a fragile, changing ecosystem. The artists question individual and societal contributions to the environmental crisis, inviting viewers to “dwell in wreckage, suspended between flood and fire, stasis and loss,” as distinctions between natural and human-made disasters collapses.

And I Feel Fine / Y Me Siento Bien is an ongoing series by Mateo Gutierrez examining intersections of domestic and border-related traumas. This latest installment explores what ALH describes as “distinct but emotionally synchronized realities: the aftermath of American mass shootings and the journey of migrants seeking entry into the United States.” In merging these narratives, Mr. Gutierrez’s multimedia work “exposes a singular American ethos of violence that permeates the national psychology both within and beyond U.S. borders.”

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Frida: The Making of an Icon will be on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) from January 19 to May 17, 2026. The expansive show will feature more than 30 artworks,  memorabilia, and archives of Frida Kahlo, along with 120 artworks by five generations of artists she inspired. In contrast to prior exhibitions on Ms. Kahlo’s work, the MFAH describes Frida: The Making of an Icon as “the first major exploration of the artist’s transformation from a relatively unknown local painter to a universal icon and global brand.”

From March 1 to May 10, 2026, the MFAH will present Buddha/Nature, an exhibition exploring Buddhist teachings in dialogue with nature. The show will pair five Buddhist masterpieces from the Xuzhou Collection with a selection of works by six international artists. 

And from March 8 through September 7, 2026, in the Cullinan Hall of the Caroline Wiess Law Building, Ernesto Neto: SunForceOceanLife will be on display for the first time following its 2021 MFAH debut. According to the museum, “Over the course of several weeks, a team of a dozen people will once again construct a labyrinth of interior pathways for visitors to explore while suspended 12 feet in the air.”

Moody Center for the Arts

Imaging after Photography will run from January 23 to May 09, 2026, at the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University. According to a press release, the exhibition will explore “the mercurial nature of images, the evolving dialogue between photographs and reality, and humanity’s ever-changing relationship to technological advancements,” in relation to recent developments with artificial intelligence systems. Works by global contemporary artists, including Nouf Aljowaysir, Refik Anadol, Gregory Chatonsky, Sofia Crespo, Joan Fontcuberta, Lisa Oppenheim, and Trevor Paglen, will offer “nuanced vantage points on the history of photography and its intersections with machine learning, asking questions about human perception, and technological intervention.

Sofia Crespo, the Moody’s Spring 2026 Leslie and Brad Bucher Artist-in-Residence, will present a monthlong exhibition in March 2026. An Argentine artist based in Lisbon, Portugal, Ms. Crespo’s practice explores convergences of artificial intelligence and biological systems. According to the Moody Center website, Ms. Crespo works with Norwegian artist Feileacan Kirkbride McCormick as the collaborative duo Entangled Others, investigating how organic life and artificial mechanisms simulate and evolve in congruence.

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft

As described on the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) website, Clutch City Craft, on view February 28 to August 8, 2026, will survey “the craft communities that have built the infrastructure and material culture of Houston, demonstrating how traditional craft knowledge is at the heart of one of the leading industrial production centers in the nation.” The exhibition is part of Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026, a yearlong collaboration that brings together organizations and creatives across the country. Handwork 2026 is an initiative organized by Craft in America and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in celebration of the U.S.’s semiquincentennial.

Menil Drawing Institute/The Menil Collection

The Menil Drawing Institute will present The Gift of Drawing: Cy Twombly, March 27 to August 9, 2026, featuring a selection from 121 drawings recently gifted to the museum by the Cy Twombly Foundation. The drawings cover a three decade span from the 1950s to the 1980s, in a range of materials, techniques, and themes such as classical antiquity, eroticism, and nature. According to the museum, this will be the inaugural presentation of many of the pieces, including Scent of Madness (1986), a series of ten watercolors.

In April, the Menil Collection will present John Akomfrah: The Hour Of The Dog, an immersive video installation by British filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah. The museum co-commissioned the piece with the Baltimore Museum of Art. Mr. Akomfrah undertook significant research, including oral history interviews and accessing prominent archives, to create the work, which examines Civil Rights-era non-violent protests and other efforts seeking racial equity.

The post Exhibitions Coming to Houston Area Art Venues In Spring 2026 appeared first on Glasstire.

Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas.

For last week’s picks, please go here.

1. Juan Ramos: Sisyphus Strut
Artpace (San Antonio)
August 28, 2025 – January 4, 2026

From Artpace:

“After 23 years, Juan Ramos returns to Artpace with a reflective exhibition following his 2002 Texas Artists residency in our International Artist-in-Residence program. In his 2002 Artpace exhibition, Southside Loteria, Ramos created a two-screen video projection with a narrative soundtrack exploring the south side of San Antonio where he grew up. The nearly seven-minute piece follows four characters, each with a personal monologue, blending drawn and filmed imagery. For his 2025 exhibition, Ramos reflects on his career by connecting formative works with new directions. Central to the show is Southside Loteria, alongside a preview of his graphic novel-in-progress, San Anto Sentinels, displayed salon-style with illustrations and text. The exhibition also features video works and a looping soundtrack of twelve songs from San Antonio bands that Ramos has been in.”

2. Tyler Deauvea: Fear Not: It is Only Your Blessing
David Shelton Gallery (Houston)
October 24, 2025 – December 20, 2025

From David Shelton Gallery:

“Fear Not: It is Only Your Blessing is about overcoming the inconsistencies, anxieties, and perspectives that can prevent us from embracing positive change that is forcing itself to happen. It explores the discomfort that often comes with adapting to new realities — and what that inner work looks like. The exhibition also touches on the unpredictability of change: how plans can shift and unexpected situations can arise in the midst of transformation. Misdirection and setbacks are often opportunities to recalibrate, refocus on what truly matters, and approach our paths with renewed clarity. Deauvea conceived this concept when everything was smooth, momentum was high, and there were no major setbacks. But shortly after its conception, he suffered an injury from which he is rehabilitating, and he lost his job. It isn’t solely about loss, though. It’s about leaning into the work that lies ahead, with the belief that everything is unfolding for the greater good — even when it’s hard. It’s about doing the emotional work and being honest about what that process looks and feels like.”

3. Ruben Nieto: Quantum Entanglement of a Supernova
Cris Worley Fine Arts (Dallas)
November 8 – December 30, 2025

From Cris Worley Fine Arts:

“Widely recognized for his dynamic Comic Abstractions, Nieto now expands his visual language with a body of work that fuses cosmology, mythology, figuration, and organic forms into a rich symbolic landscape. Rooted in the artist’s Central American heritage, these works draw from the visual traditions of epigraphy, evoking the layered complexity of ancient inscriptions while reimagining them within a contemporary, cosmic framework. Titles such as The Birthplace of Pegasus, Looking Across the Universe for Pegasus, Crowning Stars, and the exhibition’s namesake, Quantum Entanglement of a Super Nova, underscore Nieto’s exploration of the interwoven forces of myth and science, past and present. Vibrant, gestural, and enigmatic, Nieto’s paintings reflect on the mysteries of origin, transformation, and interconnectedness, inviting viewers into a world where cosmic phenomena and ancestral symbols converge. With Quantum Entanglement of a Super Nova, Nieto offers a bold new chapter in his practice — one that transcends the comic frame and enters a realm of universal storytelling.”

4. Jad Fair: Papercuts
Yard Dog (Austin)
December 6 – December 31, 2025

From Yard Dog:

“Jad Fair is an American musician, singer, and visual artist, best known as the founder of the lo-fi, experimental rock band Half Japanese. He is also known for a prolific solo career and numerous collaborations with artists like Daniel Johnston, Yo La Tengo, and Teenage Fanclub. Fair is also a visual artist who creates paper cuttings and drawings, and his work is exhibited internationally. Yard Dog first showed Jad’s paper cutting art in 2001, and we’ve done a number of shows of his work over the years. We’ll be showing 30 new paper cuttings.”

