Cowboy Who?

The following guest post from humanities scholar Katie Livingston is part of our Vanishing Culture series, highlighting the power and importance of preservation in our digital age.

My Grann’s edition of The Grady County Extension Homemaker Council’s cookbook Down Home Cookin’ is missing its front and back cover. Once made of thin, flimsy pieces of plastic decorated with an old barn and windmill, the cover has long since fallen off and some of the pages are loose. The book is held together by three red rubber bands. My Grann explains that the plastic binder got brittle and began to fall apart—the rubber bands are her solution. The pages of the cookbook are yellowed from years of use. At least three generations of women in my family, including myself, have flipped through these pages, leaving them stained with the oils from their fingers and the drippings of in-progress recipes. Most importantly to me, they scribbled in the margins. My family’s edition of Down Home Cookin’ has reached a critical mass of notes in the marginalia such that it no longer counts as a simple copy of a cookbook: it is my Grann’s cookbook, our family cookbook. Holding it in my hands in my apartment in California (my Grann kindly agreed to mail it to me) feels off. It feels so delicate here, out of the context of her home, her kitchen, in the little cupboard where she has kept all of her cookbooks since I was a child. Now, it is more like a museum piece, something precious and precarious, meant to be handled with care, preserved, analyzed.

This sense of its history, of its fragility, of its potential for disintegrating, is why the cookbook is worth preserving, worth reading, worth moving from that little kitchen in Apache, Oklahoma, to my little kitchen in the Bay Area, to this page, to the archive. This is why all family cookbooks are worth preserving. As time presses on, this small print county cookbook, and others like it, are becoming pieces of personal family ephemera, fading into obscurity the way that other domestic objects—bills, receipts, manuals, phone books, baby books, children’s drawings, to do lists—do. Time has worked on this cookbook as my grandmother has worked from it. The pages are thin, brittle, and covered in age spots. I can imagine all the printed copies of Down Home Cookin’ tucked away in the kitchen drawers of Oklahoma women, slowly degrading, either through excessive use or mere forgetfulness.

Finding a replacement for these books is not easy. To procure a new copy, you have to mail in the old-fashioned way: to an address printed on the title page. This is the paradox of Down Home Cookin’: to obtain a copy of Down Home Cookin’, one must already have a copy of Down Home Cookin’. If one turns to the internet for permanence and reproduction,as we are apt to do these days, little can be found. Searching now reveals a few used editions floating around on eBay and one on Amazon. Unsurprisingly, the Amazon copy is marked with notes and stains. The seller writes: “pencil writing inside front cover, black marker writing on upper corner front cover written ‘(pie crust p.367’), diagonal crease on bottom back cover, and a couple of yellowed (grease?) stains on bottom of a few pages.”

If these books are not scanned, digitized, and archived, we lose not only the text of Down Home Cookin’, but also the contributed labor and knowledge of the women who owned them. Clearly, the owner of the Amazon iteration was fond of the pie crust on page 367. In another version for sale on eBay, the owner inscribed the cookbook with “C Cake” and “Caret Cake” in two locations, presumably as a reminder that this particular cookbook had her favorite carrot cake recipe.

Digitizing and archiving cookbooks challenges the assumption that a scanned book is nothing more than a poor replacement for an official ebook, something easily bought and immediately downloaded, read on a Kindle or an iPad. Scanning and archiving cookbooks documents not only their content, but also the hands that they have passed through; each copy has its own unique revisions and adjustments. Take, for instance, the annotations in the Internet Archive’s scan of A Selection of Tested Recipes, a community cookbook from Howe, Indiana. Not only does the scan capture handwritten addendums to recipes, but also pages in which the owner has added her own recipes. In an unused copy of this cookbook, these pages would otherwise be left blank. But the process of scanning and archiving these previously owned objects quite literally allows us to see the hand of the homemaker at work. 

That history is not visible for the cookbook’s digital analog: the recipe blog, perhaps the most ubiquitous means of publishing and accessing recipes today. Blogs offer little in terms of permanency and even less in terms of making the labor of recipe development visible. Though many of us have been raised on the popular phrase, “the internet is forever,” recipe blogs frequently disappear from the internet. Their content is perhaps even more precarious than that of the physical cookbook, no matter how obscure. Even more troublesome: edits, revisions, addendums and the work of recipe formation are not made evident in the form of the recipe blog. Edits become invisible, embedded in the revision history of the backend of a WordPress document rather than made visible to the naked eye.

“In the case of my Grann’s cookbook, her work and trial and error are evident. The recipe takes on the feeling of a living document.”

Katie Livingston, humanities scholar

In the case of my Grann’s cookbook, her work and trial and error are evident. The recipe takes on the feeling of a living document. Her cookbook is filled to the brim with her own clippings from news articles, her addendums, chicken scratch indicating revisions of revisions, photocopies of her mother’s recipe cards, and even her assessments of various recipes (“good,” she says in the margins of the Farmer’s Haystack Pie recipe, “not great”).

The cookbook, especially the community-made cookbook, does not just represent the labor and meaning-making of a single home or a single family; it acts as a tool to bind together and co-create the identities of small groups and sub-communities. While the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook has worked as a tool for nation-making (my Grann, along with thousands of other teenage girls her age, worked off that cookbook in home economics class), Down Home Cookin’ is representative of a regionally specific co-created identity of women and homemakers in Grady County, Oklahoma. As the political scientist Kennan Ferguson puts it in Cookbook Politics: 

These [community] cookbooks emphasize the material, the gustatory, the domestic, and the creative; they do so in order to regularize, communicate with, form, and inspire the women who are their presumed readers. In other words, they intensify. By being written, collected, sold, and passed from hand to hand, they make both the sense of belonging and the sense of community more intense (79). 