5. The Global Language of Headwear: Cultural Identity, Rites of Passage, and Spirituality
San Angelo Museum of Fine Art
August 22, 2025 – January 4, 2026

From the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts:

“The Global Language of Headwear includes 89 hats and headdresses from 42 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America, and is a tribute to the stunning diversity of the world’s cultures. With a few exceptions, the pieces are from the mid-to-late 20th century, and many are still worn today in parts of the world for revelry, ritual, and the rhythms of everyday life. More than utilitarian objects of material culture, each hat is a unique work of art — not merely because of the skill required to make it, but also as a singular expression of creativity and cultural meaning.

The profusion of shapes, styles, and materials, as well as the ingenious use of embellishments to decorate the hats, are limited only by imagination. The Global Language of Headwear is organized into five thematic sections: Cultural Identity, Power, Prestige and Status, Ceremonies and Celebrations, Spiritual Beliefs, and Protection. Hats and headdresses communicate timeless ideas — not only of beauty, but also of what it means to be human. The exhibition will be displayed with a special focus exhibit of Chinese children’s hats from the collection of Suzanne Sugg.

The post Top Five: December 18, 2025 appeared first on Glasstire.

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer who thought one of their employees might be trans and was wondering how to signal support (#3 at the link)? Here’s the update.

Thank you for publishing my letter in July. Your advice and the comment section were both very useful. Everyone was very kind and a lot of people had good advice.

I decided to follow the advice of not saying anything to Jane or focusing particularly on her, instead turning my focus to making work a safe environment for anyone. I also didn’t go back to the YouTube channel, figuring that Jane had a right to keep her private and professional life separate. Not to mention, I didn’t feel comfortable going into the comments section to say “Hi this is your manager” and being a silent follower, or commenting without her knowing who I was, felt too close to stalking. At the end of the day, if I started to stream outside of work as a hobby, I don’t think I’d want anyone at work to watch, much less someone I report to. And if I want to watch streams of video games, I’ve got more than enough choice without having to watch this channel in particular.

Jane didn’t end up coming out, but another employee did, about a month after I wrote — and, funnily enough, around a week after my letter was published. To keep with the Disney names theme, let’s say Eric came out as Ariel, a trans woman. I made it known publicly that I wouldn’t tolerate any discrimination towards her, and that anyone under my supervision who gave Ariel a hard time would answer to me. I also started educating myself on gender identity; I had started before this happened, but I can’t lie and say it didn’t motivate me to spend more time on it. What was a vague possibility — managing a trans person — was suddenly an immediate reality.

The good news is, our team really was as open-minded as I hoped they would be. It took some time for everyone to get used to the new name and pronouns, but they were all gracious when Ariel corrected them if they slipped up, and at this point no team member is slipping up anymore. One person did try to ask, within my earshot, if Ariel was considering bottom surgery, then looked horrified when I asked if I’d heard them inquire about a coworker’s genitalia. I hope the question was born out of misplaced curiosity rather than actual malice, but either way I knew I had to shut that down. As I said in a comment on my first letter, as far as I’m concerned my coworkers might as well be Barbie and Ken dolls with no genitalia. I don’t want to know, and I won’t have my team trying to know either. Luckily, shutting it down once and mentioning that this could be grounds for a sexual harrassment complaint was enough, and it didn’t happen again. I made sure to mention to Ariel she shouldn’t feel obligated to answer such questions, and she was free to come to me if something like it happened.

The bad news is, the rest of the company wasn’t so great. (And yes, I know several people said that even if my team was open-minded, everyone might not be; congratulations, or condolences, you were right about that.) Nothing was done that could give Ariel grounds to make an official complaint about discrimination, because the law was followed to the letter … but not so much to the spirit.

We all wear company-issued uniforms, and despite a lot of push back, that uniform is still partly gendered. Women are allowed to wear skirts or trousers, but men have to wear trousers. They refused to give Ariel a skirt until she legally changed her name and gender. Until she did, they were (legally) allowed not to count her as a female employee. Similarly, she still had to introduce herself as “Mr Eric X” on the phone and in her signature, because they wouldn’t switch her info until the legal change was made (which, in our country, can take a month to over a year, depending on where you live).

I pushed back against this as much as I could. I insisted the spirit of the law matters just as much, if not more, as the letter. I also offered a sympathetic ear to Ariel when she felt the need to vent about this whole process. Our team also rallied behind her and offered support. It took multiple complaints to HR, as well as people “casually” commenting in front of higher-ups that they didn’t think our company was so backwards, and they might have to consider looking for a new job that aligned more with their values, to make the process go smoothly. Ariel finally received her new uniform and was allowed to introduce herself as her real identity, as should have been the case from the beginning.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the lesson was learned, since now the company is trying to use Ariel as an example of how inclusive they are, in a “look, we have an openly trans woman working for us” way. In fact, the former head of HR had the gall to say in their retirement speech, “I’m proud to have worked for a company that accepted Ariel, a trans woman, with open arms” or something to that effect. Everyone in the audience was extremely uncomfortable, none of us more than Ariel, of course. On another occasion, a new employee was being introduced to everyone and when it was Ariel’s turn, boss said, “And this is Ariel, our very own trans lady.” This was met by immediate outrage from the team, and I pointed out that one, people aren’t minority tokens (just like you wouldn’t say “this is our very own BIPOC employee”), two, this was objectifying as it implied Ariel belonged to us, and three, he had just outed her without consent or warning. While he made a show of apologizing, I later got informally reprimanded behind closed doors for undermining him. I still think calling him out on the spot was the right thing to do, and all the reprimand told me was that my boss didn’t actually get what he’d done wrong. I reported the incident to HR, but as far as I know nothing came out of it. It is, of course, possible that my boss got a talking to or a warning and I wasn’t told about it, but it doesn’t seem likely.

It’s not a perfect update by any means (I’m not even sure it qualifies as a good update) and I know the entire situation has led Ariel to reconsider working for this company. If she does find a new job somewhere else, I’ll be sad to see her go as she’s a very competent worker and a very nice person to work with, but I can hardly hold it against her. I’ll be happy to provide her with a glowing recommendation if she ever needs one, and I’ve told her that. I’ve been updating my resume myself, though I won’t be looking to leave just yet; I want to be here to support Ariel as long as she stays with us.

Thanks again to you, Alison, and to everyone who commented with advice on how to be more inclusive and handle my initial situation.

The post update: I think one of my employees might be trans — how can I signal support? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

The city of Bellaire announced yesterday that Trader Joe’s has officially decided to come to Bellaire. The store will be located at 5130 Bellaire Blvd, Bellaire, TX 77401. The building began as a Weingarten’s location in 1959 and was sold to Safeway, along with multiple other locations, in 1984. After a few years under AppleTree‘s ownership, the store was acquired by Randalls in 1994. The store operated continuously as a grocery store until Randalls closed ...

In brief: In today’s post we take a look at what parts of the country will experience a White Christmas. It won’t be Houston of course, nor any place within 1,000 miles. We also discuss our brief cooldown tonight, warming weather for the weekend, and when it might get cold again after Christmas.

A White Christmas?

Will anyone in the Lower 48 have a White Christmas this year? Only a very few areas will be cold enough and wet enough due to a large ridge of high pressure establishing itself over the United States. Here’s a map showing 3-day snowfall totals preceding Christmas morning. Unless you live in the Pacific Northwest, Sierra Nevadas, Rockies, the upper Upper Midwest or New England area, you’re out of luck.

Thursday

Last night saw periods of dense fog, but this has begun to clear even before sunrise this morning, helped by light winds. In the fog’s wake we are going to see mostly sunny skies later today, with highs generally reaching the mid-70s. A front dropping down from the northwest may shave a couple of degrees off these highs for far northern areas, but for central and southern parts of the Houston region, the cooler air is unlikely to arrive until around sunset or after. Temperatures will drop quickly this evening, reaching the low 40s by Friday morning for all but the immediate coast. Winds will be gusty overnight from the north.

Friday

If you wonder what late December is supposed to feel like, Friday will be the day to step outside. We are going to see normal highs for this time of year, in the mid-60s, with sunny skies. Winds will be from the north, then the northeast, eventually swapping to come from the southeast overnight. This will moderate lows to fall only into the 50s for Houston.

Saturday

The first half of the weekend will bring gusty southerly winds as the onshore flow returns in force. Skies will be mostly sunny, with highs pushing into the mid- to upper-70s. Lows on Saturday night will only drop into the 60s, nearly 20 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year.

Sunday

Another day in the mid- to upper-70s (a few inland areas might briefly touch 80 degrees). Skies should be partly cloudy, and there is the barest chance of light showers during the daytime. Probably not for most people, though.

Next week

We will fall into a familiar pattern for pretty much all of next week: Highs in the mid- to upper-70s, lows in the low- to mid-60s, partly sunny skies, and so on. Because of the thickness of a ridge of high pressure sitting over the southern United States, our weather just isn’t going to change much. We’ll see plenty of humidity for late December, and the potential for foggy mornings depending on dewpoints and winds. Daily rain chances will likely be on the order of 10 percent. This pattern will hold into Christmas Day, and likely into Friday or Saturday of next week.

After this point the majority of our modeling is showing a change about 10 days from now, ahead of the new year. There is enough agreement in the models that I’m reasonably confident we’ll see a return of winter before the end of the year. This far out we can’t be certain, but it does seem likely.

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My allergic colleague has food demands I can’t meet

One of my job responsibilities is planning and ordering catering for all of my office’s meetings, trainings, gatherings, and the annual regional corporate holiday party. I’ve taken account of everyone’s dietary restrictions, and I make sure that the restaurants or catering companies always adhere to these specifications and restrictions, whether they are ethical, religious, or allergy. I send a menu out to those with restrictions and make sure that they feel they have enough to eat and are taken care of adequately. Most of them respond quickly with any changes they might need and thank me for looking out for them. I feel it’s my job to look out for these things, but always appreciate some appreciation!

One person (Chandler) does the exact opposite. Chandler’s dietary restriction is a severe allergy. Most recently, I asked him to look through the menu for an upcoming event, pick which item he wanted, and I’d ask catering to make it differently to take care of his needs. He refused. Instead, he asked me to just change the menu completely so that he wouldn’t have to eat a separate thing. The change I was asking them to make was as simple as “Please use brown rice instead of white rice,” but the change he was asking me to make was more like serving beef stew instead of salmon.

This has been an ongoing struggle. I order sandwiches for everyone, and have Chandler’s made separately and wrapped separately to avoid cross contamination, and he makes a face and complains that it is separate! I’ve clarified and confirmed exactly the extent of the issue, so I don’t think I am going overboard here. I get that nobody wants to feel separate or left out, but I’m at a loss here of what I could be doing differently to accommodate him. I don’t have any restrictions, personally, so I’m trying to put myself in someone else’e shoes here. I don’t understand what I could be doing differently to better accommodate Chandler without somehow offending him. Do you or the readers have any insight for this?

It sounds like you’re doing everything you should do, and Chandler is being unreasonable. It’s completely appropriate for Chandler to ask you to order him food that he can eat, but it’s not reasonable for him to insist on changing what everyone else is eating too, as long as there aren’t contamination issues. And it sounds like when you take steps to ensure there won’t be contamination issues, he complains about that.

You could certainly try saying something like, “I’m happy to order you what you need. I’m also happy to let you order your meals directly and have it billed to us, if it’s easier for you do that. Of course, I have a lot of different people’s needs to meet, so I can’t change what everyone is eating to what we’re ordering for you, but is there something else you’re hoping I’d be able to do?”

But unless there’s some key detail we’re missing here, it sounds like you’re handling this well, and you shouldn’t take his complaints as a sign that you’re being negligent.

– 2018

Read an update to this letter here.

2. My coworker is a blood drive bully

I’m the newest and youngest employee at a small office that’s the perfect place to start a career in my industry. I love the work, and I like my coworkers. The problem is “Alice.” She’s the long-time office admin, a very sweet and upbeat woman in her mid-50s. She’s involved in all kinds of charities and volunteer work, all for causes I support. She never solicits donations (it’s against company policy); she doesn’t badger people to join her groups though she’s always delighted when someone expresses an interest.

One of her causes is the Red Cross. Last week they launched a blood drive in our neighborhood—actually there’s a “bloodmobile” parked on our block. Alice enthusiastically announced the drive, urging everyone to donate. You get a sticker when you do, and she wears hers prominently every day. She also keeps tabs on who’s gotten a sticker and who hasn’t; over the last few days she has affectionately chided any un-stickered employees, usually in the morning when we’re all getting coffee, and once at a staff meeting. (Also the office has an open floor plan.)

I fully support the Red Cross and their work. But I am a bisexual man, and not exactly celibate, and I don’t meet the Red Cross’s restrictions on recent sexual activity. I’m out to most people in my life, and not keeping it a secret from anyone else. But it hasn’t been an easy process and to be honest I’m still coming to terms with my identity, including how or when to come out (I’m not in a relationship and most people assume I’m straight). The one thing I’m sure of is that I’m done lying.

So whenever I see Alice coming at me with her big smile and her sticker I break into a cold sweat. I’ve dodged the question so far, sort of walking a thin line between the truth and the whole truth. It just feels like if I laid it out for her I might as well be making an announcement to the entire office: “Attention everyone! I have sex with men!” I’m not ready for that.

What’s worse is that our HR department is basically one guy: a gay man who casually strolled in with his “I donated” sticker the second day of the drive. I don’t know if he really did or what, and I’m truly not judging him. But it makes me feel even more self-conscious about coming out in this way, much less talking to him about it.

How should I handle this? The blood drive’s almost over; can I just wait it out? Or am I being a coward and a hypocrite by not explaining my situation to Alice? I feel so embarrassed and awkward about the whole thing, I’ve kind of lost perspective. But I can’t bring myself to wear that damned sticker if I didn’t earn it, and as much as I wish I could, I can’t donate without being dishonest. (I should add that I’m fully confident about my negative HIV status, so this really is just about being bisexual.)

You are 100% entitled not to explain the situation to Alice. You are being neither a coward or a hypocrite. People aren’t entitled to information you didn’t intend to share with them just because they’re pushy.

And Alice is being pushy. Yes, blood donation is a good cause, but people have all kinds of personal reasons for not wanting or being able to donate blood, and she should be more thoughtful about that.

If you just want to wait it out, that is completely fine! There is no shame in taking the path of least resistance here.

But if you wanted to say something to Alice, you could say, “You know, some people have medical or other reasons they can’t donate blood, and might not want to announce those reasons at work.” Ideally you’d add, “This kind of pressure isn’t cool when you consider that,” but you can leave that off if you want. (But do know that’s true, and it’s not just men who’ve had recent sex with men — you can’t donate blood if you’re on certain medications, including antibiotics, or have certain types of cancer, or ever tested positive for Hepatitis C, or a bunch of other reasons.)

And if you want to, you can also point out the same thing to your HR guy — as in, “I’m concerned about how much pressure Alice is generating around the blood drive. I’m all for giving blood, but given the whole range of medical and other reasons some people aren’t allowed to, I worry she’s inadvertently pressuring people to reveal personal medical info to her because she’s not taking no for an answer.” This framing is “I’m concerned for the office as a whole” and “this is a landmine for the company,” not “Alice is making me uncomfortable. (Although the latter would be fine to say too! It just sounds like you’d prefer not to.)

But you don’t have to do any of that if you don’t want to. It is perfectly fine to just wait this out. Hell, it’s fine to lie to/mislead Alice (“yep, I’m good”) if she continues being so pushy. You have zero obligation to share anything you don’t want to share.

– 2019

3. Can I advise my replacement about my difficult boss?

I’m about to leave my current position to attend graduate school, and my boss is interviewing for my replacement. I’m very ready to move on for a variety of reasons, in particular the fact that my boss Fergus has a very strong personality that does not mesh with my own (I’m not alone; others in the office also feel this way). I’d like to give my successor some advice that might help them “manage” Fergus — such as “if you want concrete deadlines, you need to ask for them clearly, vocally, and often” and “as the youngest person in this office, your informal job duties will also include computer support.”

I realize that my perspective is a little biased, and I don’t want to sound like a disgruntled former employee because overall this workplace has given me many opportunities and Fergus is a genuinely good (but, to me, infuriating) person. What kind of advice is appropriate in this situation?

You can absolutely do that and it can be really helpful. You just have to be careful not to sound negative about it — you can’t sound resentful or like you’re complaining or eye-rolling. Even a little eye-rolling is undermining to your boss, and it sets up your replacement to see things through a negative lens from the start. Let her draw her own conclusions; don’t draw them for her, especially since for all we know she may turn out to be someone who can work beautifully with your boss. (That happens!)