The Grady County Extension Homemakers are not ignorant to the fact of their cookbook as a tool for community building and the “intensification” of certain values and goals. The book is very clearly inscribed with its intent: to help women “gain knowledge and improve their skills in home economics and related areas so that the family unit may be strengthened, develop leadership skills, provide community service, promote international understanding, and meet new people” (454). There is even a charge that members are “friendly, helpful, full of ideas, eager to learn and believe in the home” (454).

“Preservation allows us to be critical and precise in our critiques of communal identity formation. It is not the case that all ideologies baked into the cookbook are ubiquitously good.”

Katie Livingston

Preservation allows us to be critical and precise in our critiques of communal identity formation. It is not the case that all ideologies baked into the cookbook are ubiquitously good. Ferguson touches on how many community cookbooks seem to “reinscribe the virtues of caretaking, housework, even domestic obeisance for both the book’s audience and for the authors themselves” (79). What can, on the one hand, be read as veneration for the homemaker and her work, on the other hand can also be read as a re-inscription of traditional gender roles, the gendered division of labor, and even a certain kind of nationalism through the production and maintenance of the suburban nuclear family.

Cookbooks are not only concerned with the domestic, the familiar, and the communal, but also with the Other, the foreign, and the unknown. There is an impulse, at least in the American cookbook, to bring “otherness” into the home and domesticate it for one’s own use, enjoyment, and consumption. It seems no mistake to me that the Grady Homemaker’s Extension Council promotes “international acceptance” alongside reinforcing the home, or that the 90s edition of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook seeks to include “more ethnic and regional favorites, such as stir-fries and gumbos, instead of standard meat and potato fare” (4).  My Grann’s cookbook contains the sections “Mexican” and “International” as a means of diversifying the offerings. And while the results are humorous (some of my favorites from this section include “Hong Kong Chicken Casserole,” in which cream of mushroom soup is a key ingredient, and “Mexican Spaghetti Casserole”), one can’t help but wonder what their inclusion means in the context of the whole.  

While these versions of taking the foreign into the domestic can be read as a good-faith effort to seek understanding and acceptance, older cookbooks take on a more voyeuristic, exploitative tone. Otherness is a popular theme in the Internet Archives’ most viewed cookbooks. Alongside the comforting title, Things Mother Used to Make” you’ll also find Southern recipe cookbooks with Mammy figures on the cover and Chinese cookbooks whose contents offer little more than several variations on “chop suey.”  If we lose these cookbooks, we risk erasing legacies of racism and culinary appropriation that proliferated throughout the twentieth century. Preservation, then, is not only about venerating our cultures and communities, but also understanding our past and present and turning a critical gaze on them when necessary.

What we preserve says a lot about what we value, what we want to bring with us in the future, and what we want to leave behind (for example, I could do without a recipe for Vienna sausages rolled in barbeque sauce and crushed Fritos). The humble cookbook may at first appear an inconsequential tool of everyday home life, but in it, one can read shifting ideologies, values, and tastes. A cookbook can make clear, through a simple collection of recipes, what a community is and isn’t, and what people seek to take into themselves and what they exclude. The pages of a cookbook can reveal the history of an individual, a family, a community, or a nation. It can make evident work that is often otherwise invisible or discarded. Most importantly, it can make you say (as Judie Fitch puts it in praise of her own recipe for Brisket Marinade): “This is really good.”

About the author

Katie Livingston is an English PhD candidate at Stanford University. With a focus on American literature from 1840-1940, Katie researches class mobility in the novel, women’s literature, and local color/regionalist fiction.

When she isn’t immersed in writing or teaching, Katie enjoys exploring the outdoors as a backpacker, hiker, and climber. She also finds joy in baking cakes, indulging in campy horror films, and spending time with her cat, Loaf.

The post The Fairies Fiasco appeared first on The Texas Observer.

Homes and bridges have been washed away, villages flattened and the tourist town of Asheville cut off.

Galvan admitted this week that over $2.8 million in loan money from six victims was never used for its intended purpose, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Combs was arrested and charged with sex trafficking in New York following a federal indictment related to sex trafficking.

At a time when some Texas lawmakers want to remove or limit voting on campuses, a total of 12 colleges and universities in Harris County will hold early voting for the November election.

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The effects of the hurricane have stretched more than 500 miles from the Florida coast, where it landed as a category 4 storm late Thursday night. More than 90 people have died across five states left in Helene's devastating path.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

I’m off for a few days. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My colleague is allergic to me because of my cats

I’m a brand new manager in a public services environment. I have two cats, who are not particularly hairy, and I wash my clothes – and myself – in the usual customary manner for our Western culture. I also use a lint roller and vacuum my home thoroughly, but pet hair is pet hair, and it gets into things whether I like it or not. One of my staff members is very, very allergic to cats. In our 1:1 meetings, we have to sit outside my office in a common area to keep him from swelling up and experiencing full-on watery eyes. Fortunately, we can schedule these meetings at a time when no one else is within earshot of the space, but it isn’t fair to him or to me to be somewhere that can’t have some privacy from walk-throughs.

I am at a loss as to what to do next, short of evicting my pets. Others with cat allergies don’t seem to have this problem around me, and I don’t wear scents or use personal products with an overwhelming perfume; my first career was as a professional musician, and due to close proximity to others, perfumes and colognes were a big no-no. I didn’t have issues with cat-allergic colleagues in that world, either. For seven years, I sat shoulder-to-shoulder with someone who was seriously allergic to cats and nothing like this happened!

Short of asking my colleague to take medicine – which works to varying degrees and has horrible side effects – what more can I do to mitigate this? He’s a fantastic colleague, and I need to be able to meet with him to talk about his professional development, job performance, and interpersonal relationships with other staff: all of the things that you do when you are a manager.

Meet with him by phone! In-person meetings definitely have some advantages; you can see eye contact and body language and they generally just feel like they build the relationship more in ways that phone calls don’t necessarily do. But in this case, the downsides of meeting in-person trump those advantages. Switch to the phone. (You could also try video chat if you’re both into that, although it can have its own disadvantages.)

It may seem silly to talk by phone when you’re in the same building, but in this case it’s not; it’s a practical solution to the problem.

Also, ask him! He may have thoughts on other things you can try, and if you haven’t asked him directly if there’s anything he thinks might help, he might not be speaking up. (He should speak up if he has ideas, but some people won’t unless they’re directly asked, particularly when there’s a manager involved.)

And let us all take a moment to feel great sorrow for the cat-allergic among us.

Read an update to this letter here.

– 2017

2. My new coworkers embarrassed me at a meeting with my previous team

I recently began a new position with a team that is just getting their feet under them in terms of industry standards, and as part of setting up our new organization, we are working with a number of established institutions in the region to learn how they’ve been successful. I have more experience in this industry than my colleagues do, so I offered to set up a meeting with a previous team who I’m still on very good terms with (I interned there during grad school, and would like to work there again given the opportunity).

Unfortunately, the meeting was a disaster. My new colleagues spent nearly a third of our time dragging previous employees, complaining about our administration, and generally airing dirty laundry that has absolutely no business in a professional meeting. I tried to steer us back on track several times, but had no success. It was clear from some of the looks I got that my previous team was at least as uncomfortable as I was.

Today, I’ve made it clear to my new team that this was wholly inappropriate, and my supervisor apologized to me for any reputational harm done to me by this, but I’m still mortified that I was responsible for their bad behavior in front of our industry peers. I’m afraid this has damaged my standing with my previous team, and I’m really looking for ways to mitigate this damage.

Would it be inappropriate to reach out and thank them for the meeting, and apologize for the inappropriate comments? Or would that just make it look like I also think it’s okay to throw people under the bus as soon as they leave the room? What is the best way to distance myself from my new team’s behavior?

Yes, contact them and apologize! You can frame it as, “I wasn’t expecting the meeting to go that way! I’d hoped we’d talk about XYZ. I’ve talked to my new team about what happened, but I wanted to apologize to you directly. I really appreciate that you were willing to lend us the time, and I’m sorry it wasn’t better used.” I don’t think you have to get into it beyond that — just enough to acknowledge that you know this was messed up and you won’t let it happen again.

Speaking of not letting it happen again — I would not set up more meetings of this type for your team. If you need those meetings, do them alone or maybe with your boss. But don’t risk the same thing happening with other contacts.

– 2019

3. Can you reference pop culture in an interview?

Is it okay to reference pop culture in a job interview as long as the reference itself is not inappropriate or obscure?

For instance, in previous interviews, I have referenced my “Monica Geller-esque sense of neatness,” how I consider Leslie Knope to be one of my role models, and how I had learned to work with a supervisor like Angela from The Office.

For what it’s worth, in each of these positions, I was applying for something relatively junior and in a pretty liberal field/office environment, not, like, the CEO of Morgan Stanley or something.

There are better ways to convey what you want to convey. It’s just too likely that your interviewer hasn’t seen the show you’re referencing and so misses your meaning entirely — and maybe doesn’t even know you’re referencing a show and has no idea who this Monica Geller is or why you’re mentioning her. (There’s also a risk of it making you seem less professionally mature — not because you’re referencing pop culture, which isn’t inherently unprofessional, but because you’re not realizing that not everyone will get that particular reference.)

– 2019

4. Company president owes $50 for a fantasy football league and hasn’t paid

My husband is the commissioner of a fantasy football league for a group of 12 top-level executives at his company. In the group there are multiple vice presidents and the president himself. My husband is not a top-level executive. He’s a mid-level employee, but is well liked and has networked himself into the league.

The league costs $50 to participate in. Last year, the president never paid him! (Keep in mind this is the president of a multi-billion dollar company, so his pay is certainly generous.) My husband has sent several emails to him requesting payment, but never received a response and hasn’t brought it up in person. He says every time he runs into the president at work, he forgets to bring it up. We’re still a few months out from next season but he’s wondering … how should he bring this up again? Should he make a joke of it at their next annual draft? Or is this something he should just write off as a laughable anomaly?

The president probably isn’t intentionally withholding the money; he probably means to get back to your husband but then forgets. But really, after the second email, he should have made a point of dealing with it.

In any case, your husband doesn’t need to write this off (yet). I wouldn’t keep emailing since clearly that’s not working, but the next time he runs into him, he can say, “Hey, can I get that 50 bucks from you for last year’s fantasy football season? I’m trying to close all that out and that’s the last remaining money due.” Or, if there’s any kind of gathering at the start of the next season, he can bring it up then — “I’ve still got to get last season’s $50 from you — can you give me that along with this season’s fee?” (And it might be useful to ask someone more senior than him to help collect this time.)

– 2019

New comic!
Today's News:

It's a matter of pride.

In brief: We are sharing a post we just published on our tropical companion site The Eyewall that talks about the next system expected in the Gulf this coming week. At present, we think it will likely stay east of Texas and is more a concern east of New Orleans to Florida. Still, we’ll watch it to be sure. We also have some links for folks that may want to help our neighbors in Appalachia that are dealing with an absolute catastrophe due to Helene.