So the tone you want when talking about this stuff is just helpful and matter-of-fact — the same tone you’d use when explaining how the office calendar works or where the best places are for lunch.

– 2017

4. My company wants to promote me but not pay me for it

I interviewed about a month ago at my current company for a promotion. The position was open because they are opening a new work site and they moved one of the managers there, leaving his position at my work site vacant. Yesterday my manager called me into his office and told me I’d been selected for the position. He then asked me to start working in the position immediately, without a pay increase or even an offer letter. This position will be a huge increase in responsibility from my current position, so I don’t fancy doing it for no pay.

After discussing it for a while, I found out that the last person who was in that position, as far as HR is concerned, is still in that position, despite his having been working at the new site for weeks already, and they cannot put me into a position that is not vacant. Supposedly this is because the new work site has not yet secured funding for its operations from our customer.

My company has a history of promoting people and not increasing their pay for a long time after they start in the position. Six months to a year until someone sees their salary increase is normal. Since they cannot even have HR change my status to the new position, it will likely be even longer. I offered to do the new position for 30 days, and if I haven’t received a formal offer at the end of 30 days I will return to my current job. My manager’s counter offer was that I will just work in the new position and whenever they can officially promote me they will.

I would like to take this promotion but will only take it for a significant salary increase because it is a much more stressful job than my current one. I find this whole situation very strange because I am working for a well-established company with thousands of employees. What is the best course of action?

If you’ll only accept the position for a significant salary increase, you don’t have a lot to lose by holding firm on that. You can try saying something like, “I’d love to accept the position and I’m excited about doing the work. But it’s a significant increase in responsibility, and I want to ensure that my compensation reflects that. I understand that the position isn’t officially vacant yet. But surely if we were hiring someone from the outside to do this job, we’d give them a salary that reflects market rate for this work. I’m asking that we do that now, before I accept the role. I can’t commit to it without first knowing what the salary will be.” (Or you could change that last sentence to, “Once I start doing this higher level work, I think it’s fair that my salary reflect that. Alternately, I’d be willing to wait up to two months as long as we can put in writing that I’ll receive that increased pay retroactively. Otherwise I’d be doing higher level work at a lower level salary, which of course wouldn’t be reasonable.”)

But it sounds like they’re counting on you to want the promotion enough that you’ll just do the work for a year or more at your old salary. And if you hold firm, you do risk losing the promotion, so you should just be sure that you’re willing to take that risk before drawing a line in the sand about it.

– 2018

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Hawkins, Indiana – Netflix has announced that they plan to release the highly anticipated potential conclusion to Stranger Things, eventually. “We know fans got a real kick out of Season 5, Volume 1: Chapter One – Act One,” said Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer. “We also know that viewers crave quantity over quality, and […]

The post Stranger Things to eventually release Season 5, Volume 4: Chapters 9-17 – Acts One and Two appeared first on The Beaverton.

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It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. Can I report my coworker’s drunken, racist aggression outside of work?

My two coworkers and I discussed the weekend’s events and ended up reporting the incident with Fergus the very next day. My boss was horrified and immediately had him sent on a flight back to his home country that evening, and told Fergus’s manager that regardless of the outcome, he was not welcome in our country program again and he wanted another teammate assigned to our program. It turns out, Fergus had visited my boss’s office the day before to tell him that over the weekend, he “maybe had too much to drink” and may have “offended” me and my coworkers. He had also visited my coworker’s office to try to apologize to her, but she sent him away. The commenters were right — he was already trying to cover for himself.

My coworkers and I were asked to write statements, and HR began a process for a disciplinary hearing. However, very soon after, Fergus resigned with immediate effect, so we never had the hearing. I received a personal phone call apology from the C-suite member in charge of Fergus’ department, and Fergus’ team now has a policy where teammates are not allowed to consume any alcohol while on business trips out of their duty station.

For those wondering about my coworker who took care of Fergus while she attempted to sober him up, she was okay and he was not abusive towards her. She did have to endure his self-loathing rants as well as prevent him from escalating his poor choices further as he attempted to find other, harder substances later that evening. Eventually he calmed enough that she called a taxi to take him to his hotel. Looking back, I wish we hadn’t left him alone with her.

Thank you to your advice and all of the commenters for reassuring me that I had every right to report the incident. I’m thankful to work for a supportive manager who took the matter seriously and acted immediately and decisively!

2. I get possessive over my work (#2 at the link)

About possessiveness in general, I did a deal of self-reflection. Part of it was about my perceived worth at work — I really struggle with self-assessment and imposter syndrome, so to a great deal my possessiveness over my work was tied to my self-perception. This came to a crisis point this year when, for reasons far outside my control, my role was split in half to cope with the expanding scope of the workplace. The planned goal is to have us both working in far more depth with smaller groups rather than one person working with a shallow group. Despite my knowing that, my lizard brain decided that I was obviously about to be fired (thanks, lizard brain) and it was a very stressful time.

I decided that the most helpful thing I could do was work with my new coworker to make sure the transition was as smooth as possible, so that it felt less like something was being stolen from me and more like I was helping someone grow. Also, it keeps me from *sounding* possessive even if my emotions are haywire. So far she seems great and my role is not in danger. I definitely feel under-utilized right now and am hoping to reach out to my boss for more projects, but I’m still being trusted with the management of major clients and working on improving things there.

As far as measuring my work worth, I’ve picked a couple of specific metrics I know we’re working on improving and focusing on those. I’d love more day-to-day affirmations that all is good, but my former manager got promoted, I now have a new manager, and I do not yet have a regular one on one meeting set up with her. We do have a workplace culture of calling out specific people who’ve done good work, but that’s more for the operations crews than our finance department. I spend a fair amount of time telling my nerves to quit it, because I don’t intend to make my manager the keeper of my mental health. However my workplace is one where you’re encouraged to close the laptop and go home at 5, emergencies are rare, and I trust these people to have my personal cell number because they’ve proved they don’t abuse it (the only work text I’ve ever gotten was to tell everyone the power was out, don’t come in to the office). On the whole, I’m happy here and it’s a good environment for me to heal from some damaging patterns.

As to the specific project that prompted my email, I realized that my specific frustrations were that a) my prior work on the project would end up automating me out of it and b) that I wouldn’t have a chance to clean up my terrible spreadsheet from last year. I’m happy to report that I did get the project again and I did have a chance to improve on my prior year design. I’m still hesitant to hand it over to someone without giving them a walkthrough, since it’s still a complicated and unintuitive sheet, but I feel like I had the chance to actually finish the project. I’m still working on getting actual layers of review in place (small business finance, y’all) but I feel a lot better about it.

3. My spouse’s company is suddenly competing with mine (#3 at the link)

A bit of a boring update here. We both got reassigned to different accounts, completely independent of the fact that we were married and competing for the same work. Just routine agency shuffle. Also, we had a baby and I’ve been on maternity leave for a good portion of the year, so even more unplugged from reality! More than anything else, that has shifted my perspective on the issue. I couldn’t care less anymore because I have bigger priorities now!

The post updates: reporting a coworker, I get possessive over my work, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Boy, he must need a hand with that luggage or something.

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

1. I think my disastrous ex-employee is co-opting queer identity

Where do I begin.

I followed the advice and said nothing, generally kept my distance.

Pam sowed chaos “leading” the LBGTQ+ group. She created what an ex-member described as a sexualized atmosphere, including a pinup photo of her in an event announcement. A lot of members left. A young employee, Mary, very publicly accused Pam of blowing up her life. Pam promised to leave her husband and move in with Mary, but turned on Mary once Mary had done all Pam asked, including taking on debt to rent a home for them. Mary lost her job for this because Pam complained about being outed. Pam seemed to enjoy the painful drama. (And yes, people at the company helped Mary. But there was a lot of damage.)

What else.

Pam is on a PIP now and practices malicious compliance when she is at work. That doesn’t happen much because she is often just AWOL. Junie (unlucky new manager) has visibly aged. We had drinks and she asked, “Did Pam do X and Y when you were managing her” and it’s the same batshit things, including the spooky rage. Our labor laws and risk-averse HR mean it will be a year or more until Pam can be fired.