Our thoughts are with folks impacted by Hurricane Helene. From what I have read and seen and heard about some parts of western North Carolina and Tennessee, it’s really, really bad. Worse than might be known at this point. Speaking as someone from Houston, which was has dealt with floods and then been flooded with resources after storms, these more rural communities are likely to be dealing with this for a long time and will need a *lot* of help in the weeks and months ahead, as the resources and media attention don’t always focus on places like that.

Keep in mind that after catastrophes like this, “stuff” is nice to donate but what is really needed is money. So consider that if you’re looking for ways to help. The United Way of North Carolina has a fund setup specific for Helene. Blue Ridge NPR has a nice list of organizations you can donate to as well. There is also the East Tennessee Foundation for folks there. Please post any other organizations in these areas in the comments.

As of late Sunday morning, there are still about 2.5 million customers without power from Florida to Ohio. This is down from a peak of around 4.5 million. It will take a long time to get to some areas in mountainous and rural western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee though, and some of these locations could be without power for weeks; the damage is just that complete in these areas.

Storm surge is the deadliest aspect of a landfalling hurricane, but inland flooding can dwarf that sometimes. We’ve seen it time and again in the last several years. If you live inland in the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, or Northeast, you need to be prepared for hurricanes too.

There will be a lot more to discuss with Helene which we’ll save for another day. But suffice to say we have seen the worst-case scenario play out a lot more often in recent years. And this is going to be a big discussion point going forward both in how forecasts are communicated and how communities prepare for storms. You can’t rely just on the known lessons from past disasters anymore.

Forecast this week

The upper low and remnants of Helene will continue to produce generally light showers across the Midwest and East the next couple days before finally being ushered off to the east later this week. There will be pockets of steadier rain though, particularly in Virginia and West Virginia. Total rainfall over the next 5 days could add up to a couple inches there.

Localized flash flooding is possible today and tomorrow in the mountains there or Shenandoah Valley. These areas were not as severely impacts as areas to the south, but they remain vulnerable to localized flash flooding impacts.

Gulf & Caribbean: Something to watch

So what comes next? Unfortunately, the NHC now has a 50 percent chance of development somewhere between the Gulf and northwest Caribbean over the next 7 days.

For our many readers in Texas, at this point, I would not expect this disturbance to come this far north and west. It will take at least the next 3 to 4 days to develop, and by the time it matures enough, it appears a cold front is headed toward the Gulf that will likely carry this back to the north and east. What this means for places from New Orleans through Florida is still a bit unclear. Modeling is sort of all over the place. At this point with Helene, we had basically two very distinct camps, one that buried the storm near the Yucatan and another (that got it right) carrying it north and northeast as a stronger storm. For this system, we have a similar sort of mixing of outcomes but there’s not exactly a distinct grouping of camps. In other words, there’s a good deal of uncertainty. The GFS ensembles are mixed, with some favoring a stronger storm headed back toward Florida and another group that ends up weaker. Some modeling doesn’t develop this at all. The ICON and European AI models generally show slower development and slow movement.

Given the uncertainty here, it’s important to continue to monitor this over the next couple days, especially in the eastern Gulf. But I will say that the more mixed nature of things in modeling makes me feel that a Helene redux is unlikely in this scenario. That said, keep watching. Impacts, assuming the system develops would likely occur next weekend.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic: Kirk to come

We currently have two active systems, Hurricane Isaac and Tropical Storm Joyce. Neither are direct threats to land.

Both storms should lose tropical characteristics over the next 3 to 4 days and dissipate. Isaac will become part of a larger storm just north of the British Isles, as is periodically the case with North Atlantic storms.

Meanwhile, there are two additional areas to watch in the eastern Atlantic. First, there is Invest 90L, which looks like it’s ready to go off to the races. This one should turn northwest and north, generally following Joyce.

The next name up is Kirk. Although this one is expected to go out to sea it’s worth keeping a side eye on for the Caribbean and Bermuda at least.

Behind 90L we look to have another disturbance in that cloud cover back off Africa. This is not expected to develop quickly meaning that it could come a bit farther west across the Atlantic. I might say that this one is more concerning in some aspects that what should become Kirk. If this can sneak west enough, it may find its own little environment to get going in. There’s not a ton of model support for this one either way, but interests in the Caribbean should at least keep an eye on it over the next 5 to 7 days as it comes west.

So over the next 7 to 10 days we likely have at least one more Atlantic storm and one more Caribbean or Gulf system. We may get a third storm in the Atlantic toward the end of that time horizon. Getting to (L)eslie or (M)ilton would put us at 12 or 13 storms for the season with a good 3 to 4 weeks of potential to go. Still far short of preseason expectations but somewhat less of an error. We’ll watch everything over the next couple weeks and keep you posted.

The city has appropriated $400,000 to help residents travel out of state for abortions. This is the second lawsuit targeting the fund.

Residents say they can no longer access the park after the state seized it against the city’s wishes in January.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
However they're slow because many of them have no appendages.

Today's News:

Headlines

• Helene recovery is likely to take a very long time, and we have some links where you can donate.
• More rain the next couple days in Virginia and West Virginia.
• Another Gulf system is becoming possible late this week or weekend and may again track north and northeast toward the eastern Gulf, but there is high uncertainty.
• Isaac and Joyce will dissipate this week, with Kirk likely to develop in the open Atlantic.
• Another system behind Kirk may bear watching in the Caribbean after this week.

Our thoughts are with folks impacted by Hurricane Helene. From what I have read and seen and heard about some parts of western North Carolina and Tennessee, it’s really, really bad. Worse than might be known at this point. Speaking as someone from Houston, which was has dealt with floods and then been flooded with resources after storms, these more rural communities are likely to be dealing with this for a long time and will need a *lot* of help in the weeks and months ahead, as the resources and media attention don’t always focus on places like that.

Keep in mind that after catastrophes like this, “stuff” is nice to donate but what is really needed is money. So consider that if you’re looking for ways to help. The United Way of North Carolina has a fund setup specific for Helene. Blue Ridge NPR has a nice list of organizations you can donate to as well. There is also the East Tennessee Foundation for folks there. Please post any other organizations in these areas in the comments.

As of late Sunday morning, there are still about 2.5 million customers without power from Florida to Ohio. This is down from a peak of around 4.5 million. It will take a long time to get to some areas in mountainous and rural western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee though, and some of these locations could be without power for weeks; the damage is just that complete in these areas.

Storm surge is the deadliest aspect of a landfalling hurricane, but inland flooding can dwarf that sometimes. We’ve seen it time and again in the last several years. If you live inland in the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, or Northeast, you need to be prepared for hurricanes too.

There will be a lot more to discuss with Helene which we’ll save for another day. But suffice to say we have seen the worst-case scenario play out a lot more often in recent years. And this is going to be a big discussion point going forward both in how forecasts are communicated and how communities prepare for storms. You can’t rely just on the known lessons from past disasters anymore.

Forecast this week

The upper low and remnants of Helene will continue to produce generally light showers across the Midwest and East the next couple days before finally being ushered off to the east later this week. There will be pockets of steadier rain though, particularly in Virginia and West Virginia. Total rainfall over the next 5 days could add up to a couple inches there.

Localized flash flooding is possible today and tomorrow in the mountains there or Shenandoah Valley. These areas were not as severely impacts as areas to the south, but they remain vulnerable to localized flash flooding impacts.

Gulf & Caribbean: Something to watch

So what comes next? Unfortunately, the NHC now has a 50 percent chance of development somewhere between the Gulf and northwest Caribbean over the next 7 days.

For our many readers in Texas, at this point, I would not expect this disturbance to come this far north and west. It will take at least the next 3 to 4 days to develop, and by the time it matures enough, it appears a cold front is headed toward the Gulf that will likely carry this back to the north and east. What this means for places from New Orleans through Florida is still a bit unclear. Modeling is sort of all over the place. At this point with Helene, we had basically two very distinct camps, one that buried the storm near the Yucatan and another (that got it right) carrying it north and northeast as a stronger storm. For this system, we have a similar sort of mixing of outcomes but there’s not exactly a distinct grouping of camps. In other words, there’s a good deal of uncertainty. The GFS ensembles are mixed, with some favoring a stronger storm headed back toward Florida and another group that ends up weaker. Some modeling doesn’t develop this at all. The ICON and European AI models generally show slower development and slow movement.

Given the uncertainty here, it’s important to continue to monitor this over the next couple days, especially in the eastern Gulf. But I will say that the more mixed nature of things in modeling makes me feel that a Helene redux is unlikely in this scenario. That said, keep watching. Impacts, assuming the system develops would likely occur next weekend.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic: Kirk to come

We currently have two active systems, Hurricane Isaac and Tropical Storm Joyce. Neither are direct threats to land.

Both storms should lose tropical characteristics over the next 3 to 4 days and dissipate. Isaac will become part of a larger storm just north of the British Isles, as is periodically the case with North Atlantic storms.

Meanwhile, there are two additional areas to watch in the eastern Atlantic. First, there is Invest 90L, which looks like it’s ready to go off to the races. This one should turn northwest and north, generally following Joyce.

The next name up is Kirk. Although this one is expected to go out to sea it’s worth keeping a side eye on for the Caribbean and Bermuda at least.

Behind 90L we look to have another disturbance in that cloud cover back off Africa. This is not expected to develop quickly meaning that it could come a bit farther west across the Atlantic. I might say that this one is more concerning in some aspects that what should become Kirk. If this can sneak west enough, it may find its own little environment to get going in. There’s not a ton of model support for this one either way, but interests in the Caribbean should at least keep an eye on it over the next 5 to 7 days as it comes west.

So over the next 7 to 10 days we likely have at least one more Atlantic storm and one more Caribbean or Gulf system. We may get a third storm in the Atlantic toward the end of that time horizon. Getting to (L)eslie or (M)ilton would put us at 12 or 13 storms for the season with a good 3 to 4 weeks of potential to go. Still far short of preseason expectations but somewhat less of an error. We’ll watch everything over the next couple weeks and keep you posted.

As of 3 PM ET, there are 16 “catastrophic” Flash Flood Emergencies in effect across the Appalachians. They range from Virginia to North Carolina to Tennessee and South Carolina and Georgia. The criteria for issuing flash flood emergencies is much more stringent than that of the typical flash flood warning. There needs to be an imminent risk of severe damage and/or loss of life. At least 16 counties or communities are reconciling that at present, not to mention the ones that have already been through things today. Rain is finally, mercifully winding down. But as noted this morning, the damage has been done.

The next phase for Helene will be as a localized flood producer in the Ohio Valley, but hopefully not as prolific as we’ve seen in Appalachia.

It’s been tough to keep tabs on reports and damage and incidents. I think the death toll has come in around 25 so far based on various reports. Power outages sit around 4 and a half million or so at this hour. Rain totals have been enormous across Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, with over 20 inches in some spots.

Just one example of a river gauge gone crazy is in Asheville, NC for the Swannanoa River at Biltmore.

Forecast to exceed the flood of 1916, the gauge likely topped the presumed 26 foot level set back in spring 1791 according to Tennessee Valley Authority records. Whatever the case, this will be a devastating flooding event in Asheville and western North Carolina as a whole. According to the Georgia Climate Office, the 48 hour rain total of over 11 inches in Atlanta is the new record for a 2 day period, breaking a record by about 1.5 inches that has stood since 1886.