Also, Pam decided she wasn’t queer after the head office pulled support from DEI programs, following the Trump executive orders. She has turned on the ERG members. She doesn’t seem to care when people are angry at her. It’s unsettling. She just smiles and looks kind of happy whether she’s getting cheers or curses (not literally).

I don’t know what we’ve learned from this. How do you not hire a sociopath?

2. My boss wants my employee to report to him (#2 at the link)

My post was about how my supervisor wanted to file himself as supervisor of record for my long-time supervisee, while I continued to handle the “day to day” of supervising her. I reacted to this proposal out of anger because this sounded like I would be covering for him, and, as a woman in this organization, I have previously had to cover work for a male supervisor, with no credit given.

After reading the comments, it occurred to me that if we could mitigate any functional issues with this change (such as confusion or crossed wires), it could be a net neutral for me and a net positive for Sarah. Over the years, Sarah has had many growth opportunities through new projects and responsibilities, but we’re a small and immobile organization (eight employees), and it’s hard as a supervisor to provide a continual cadence of growth. And so I had the realization that it made no sense that I stand in the way of this change for Sara. To mitigate potential problems, I asked my supervisor to meet to chart out Sarah’s reporting line for each of her projects. I also asked him to identify at least one or two projects to work on with her, so that he had some substantive role as a supervisor.

It’s been about two months since the change. It has really been nominal. Sarah reports to me on all of her projects but one. We connect for 3+ hours a week, and my supervisor has met with her once so far. But we haven’t had any communication problems, or confusion about my role. I think the big positive is that the change has elevated Sarah’s sense of her own importance in the organization — which is great, because she is important. Even if it was not the reason my supervisor proposed it, this boost has been a big positive.

On my end, I am looking for a new job, not due to this situation but due to the general lack of accountability of management in this organization. Altogether, going forward with this change with negotiated conditions was by far the most frictionless solution, and I am happy we could make this a win for Sarah. Thank you to the commenters for helping me to see the opportunity for Sarah.

3. What’s up with unannounced video calls?

I wrote way back in 2022, what feels like a lifetime ago, about joining a new team in my same company with a culture of unannounced, unexpected video calls. We were all remote at the time and video calls weren’t a part of the routine with my old team (and it was a very small company) so the hard shift was jarring. It was, as some folks might have picked up on, an extremely stressful time (lots of extraneous context involved that made the move itself unannounced, unexpected, and involuntary) and the perceived rudeness of the passively demanding video calls were just the crap cherry atop the stress sundae. And yes, they were always video calls with an expectation for video-on.

I can only chart correlation, not causation, but the worst offenders were also the leaders with the most boundary issues — they had the hierarchical power and authority and they used it to demand their direct reports be “besties” with them (actual quote) even after being rebuffed (!!), use their employees for emotional support and venting, caring more about being liked than being a leader, and a whole host of other issues. I didn’t end up addressing the video calls thing because there were much bigger fish to fry — including a neurodivergence diagnosis that helped explain why being wrenched from my task to answer an unannounced call made me feel bitey!

I do not miss that job.

4. My coworker got angry that I gave her time-sensitive info at the start of her shift (#3 at the link)

Management moved my coworker away from that position where she was having issues, and at the end of the day I think she had some things going on in her personal life that caused some challenges at work.

A few months later, she was fired because she got caught clocking into work and then going home for hours at a time.

If any lesson is to be learned, I imagine seeing small conflicts like what occurred in the past is a good sign a manager/supervisor should be checking in to support someone as things aren’t likely going so well! I’ve also been moved into other positions with more responsibility away from the role where I would attempt to help that previous coworker.

Now when I present “too much” information, my peers are very grateful and I’ve helped catch a lot of mistakes and helped solve some problems before they even occur! (Heard about this in my most recent performance review.)

I’m happy I didn’t take it to heart and I kept being who I was and just communicated that my previous angry coworker was having personal issues.

The post updates: disastrous ex-employee is co-opting queer identity, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

IT's coPtok, and you'll only find it right here on Cowboy Who? #CowboyWho

Fundraising website GoFundMe reported a sharp uptick in the number of people using the platform to help cover the cost of basic necessities, including housing, food, and other day-to-day expenses. What do you think?

The post Report Finds More Americans Using GoFundMe For Basic Necessities appeared first on The Onion.

In brief: Today we have some commentary on a developing story, where the Trump Administration is planning to dismantle one of the premiere atmospheric research centers in the world. Also, we focus back in the West, where more atmospheric river problems lie ahead.

National Center for Atmospheric Research

I want to start today’s post with a quick note on a story that broke yesterday evening. USA Today reported (and OMB head Russ Vought confirmed) that the Trump Administration would direct the National Science Foundation to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR. The plan is to fully close the historic Mesa Lab in Boulder, CO.

I cannot begin to tell you what a bad, bad, bad decision this is. Objectively so. This will absolutely cripple and devastate weather research in the U.S. While the administration claims that NCAR is “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” (it isn’t) almost any climate and weather research done in this country is underpinned in some way, shape or form by NCAR. The administration also claims that vital weather research activities will be “moved to another entity or location,” which seems a bit sus to me given many examples of them causing chaos by dismantling things without adequate replacements or contingency plans. But it also completely misses the forest for the trees. The reason the work done by NCAR has been so critical and important to the science and to industry (and thus the American people) is because of NCAR acting as a (very effective) cog in the weather enterprise wheel. This needlessly breaks up an organization at taxpayer expense for no other reason than they don’t like it. NCAR is not an inefficient organization, nor do they do anything but advance atmospheric science research. In other words, there’s no real value derived by anyone in dismantling the organization.

Just as a slight relevant example from my recent past, and this is something that happens a lot all around the country. At a previous job, we sent another meteorologist to NCAR to take part in a discussion forum with leaders from both there and in the field at large to learn and discuss ways we could incorporate machine learning techniques to potentially improve seasonal or sub-seasonal forecasting (S2S). It would be important to note here that both seasonal and sub-seasonal forecasting is very much a climate-related research topic. Grant proposals, 16-to-45-day models, etc. will use the word “climate” to describe the research here. Nothing about that work is involved in climate change. Since the Trump administration gets uncomfortable about particular words and phrases, they probably see “climate” and assume the worst, when in reality a lot of the “climate research” is actually working to help improve forecasts for the economic and societal benefit of the country — not for pedaling alarmism. Go figure. Meetings like these happen a lot, and it ultimately leads to economic and human benefit, as well as uncovers new avenues of research to travel down.

Anyway, suffice to say, this is a terrible decision that will have significant negative consequences for the country and the economy over the long-term, long after these people leave office. That’s why I am writing about it here. Two organizations within government atmospheric research would be devastating to lose, not that others would not but these two are particularly critical: NOAA’s OAR (Office of Atmospheric Research) and NCAR. The Administration has now tried to gut or is in the process of gutting both of them at zero meaningful taxpayer savings and plenty of meaningful negative consequences for the American public and economy. I must question how that fits a so-called America first agenda.

On to the weather

The big story over the next several days into next week will be another atmospheric river event on the West Coast. Note that NCAR does work to support atmospheric river reconnaissance research that helps improve forecasts of these events. This event is taking aim at the Pacific Northwest right now, where we have numerous watches and warnings posted for flooding (thankfully not as bad as last week), heavy snow, blizzard conditions, and strong winds. In fact, the footprint of wind advisories and high wind warnings is tremendous, extending from the Northwest into the Northern Rockies and Northern Plains.

One specific area to watch closely today will be the Front Range in Colorado where gusts of 70 to 90 mph will be possible in the higher terrain and wind-prone bases of the foothills. Winds could gust as high as 50 to 60 mph in the Denver area as well later today.

Wind gusts on the Plains will be nothing to sneeze at either, with widespread 50 to 70 mph gusts in the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming, along with stronger winds at higher elevations.

Meanwhile, back on the West Coast, thankfully snow levels are lower with this event than we saw last week. So for Washington that means less rain running off into the swollen river basins. Currently, no rivers in Washington are forecast to hit major flooding levels over the next few days, with several back into moderate flooding. Better news for sure.

In case you missed it, there was a story that dropped about the Skagit River, and this is a great example of the economic and societal value of weather forecasts. The Army Corps took over dam operations from area utilities that use dams for hydropower. By taking over operations and impounding the water rather than releasing it, about 4 to 5 feet (!) of water was kept out of the river, which prevented an already bad situation from turning into an absolute catastrophe. None of this would have been possible without good coordination, good forecasts, and quick action. This is an example of the value and benefit of weather forecasts and when government agencies and partners perform at their best.

Moving southward, the next target of the atmospheric river will be Oregon. Heavy rain and mountain snows will move in tomorrow through Saturday.

Snow levels will be low today, rise tomorrow, and lower again on Friday. While there may be snow down to pass levels, a lot of water is going to be pushed through the river systems here that are already fairly elevated. So there is some legitimately localized serious flooding risk in these areas.

For California, the next few days will see varying levels of moisture move in, heaviest in far northern California on Friday and for parts of northern and central California on Sunday. The bigger story may be what’s coming next week, where a major storm could overtake all of California, including SoCal. This is highlighted on the 8-to-14-day hazards outlook from Tuesday, showing Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Friday in play for a potentially significant rainstorm and Sierra snowstorm.

So, things are busy! Folks in Cali will want to pay attention to next week’s storm, as it does have the potential to be a serious one.

Elsewhere, record warmth is a story. We’re expecting multiple days of records threatened here in Houston, with highs in the 80s next week. The interior West and even parts of the Northeast (Friday) will see record warmth tomorrow into next week. More to come.

In brief: In today’s post we discuss the scattered showers moving through parts of Houston today, and a warm-up in temperatures before a short-lived front on Thursday night. Beginning Saturday we will see a period of much warmer-than-usual temperatures that will persist through the Christmas holiday.

Christmas Day, about a week away

We are now eight days away from the Christmas holiday, and although that lies at the edge of what we would normally consider forecastable, we are pretty confident about the outlook for Christmas Day this year in Houston. Beginning this weekend a rather warm pattern is going to settle over Texas (and much of the southern United States) and this will persist through much of next week.

Therefore the most likely outcome for Christmas in Houston is a partly to mostly sunny day, with high temperatures in the upper 70s. We cannot entirely rule out rain chances at this point, but they look to be low. The air will feel fairly humid. Bottom line: Christmas this year is going to be much warmer than normal, although at this point I think we’ll fall just below record high temperatures for late December.

Wednesday

A fairly weak storm system has traversing the region this morning. It will bring scattered showers today, mostly but not exclusively to coastal areas. Overall accumulations don’t look to impressive, but we might see a few brief bursts of moderately strong showers. I expect the rains to clear out this afternoon, or the evening by the latest. Otherwise we should have a mostly cloudy day with highs in the upper 60s. Winds will be light, generally from the east. Lows tonight will only fall into the low 60s, and given the fairly high dewpoints we probably can expect to see some patchy fog develop.

Thursday

Skies should become sunny as the day progresses, and this will allow high temperatures to push into the mid- to upper-70s. A cold front will approach from the northwest by Thursday evening, but I don’t think there will be much in the way of showers, if any, with its passage. Winds will shift to come from the north, and be a bit gusty overnight as drier air moves in. Lows on Friday morning will likely drop into the upper 40s.

Friday

This will be our last “chilly” day for awhile. Expect highs in the low- to mid-60s with sunny skies and northerly winds. This brief incursion of winter-like weather won’t last long, however, as winds will already turn southeasterly by Friday afternoon or evening. Lows on Friday night should drop into the 50s.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend should see partly to mostly sunny weather, with highs ranging from the mid-70s to about 80 degrees (Sunday looks especially warm). Overnight lows will be warm for December, in the mid-60s. The air will feel fairly humid, overall. On Saturday, as the southerly flow really gets going we could see some winds gusts up to 25 mph.

Next week

As noted above, there won’t be much variance in our weather next week, with highs generally in the range of the upper 70s to 80 degrees, partly sunny skies, and warm nights. Rain chances, overall, appear to be fairly low. Will this pattern break? Yes it will, eventually. Right now our best models are indicating that our conditions could turn cooler some time around 10 days from now, in the period of December 27 or December 28. That really is at the edge of predictability, so it is not a forecast I would feel highly confident in at this time. But hopeful? Certainly.

Yes, there is such a thing as good-natured brawling. We’ll be right back.

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer wondering whether to write a list of rules so a colleague, Paul, would treat them decently? Here’s the update.

I’ve recently taken a step that commenters had advised — leaving the group.

Getting Paul to leave (your excellent advice) wasn’t an option, though perhaps me leaving will push things in that direction. I alerted five people to why I was leaving, and a number of them seem to be realizing that the group has to address the “missing stair” of Paul. So we’ll see what happens! But for now, my stress level is definitely lower, and I can focus on other organizing work that is also meaningful to me. It was the right decision for me at this time to just leave the org. That’s the tl;dr. For the full story…

After I wrote to you (and you and the commenters affirmed for me that I was not going to be able to write a list of rules that would solve my Paul problem), I decided to step away from my leadership role in the org and also change other commitments I had made so that Paul had as little reason as possible for interacting with me within that org. Magically, Paul somehow still managed to get involved with the things I was doing, even though they were part of different committees. They also kept trying to contact me through third parties.

A long-distance partner of mine came along to one of the org’s activities and Paul was pretty weird about it. That reminded me about one of our early interactions where Paul ignored my boundaries: when they kept asking me to see a movie (over and over and over) despite me repeatedly declining. Perhaps obviously, I came to believe that despite what Paul had claimed about this being about “our friendship” … it really wasn’t about friendship for them.

In theory, if the group eventually was able to create a code of conduct then Paul’s behavior could be addressed, so I hoped all summer that would move forward; however, Paul has long resisted a code of conduct, and they remain in leadership (and have been in that role longer than anyone else by a wide margin).

Meanwhile, Paul and I also have another community in common, and Paul hung around me there a lot, especially standing behind me and watching me – so much so that a friend who knew nothing about the situation started asking me why that guy was staring at me so intently. All this escalated when Paul emailed me asking for mediation again. They also sat right behind my family at two different events, continuing this pattern of being really close (and specifically *behind* me). I told Paul I wasn’t interested in mediation and that I was leaving the org to hold the boundaries I needed. I also outlined those boundaries: don’t contact me, on any platform, including through third parties, don’t hover behind me, and don’t sit behind/near me and my family. Paul said they had never wanted me to leave the group but would honor these requests. My spirits started to lift, perhaps they were finally hearing me – and then at another event Paul sat about ten feet behind my family. They met my eyes when I walked into the room to join my family, and it was clear they knew what they were doing. So I told people within our other shared community as well.

It’s been interesting to see how the two communities have responded, and some of that is because the one is “non-hierarchical” (in theory — but Paul has a lot of power!) and the other has clear leadership. It’s definitely proving you and the commenters right that the problem with the one org is that someone like Paul is allowed to stay and there’s no mechanism to get them out. In the non-hierarchical org, people are interested in addressing the Paul situation, but there’s no clear path to do so. I’ve left the org, so don’t really know what’s going on. I’m not guessing anything will happen quickly though. The other org immediately set up a meeting with me and someone else Paul had harassed, took our statements seriously, started crafting a harassment policy (since it didn’t exist), and gave Paul a warning. I’m still part of that org and feeling very supported there.

Thanks again for the opportunity to think through these boundary issues with you and the great commenter community! It really helped me to feel clear about my decisions as I’ve navigated this situation (so far). Hopefully Paul loses interest in me and the org that I left is able to find a way toward dealing more effectively with this kind of behavior. At least I’ve brought it more to the surface as a problem by finally naming the missing stair.

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The End of the search for the F.I.S.H.

...

Girl finally tracks down FISH.

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MINNEAPOLIS—Excitedly revealing to the staff that she had a special surprise, local data analyst Kayla Herrera reportedly delighted coworkers Wednesday upon returning from Europe by bringing back a Latvian man for everyone to share. “I couldn’t get enough of him when I was abroad,” said Herrera, grinning as her colleagues struggled to pronounce the Latvian man’s name. “I’m always excited to try something new, so I wanted to bring back some Baltic goodies for the office to enjoy. At first I was going to get some black currant chocolates, but then locals told me that this man is one of the most popular treats in Eastern Europe. Don’t be greedy now, make sure there’s enough for everyone!” At press time, Herrera was forced to throw the Latvian man away after realizing he had expired.