Anyway, the toll of Helene looks pretty horrible. The forecasts were incredibly precise and well done, but at a certain point, there is only so much you can do. We hope for the best for those impacted by Helene, particularly as a blog based in Houston which has seen plenty of flooding calamities.

Two other notes today before closing. First, Tropical Storm Joyce did indeed form from Invest 98L in the Atlantic. It is of no threat to land.

Second, the odds of development on the Caribbean area of interest next week remain at 30 percent. I continue to see two consistencies in the modeling with this one. First, most are capping this one’s intensity. You will occasionally get a rogue GFS model run that churns out a strong hurricane, but for the most part, models have a substantially lower ceiling with this than they did with Helene at this point in its life cycle. That signals that perhaps this one has a chance to not be a huge ordeal. Secondly, they cannot agree on track at all. There’s no theme of note here, with solutions running the gamut across the Gulf. I would contend that this is not one to lose sleep over right now. We’ll assess things through the weekend and come back refreshed Sunday or Monday with the latest.

In the September Q&A, even though we think Texas’ hurricane season is in our rear-view mirror, many of the queries we tackle this month are hurricane related. Oh, except for the one about humidity and swimming pool water!

Got questions you’d like us to consider for next month? Reply in the comments below, or use the Contact link on the blog’s home page.

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Q, As I get older, and having been through Ike and Beryl in Pearland, I’m becoming much less willing to endure another major storm so close to the coast. If a Cat 4 or 5 were to hit somewhere near Freeport or Galveston, would living somewhere like Magnolia or Katy really offer much more protection than Pearland? After Beryl, we drove to Dallas and saw downed trees all the way through Madisonville, about halfway there.

A. You know, I had similar thoughts as we rode out Beryl in League City. It was an unpleasant experience. (Personal note: I’m very much not a storm chaser. I appreciate the video and images they capture, but I like my storms far away, thank you). I used to think that I would stay in place for a Category 1 or Category 2 hurricane, but with the wildly swaying trees during Beryl, I’m not sure any more.

As for what you’ve asked, there is no question that Magnolia (especially) or Katy would on average be less susceptible to impacts from wind than areas closer to the coast, including Pearland. However, much depends on the strength of the hurricane, the angle at which it strikes the coast, and the speed at which it moves inland. Let’s look at a reasonably good wind gust forecast for Beryl:

This is not exactly what happened, but it’s pretty close, and it is illustrative of what I want to talk about. Specifically, note how important the track, and proximity to the core, is for the strongest winds. Whereas some areas of Galveston County near the water experienced gusts well below that of hurricane force, areas north of Montgomery County, including San Jacinto County, were vulnerable to hurricane force gusts. This is more than 100 miles from the coast.

The bottom line here is that there are a lot of variables. In general, however, the further you live from the coast, the lower the odds that you’ll experience significant wind damage from a hurricane. But that doesn’t mean the odds are zero.

– Eric

Q: (Are) there any historical trends or data to predict a ‘strong’ winter weather (e.g. extremely cold) based upon the low hurricane season activity relevant to Houston? As well as broader US implications? Given our weather patterns are tied together, highs dragging hurricanes and lows pushing them.

A: So the simple answer is no, there is no consistent way to use hurricane season as a gauge for the upcoming winter. We also hear a lot of people say “Well we had a hurricane, so we’re getting snow this winter!” Back in 2021, I wrote a section in our winter outlook, specifically for Houston that showed, historically, a hurricane strike on Houston doesn’t mean anything really and that the odds of snow in a normal winter were pretty much identical to the odds of snow in a post-hurricane winter.

But in a broader sense, a weather company (WDT, which I believe is now part of DTN) published a post a few years back to correlate Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) to winter temps, which found nearly no correlation. The atmosphere is complicated and singular weather events like hurricanes, whether frequent or infrequent are unlikely to have an appreciable impact on an entire season’s worth of weather 3-4 months later.

I will say, there has been some work done to try to quantify this at a hemispheric scale, and there have been some results. A professor at Florida State has done good work on this. So I think there may be something we will eventually be able to gather from all this, but it’s unlikely to be due to one ocean basin’s activity.

– Matt

Q. Love your content. I’m curious, the models you cite [during hurricane coverage] sound like the same ones we’ve been using. Are AI models in development? I wonder if we can dump them all into AI and see what it thinks…

A1. This is the first year that we’ve really begun to use AI models as tools for hurricane forecasting. (If you’re curious how they work, compared to traditional physics-based models, I wrote a longer article here). We’re going to need to get to the end of the hurricane season to know precisely how well they worked. At that point there will be some comprehensive studies done to calculate how well AI-based models handled hurricane tracks in comparison to physics-based models. But my sense is that, for a new product, they’re surprisingly useful. They’re another tool in the arsenal that we look at every day. Matt may have some thoughts about this as well.

– Eric

A2: I will add that specifically for this year’s Gulf storms, the European AI model (the AIFS) has done astoundingly well. It has locked in early on and has tended to front-run the other model guidance in the right direction. In my day to day with it, I have also found it to occasionally have some skill in snuffing out risks to the forecast, such as a cooldown in mid-summer. Perfect? No. Useful? I believe so. The AI suite will get a good test this winter of how reliable they are at picking out cold snaps or snowstorm risks in the Midwest/Northeast. But they are firmly in my toolkit daily now. –

–Matt

Q: This may have an obvious, easy answer but why am I constantly filling up the pool in the hot HUMID summer? I would figure dry air would sop up pool water (moisture) quickly but not so much air already saturated with water.

A: This is an interesting question, and your assumption is correct: More humid air tends to reduce evaporation of water in a pool. So the question then becomes, what’s going on?

One possible reason could be exposure to sun. If it’s in a lot of sun with limited tree coverage, even in high humidity, you’ll still deal with evaporation. Another possible explanation could be the very dry stretch we went through in August. The spigot shut off for an extended time, which probably didn’t help. Beyond those two explanations, there may be something else afoot! Probably something to monitor for pool maintenance folks, just in case!

–Matt

Q. I’ve noticed that many major hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico during September and October tend to impact Louisiana and Florida more than Texas. I’m curious about the reasons behind this pattern. For example, does it have anything to do with the position of the Bermuda High or seasonal changes in weather patterns? Additionally, is it common for hurricanes to stop hitting Texas after mid-September, or are there historical exceptions?

A. I noticed this phenomenon nearly 20 years ago, and did a little research to figure out that after the date of September 24 the historical odds of a hurricane striking the state of Texas are about 1-in-50. So every year, around this date, I write something to the extent that the Texas hurricane season is pretty much over. (Here’s this year’s post). At some point I’ll probably be embarrassingly wrong about this, but generally, if we get to September 24 and things look quiet, it’s a fairly safe bet that we’re done with the threat of hurricanes. And I am talking about hurricanes—the odds of a tropical storm or depression are higher.

There are sound reasons why this is. Generally, as we get toward the end of September, the upper air pattern starts to change as the jet stream begins to move southward. This provides a generally eastward steering flow that we don’t see in August or earlier in September. A good indicator of this is when we start to get our first cool fronts (we’ve already had two this month). The big risk here, of course, is that the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico are still plenty warm in October to support hurricanes, so the threat is there. It’s just that, meteorologically speaking, it’s difficult for these storms to track westward into Texas. That’s not a taunt, mind you.

–Eric

OTTAWA – The Trudeau Liberals have announced relaxing of several mortgage rules, all with the intent of allowing more Canadians to barely afford the crappiest, tiniest investment condos that have ever existed. “We are pleased to allow young Canadians the opportunity to spend 30 years paying off these absolutely unliveable shoebox properties,” proclaimed Finance Minister […]

The post Liberals change rules so more Canadians can buy the shittiest condos ever built appeared first on The Beaverton.

WALKER, MI—Plunking out a solo as the performance entered its 45th minute, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was reportedly forced to play the glockenspiel at a rally Friday after every musical artist in the country banned him from using their songs. “He started out with some sheet music, but within minutes he was just hammering away at the same few notes over and over,” rally-goer Ray Garza said as Trump regaled the crowd with a medley of public domain material including “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.” “I’ve heard at other rallies he’ll go for hours at a time. At first I was kinda unsure, but he just has so much confidence. While I never really liked jazz before, he can improv on those keys, and it just keeps me hooked. I’m not sure if he really invented the glockenspiel, like he claimed, but he’s the best I’ve ever heard, and he says all of Kamala Harris’ glockenspiel performances are fake.” At press time, the estate of Irving Berlin was suing the former president for his glockenspiel rendition of “God Bless America.”

The post Trump Forced To Play Glockenspiel At Rally After Every Artist Bars Use Of Songs  appeared first on The Onion.

BAKERSFIELD, VT—Having proclaimed the word of the Lord Almighty before a humble, trembling man, the Archangel Michael reportedly hung around after delivering the divine message Friday in hopes of receiving a tip. “So was everything okay with your holy revelation? I’ll probably head back to heaven soon if that’s it—just a reminder that my name is Michael if you need anything else,” the towering archangel said as he rocked back and forth on his heels expectantly, twiddling a feather on one of his enormous wings while he waited for the man to take out his wallet. According to reports, the archangel then conspicuously cleared his throat to make sure the awestruck man noticed he was still there, after which he drummed his fingers upon the hilt of his flaming sword and passive-aggressively remarked that it really wasn’t cheap doing upkeep on a blade of that kind. At press time, sources confirmed the archangel had asked the man if he could use his bathroom.

The post Archangel Hangs Around After Delivering Message Hoping For Tip appeared first on The Onion.

SAN ANTONIO—Breezing past security in the guise of a musician and entering the ballroom where his target was attending a cocktail party, area hit man Don Meston reportedly opened a guitar case Friday in which he had concealed the guitar he planned to beat his victim’s ass with. “There were guards out front, but I kept a low profile and slipped right through—along with a little present for our friend,” Meston radioed to his handler, looking left and right before ducking into an out-of-the-way utility closet where he uncased the hidden Gibson Les Paul, attached a strap so he could carry it comfortably over his shoulder, and turned all the instrument’s knobs up to 10. “I’ll try to smack the shit out of the target quick and clean. Keep the car running, though, because if he puts up a fight, I may have to whale on his ass for a while before I can make my getaway.” At press time, witnesses confirmed security had subdued the contract killer after he paused in the middle of carrying out his hit to check the guitar’s tuning.

The post Hit Man Opens Guitar Case Concealing Guitar He Going To Beat Target’s Ass With appeared first on The Onion.

A Pennsylvania health care system agreed to pay $65 million to victims of a ransomware attack after hackers posted nude photos of cancer patients online, the largest settlement of its kind in terms of per-patient compensation for victims of a cyberattack. What do you think?

The post Nude Photos Of Cancer Patients Leaked appeared first on The Onion.