The post Coworker Returning From European Vacation Brings Back Latvian Man For Everyone To Share appeared first on The Onion.

CAMDEN, NJ—Revealing that the products offered customers multiple protection options in a delicious range of flavors, food processing giant Campbell’s announced Thursday it had launched a new line of self-defense soups. “Whether you attach the can to a strap and use it as a flail or heat up the soup to create a thermal weapon, we guarantee these powerful security devices will be ready in under five minutes,” said company spokesperson Cheryl Turner, who stressed the importance of always having something on hand that can be prepared quickly in the event of an unexpected home intruder. “The soups are also a convenient option for customers on the go, because you can wear one on a lanyard when out walking at night, warning potential attackers that you’re prepared to dole out the homemade taste of punishment. We recommend using our Chunky Beef with Country Vegetables variety for bludgeoning, while our cream-based soups like Homestyle Broccoli Cheddar work best for scalding enemies. Stock your pantry arsenal today!” Campbell’s executives told reporters the company was also developing a long-range aerosol version of its Spicy Nacho Cheese soup to spray in the eyes of assailants.

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NEW YORK—In a continuation of their post-MSNBC rebranding effort, cable news network MS NOW was reportedly luring in new viewers Wednesday with a slowly rotating gyro spit in the corner of all its programming. “With linear TV viewership in decline and audiences increasingly turning to social media for their news, we knew that we needed to offer something no other outlet could: a tender spit of succulent lamb that looks so good you can almost taste it,” said MS NOW president Rebecca Kutler, noting that the change was made after the network conducted a study of the content that was most appealing to viewers and noticed that “delicious meat” scored far higher than “political analysis.” “We’ve researched what keeps viewers from changing the channel, and while breaking news tickers and dynamic sets move the needle, nothing is more effective than the slow rotation of a sumptuous, juicy gyro. And soon, we’ll be adding a side of tzatziki sauce that we believe will keep viewers glued to the TV during our midterm election coverage.” At press time, ratings for MS NOW were up 700%.

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Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, and it felt urgent to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. Now that Trump has returned to office, amid civil rights, humanitarian, economic, and constitutional crises, we felt it critical to make an inventory of this new round of horrors. This list will be updated monthly between now and the end of Donald Trump’s second term.

These lists, along with everything McSweeney’s publishes on this site, are offered ad-free and at no charge to our readers. If you are moved to make a donation in any amount or subscribe to our website’s Patreon, please do. This will help support this project and our other work.

ATROCITY KEY

– Constitutional Illegalities, Collusion, and/or Obstruction of Justice
– Environment
– Harassment, Bullying, Retribution, and/or Sexual Misconduct
– Lies and Misinformation
– Musk Madness
– Policy
– Public Statements and Social Media Posts
– Trump Family Business Dealings
– Trump Staff and Administration
– White Supremacy, Racism, Misogyny, Homophobia, Transphobia, and/or Xenophobia

October 2025

Main Index

Trump’s first term

NOVEMBER 2025

1. – November 1, 2025 – Accusing Nigeria of failing to protect Christians, Trump threatened to send the American military into the country and cut aid. “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria,” the president wrote on social media. “And we may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.” The post followed an earlier post in which Trump, after watching a Fox News report about Nigeria, claimed “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria.” Nigeria has denied Trump’s accusations, and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom concluded in 2024 that extremist violence from a variety of religious and secular groups in Nigeria has affected both Christians and Muslims alike.
   
   
2. – November 2, 2025 – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the US military killed at least three people in another boat strike in the Caribbean Sea. Announcing the attack on social media, Hegseth posted a video that appeared to show an explosion. He said the vessel “was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling,” but he did not provide evidence to support the claim. The attack raised the toll of the campaign to about sixty-five people killed. In a letter to the US government, Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote, “Based on the very sparse information provided publicly by the US authorities, none of the individuals on the targeted boats appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others or otherwise justified the use of lethal armed force against them under international law.”
   
   
3. – November 3, 2025 – The Trump administration said that it would partially fund SNAP after federal judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ruled that the government must keep the food aid program running. Trump claimed via social media that he did “NOT want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT.” The Department of Agriculture had planned to freeze payments to the program, which serves about one in eight Americans, due to the government shutdown. In October, Trump said that he had “identified funds” that would allow the government to pay members of the military during the shutdown, in addition to securing a $130 million donation from his billionaire friend, Timothy Mellon.
   
   
4. – November 4, 2025 – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the US military killed two people in yet another strike on boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It was the sixteenth strike in an offensive that began in early September and raised the death toll to at least sixty-seven people. The administration claimed that its policy is lawful because the president is “determined” that the United States is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels. A wide range of specialists denounced the killings as illegal. “I can’t imagine anyone, no matter what the circumstance, believing it is appropriate to kill people who are clinging to a boat in the water,” said Michael Schmitt, a former Air Force lawyer and professor emeritus at the US Naval War College. “That is clearly unlawful.”
   
   
5. – November 4, 2025 – Chief US District Judge John McConnell ruled that the Trump administration cannot withhold billions of dollars in transportation funding to states that refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement. Judge McConnell wrote in his ruling that the US Department of Transportation (DOT) “blatantly overstepped” their authority in attempting to link funding used to maintain roads, bridges, and highways to immigration demands. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by twenty states, led by California, after Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy outlined the administration’s expectations for cooperation with immigration officials. After the ruling, California Attorney General Rob Bonta stated, “If President Trump wants to stop losing in court, he should stop breaking the law.”
   
   
6. – November 5, 2025 – Federal judge Robert Gettleman ordered authorities to improve conditions at the ICE facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview. Gettleman’s order came after detainees sued the facility, saying they were kept in “inhumane” and crowded conditions. Detainees said they were forced to sleep on the floor or in plastic chairs, and that the toilets overflowed with human waste, which seeped into sleeping areas. Gettleman stated that he found the witnesses’ testimony “highly credible,” adding, “People shouldn’t be sleeping next to overflowing toilets. They should not be sleeping on top of each other.” Gettleman’s order also required that ICE agents allow detainees to call lawyers in private with no cost and provide them with a list of pro bono attorneys in English and Spanish. Agents were also barred from misrepresenting documents provided for detainees for sign.
   
   
7. – November 5, 2025 – A mock-up of a sign reading THE OVAL OFFICE in cursive golden lettering appeared taped on the outside of the White House, mimicking Trump’s recent attempts to give the White House the same gilded flourishes as his hotels and clubs. The Oval Office sign inspired humorous responses on social media, with some joking that such a label helped people with dementia and others saying it would make even Marie Antoinette say, “Tone it down.” As part of the makeover, Trump previously tore up the Rose Garden grass and replaced it with stone pavers, turning it into a patio similar to his Mar-a-Lago property. He also added a “Presidential Walk of Fame” along the colonnade, which featured portraits of all former presidents, except Joe Biden.
   
   
8. – November 5, 2025 – In response to Democratic election victories in New York, California, Virginia, and New Jersey, Trump posted on Truth Social more than thirty times in less than three hours. The posts veered wildly in subject matter. Posts included AI-generated videos of Trump standing in front of a podium in an unknown room, covering topics such as his recent meeting with the prime minister of Japan, his G2 meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, and Walmart allegedly lowering its prices. “Walmart just announced that Prices for a Thanksgiving Dinner is now down 25 percent since under Sleepy/Crooked Joe Biden, in 2024. AFFORDABILITY is a Republican Stronghold.” Another video has Trump criticizing Obamacare for being “really bad healthcare” and a “disaster.” Moments later, Trump railed against Democrats, telling Republicans to take the “nuclear option” and end the filibuster. Minutes later, he pivoted again and started posting about the anniversary of his re-election.
   
   
9. – November 6, 2025 – The Republican-controlled Senate voted down a measure requiring congressional approval for military action against Venezuela. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate armed services committee, had said before the vote, “If the administration intends to escalate towards conflict with Venezuela, Congress has a constitutional duty to declare and authorize such action. We cannot sleepwalk into another war.” Hours after the vote, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced another strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. It was at least the seventeenth such strike in the region, bringing the total fatalities to at least sixty-nine. Last month, Trump had indicated that he would not seek congressional approval for military strikes against alleged drug traffickers. Instead, he had said, “We’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.”
   
   
10. – November 6, 2025 – ICE agents arrested a US citizen in the parking lot of a Los Angeles Home Depot store, then entered his car and drove away with his toddler, who was in the back seat. After Dennis Quinonez was detained by ICE agents and taken to an ICE vehicle, onlookers shouted, “There’s a baby in the back!” Moments later, a heavily armed and masked ICE agent got into the driver’s seat of Quinonez’s car and drove away. Quinonez’s daughter, who was not yet two years old, looked on, wide-eyed from her car seat. Later that morning, Quinonez’s mother, Maria Avalos, received a call from border patrol agents using an unidentified number and was asked to pick up her granddaughter. Avalos later said she was alarmed to learn that masked agents, who were heavily armed, could drive away with her granddaughter. “This is something very, very frightening, because it’s not clear who these people are.”
    
    
    ICE Agents Arrest US Citizen in LA and Drive Off with His Baby in Car (The Independent)
    
    
11. – November 7, 2025 – The Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s emergency appeal to temporarily block a court order to fully fund SNAP food aid payments amid the government shutdown, even though residents in some states had already started to receive the funds. The Trump administration told the Supreme Court that fast-acting states were “trying to seize what they could of the agency’s finite set of remaining funds, before any appeal could even be filed, and to the detriment of other States’ allotments.” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the court filing, “Once those billions are out the door, there is no ready mechanism for the government to recover those funds.” Every “fast-acting” state that distributed SNAP funds before the Supreme Court’s ruling on the emergency appeal had a Democratic governor.
    
    
12. – November 8, 2025 – President Trump urged Republican senators to redirect federal money used to subsidize health insurance costs under the Affordable Care Act toward direct payments to individuals. On Truth Social, he posted, “I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over.” Trump and Senate Republicans seemed unable to grasp the fact that most consumers would still need to purchase plans from the same insurance companies they railed against.
    
    
13. – November 9, 2025 – Panamanian officials confirmed that a three-year-old migrant had died on a new “reverse migration” boat route after the Trump administration effectively sealed the US border to migrants earlier in the year. The boat, which capsized off the coast of Colón Province en route to the child’s home country, Colombia, was following a new migrant route that sprang up after the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. Since late September, more than 14,000 migrants have ridden in small boats along Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts to avoid the Darién Gap, which has effectively been sealed to prevent northbound migration. In February, an eight-year-old Venezuelan migrant drowned under similar circumstances.
    
    
14. – November 9, 2025 – Writing in The Atlantic, Federal Judge Mark L. Wolf explained that he was stepping down to warn about the “existential threat to democracy” posed by the Trump administration. Describing Trump’s actions as “contrary to everything I have stood for in my more than fifty years in the Department of Justice and on the bench,” Wolf accused Trump of “using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment.” In an interview, Wolf said he had resigned to speak more freely about his own views and those of his colleagues who were still on the bench. “I hope to be a spokesperson for embattled judges who, consistent with the code of conduct, feel they cannot speak candidly to the American people.”
    
    
15. – November 9, 2025 – Six more people were killed after the US military struck two more boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific, bringing the total death toll from such strikes to seventy-six. “Under President Trump, we are protecting the homeland and killing these cartel terrorists who wish to harm our country and its people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on social media without providing evidence for his claims, along with videos of the attacks. Many experts have denounced the strikes as illegal. Later in the week, The New York Times reported that a secret Justice Department memo approving the boat strikes relied heavily on unsubstantiated claims made by the White House.
    
    
16. – November 10, 2025 – John Braun, a felon whose sentence Trump commuted during his first term, was sentenced to twenty-seven months in prison for violating the terms of his supervised release. In 2011, Braun pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering, but his sentence was commuted in 2021 after his family leveraged connections to Jared Kushner; he had only served a little over a year of a ten-year sentence. While on supervised release, prosecutors alleged that Braun sexually assaulted a nanny, swung an IV pole at a nurse, threatened a synagogue congregant, assaulted a three-year-old, and made usurious loans, among other crimes. At least eight convicts granted clemency by Trump during his first term have since been charged with other crimes, as have several others pardoned for their roles in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attacks.
    
    
17. – November 10, 2025 – Trump pardoned Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Boris Epshteyn, Sidney Powell, and other top allies who helped him attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. Though some of the pardoned individuals were named as unindicted coconspirators in the 2023 case filed by Jack Smith, none had been charged with a crime; the pardons were therefore largely symbolic, though they may also help protect the individuals from being charged at the federal level in the future. In a proclamation announcing the pardons, the Justice Department described them as a corrective to “a grave national injustice.”
    
    
18. – November 10, 2025 – Trump asked the Supreme Court to overturn a $5 million civil case that determined he sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll. The 2023 case concerned Carroll’s claim that Trump raped her in a department store in the 1990s and later called her a liar; Caroll also was awarded $83.3 million in 2024 after another jury found Trump defamed her about the same claims. In a filing, Trump’s attorneys claimed the district court made a “‘series of indefensible evidentiary rulings,’ improperly admitting highly inflammatory propensity evidence against President Trump,” such as testimony from additional women claiming Trump had committed further acts of sexual misconduct. Last year, an appeals court found that the trial judge had not violated Trump’s rights in allowing the prosecution to present this evidence, and earlier in the year, an appeals court also upheld the $83.3 million judgment, rejecting Trump’s claims that he was protected by presidential immunity.
    
    
19. – November 10, 2025 – Trump threatened to sue the BBC over a 2024 documentary featuring an edited version of a speech he gave to supporters on the day of the Capitol attacks. “We’ll sue them for anywhere between $1 billion and $5 billion, probably sometime next week,” Trump told reporters. “I think I have to do it. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.” During his speech on January 6, 2021, Trump said, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.” Over fifty minutes later, he added, “And we fight. We fight like hell.” In the edited version, the clip shows Trump saying, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol … and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” The BBC apologized for the way the speech was edited but rejected Trump’s defamation claim, arguing that the documentary had not caused any harm, that it was not atypical to edit long speeches, and that opinions on matters of public concern and political speech are heavily protected.
    
    
    Side-by-Side Comparison of BBC-Edited Trump Speech from Day of Capitol Attack with Original (The Guardian)
    
    
20. – November 12, 2025 – The US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted nearly unanimously to condemn the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. In a rare group statement, the bishops wrote, “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people. We pray for an end to the dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement. We feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.” As of this writing, the Trump administration had deported 400,000 people in 2025 and detained 60,000 others, including people who are in the country legally.
    
    
21. – November 12, 2025 – Trump signed a funding package to reopen the federal government after the longest shutdown in history, all but guaranteeing that the Obamacare tax subsidies would be allowed to expire. During the shutdown, while many went without pay or food stamps, Trump stayed away from the negotiations. His agenda included visiting six countries, hosting foreign leaders at the White House, speaking at a million-dollar-plate dinner, throwing a Great Gatsby–themed party at Mar-a-Lago, golfing multiple times, and beginning construction on his ballroom project. “President Trump continued to work night and day on behalf of American people—including mitigating many of the harmful impacts of the Democrat shutdown,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson.
    
    
22. – November 12, 2025 – House Democrats released three emails from Jeffrey Epstein in which the convicted sex offender alleged that Trump knew about Epstein’s abuse of minors. In an April 2011 email to his longtime confidante and fellow convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein wrote, “I want you to realize that the dog that hasn’t barked is Trump” and mentioned that Trump had spent hours at Epstein’s home with one of his victims. In a January 2019 email to the journalist Michael Wolff, Epstein...

Jools Holland’s New Year Hootenanny is a pre-recorded New Year’s Eve event that is on BBC2 every year. The great and the good gather to pretend to boogie-woogie their way into the future. In an era when there is not much pop music on normal TV any more, it’s nice that we still have something to look at that isn’t about a murder.

Dame Elaine Stevens has appeared briefly in both Bad Machinery and Steeple. She’s easier to find in one than the other.

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