ARLINGTON, VA—Admitting they had not been keeping up on recent news about the venerable British actress, PBS officials told reporters Friday that they already had a Maggie Smith–themed marathon planned for today. “Yes, we have been receiving quite a few messages about our regularly scheduled Weekend Of Dame Maggie marathon,” said PBS spokeswoman Sandra Ryan, describing the three-day television event as the perfect way to honor the grand dame of stage and screen’s “contributions to the art of acting” through hours of her dry wit and inimitable presence in period dramas and stage adaptations from across her career. “We’re sure viewers are going to love her in Othello, A Room With A View, Gosford Park, Death On The Nile, Quartet, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and, of course, a complete rerun of all six unforgettable seasons of Downton Abbey. May she keep gracing our screens for years to come.” At press time, PBS released demographic analysis showing that hundreds of thousands of elderly aunts and grandmothers had already settled in to watch the marathon, as they did every year.

The post PBS Already Had Maggie Smith Marathon Scheduled For Today appeared first on The Onion.

The wrinkle-reducing treatment Botox is the most popular nonsurgical cosmetic procedure in the world. The Onion debunks some of the most common myths surrounding the injectable.

MYTH: Botox makes patients’ faces look frozen.

FACT: The majority of Botox patients can easily move their face around with the help of their fingers

MYTH: Botox is painful. 

FACT: At this point, most women wouldn’t trust a pain-free procedure.

MYTH: Botox is the most effective treatment for reducing fine lines and wrinkles.

FACT: A $2.99 photo-editing app that sells your data to Russia works just as well. 

MYTH: Only women get Botox.

FACT: While women represent the majority of patients, men are increasingly comparing photos of themselves to celebrities. 

MYTH: Botox injections can only be administered by a doctor. 

FACT: Technically, anyone holding a syringe is a doctor

MYTH: If you get Botox, you can choose a dose so light that nobody will even know it was done.

FACT: They’ll wait until you leave the room to bring it up.

MYTH: Botox is not covered by insurance.

FACT: Just say you have migraines, girl.

The post Botox: Myth Vs. Fact appeared first on The Onion.

SI RACHA, THAILAND—Expressing concern over how long the joy ride would last, internet phenom and zoo resident Moo Deng told reporters Friday she was worried a chubbier, feistier pygmy hippo was coming to take this all away. “I’ve sacrificed everything to get where I am—everything—but it will disappear in an instant if some plucky upstart pygmy hippo comes along who’s so fat she can’t even run without adorably tripping over herself,” said Deng, staring at her reflection in a puddle as she ruminated about how just a single photo of a delightfully plump hippo baby eating a watermelon would be enough to bring everything crashing down. “Even the chubbiest of hippos don’t stay on top forever, I know that. When you’re No. 1, there’s always some sloth or otter trying to take you down. Hell, if it happened to [2017 social media star] Fiona the hippo, it could happen to me.” At press time, a zoo spokesperson confirmed Moo Deng was seeking help for abusing anti-growth hormones in an attempt to stay small forever.

The post Moo Deng Worried Chubbier, Feistier Pygmy Hippo Coming To Take This All Away appeared first on The Onion.

SO proud of the amazing Philosophy Tube crew who took my mad idea and ran with it! It’s gonna be amazing! 🥹

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Hoping the Welsh isn't lol.

Today's News:

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Unfortunately the driver drowns so it's a moral stalemate.

Today's News:

Ex-Hurricane, now Tropical Storm Helene is causing a historic flood event this morning all across the Southeast. I count no less than 10 flash flood emergencies as I write this between Georgia and the Carolinas. These include Atlanta, Charlotte, and Asheville.

I don’t recall the last time I saw 10 flash flood emergencies at once. Suffice to say it can probably be counted on one hand or less.

A “high” risk (level 4/4) for flooding remains in effect today in western North Carolina. It’s surrounded by a moderate risk. all the way into extreme southern West Virginia. A second area of moderate risk exists just west of Nashville. High risks correlate strongly to the worst flooding outcomes in terms of damage and loss of life, so much like yesterday and overnight, this will be a rough stretch.

Conditions should improve in Atlanta today, but the damage is done. Asheville remains at risk, as do locations up through Roanoke through Virginia.

Meanwhile, winds continue gusting in excess of 50 and 60 mph all across South Carolina with even some 70 mph gusts too in North Carolina. Power outages are up to about 3.5 million between Florida and Virginia. Those numbers may continue to increase a bit more. The hope is that the low pressure center of Helene will slowly lose identity and weaken by later today and tonight. Flooding risks should drop off heading into tomorrow, though isolated flooding will be possible north and west of the hardest hit areas, perhaps into southern Indiana or Kentucky.

I have not had time to dig through reports from the Florida coast, but I know that it will take time for the worst surge reports to emerge. It always does. And we will almost certainly see the NHC forecasts of 15 to 20 feet verify. The Tampa area broke all their surge records yesterday by a wide margin. This was far and away the worst modern storm to hit the northern west coast and Big Bend area of Florida. More on this to come.

Other news and notes

We’ve neglected other things this week for obvious reasons. Here’s just a quick rundown of what else is happening. More to come on this.

• Tropical Storm Isaac formed and was upgraded to a hurricane today. It is headed out to sea.

• Invest 98L, also in the deep, open Atlantic has a good chance to be upgraded to a depression or Tropical Storm Joyce later today. It is no threat to land.

• The NHC dropped an area of interest yesterday in the Caribbean in a very similar spot to where Helene was conceived. It has a 30% chance of developing over the next week.

• This Caribbean or Yucatan area does not currently have the same degree of model support we saw at this point from Helene for something high-end. However, there is a substantial signal for something in the region next week. We’ll have more on this later in the weekend. For now, don’t worry about it but check back in for updates.

We will post again later today with an update on Helene and anything else of note.