Cowboy Who?

The vice president will hold a rally on Friday afternoon at a yet-to-be announced location in Houston just a week and a half before election day. Harris is in a tight race nationwide against Donald Trump.

After Houston City Council clashed over a proposal to end the sidewalk building requirement for new single-family construction, the city’s planning department will host a series of community meetings on potential changes. Under the draft revisions, single-family residential construction will be exempt from sidewalk construction requirements under a variety of circumstances. 

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

A reader writes:

I have a question about a point that is now, thankfully, moot.

My previous manager, Rufus, wasn’t an especially ethical individual and failed to fulfill many of his expected duties. He was also kind of a creep. We all just put up with his unsavory and unprofessional comments, and occasionally pushed back when we felt it was important to do so.

One situation, though, left me without clear direction. I am non-binary, though I wasn’t out at work (a few coworkers pieced it together, but it wasn’t widely known). When I began to discreetly wear a binder to work, Rufus began to make comments about how I needed to look more professional. Over time, this evolved into getting feedback on my wardrobe as often as a few times per week.

It wasn’t a one-time fluke. It was a regular part of my life for months. I tried wearing an acceptable outfit (chinos and crewneck sweater) with my binder, then again with an underwire bra. With the underwire, I was complimented on dressing professionally. With the binder or a sports bra, I was again criticized. All the while, I was actually dressing above our company standards, which were snappy casual. I stopped wearing jeans and switched to business casual (chinos, khakis, and slacks, always with a structured top and nice shoes). My binder wasn’t visible, nor did it cause visible cleavage. It didn’t matter. One person I worked with closely and who knew my gender identity actually brought my boss’s comments up to me, so I wasn’t just being sensitive.

While I don’t hold Rufus in high regard for a number of reasons, I will be fair and say I don’t think he did this on purpose. I think he just preferred the way I looked some days and didn’t bother to question what, specifically, he liked. It was kind of like when a manager asks a femme if she’s feeling okay when she forgoes makeup. Except it wasn’t makeup, it was my body, and a part of my body about which I am dysmorphic.

I never said anything. I did not feel safe outing myself to him. Instead, I asked him to elaborate what was or wasn’t professional about specific outfits. He wasn’t able to give me anything, but he also didn’t stop the comments until he abruptly quit. He just laughed when I mentioned the frequency of his comments.

Was there anything else I could have done in this situation, other than out myself to him or upper management?

P.S. This story has a happy ending. I am now under a wonderful manager who gives prompt and actionable feedback about my job and only my job. I am learning lots of interesting new skills, and I no longer dread going to work. I have had no contact with Rufus.

Rufus is an ass.

He was indeed harassing you around gender presentation — and around the appearance of your boobs, specifically — whether he was consciously aware of it or not.

And really, when a manager finds themselves giving someone repeated dress code feedback, they have a high obligation to interrogate themselves about exactly where you’re violating expectations and then provide clear and specific guidance on that. “You need to look more professional” doesn’t meet that bar. And “you don’t look sufficiently professional even though you’re in the same outfit I judged professional last week” really should have raised some flags in his mind about what his judgments were based on.

Also, I’m guessing you wouldn’t have gotten this feedback if you were just naturally flatter-chested and appeared that way every day, so either (a) in the most generous reading, he was unconsciously responding to “her figure looks less pleasing to me today” and not bothering to think about why before trying to make that your problem, or (b) he was aware of why and still felt free to make that your problem, which would make it full-on sexual harassment and would make him a terrible person. Either way: a jerk, and just a question of degrees.

If you had a time machine, it would be interesting to go back and say to him, “This is the same outfit I wore last week that you told me looked professional. Every time you’ve given me this feedback, I’ve been in nice pants, a structured top, and nice shoes. I of course want to follow our dress code, so can you please give me more specific feedback about exactly where I”m violating it?” Or simply, “Can you tell me what specifically is out of compliance, so that I can ensure I’m within the dress code going forward?”

It sounds like you did ask him to elaborate and if your framing was similar to this and still elicited no details, then ideally your next step would be HR. HR isn’t useful for every type of problem you might encounter with a boss, but for something like this — where (a) you’re being told you’re violating a company policy and you don’t think you are and/or (b) gender presentation is involved, they’re often much better trained to handle it than a random manager might be. Not always, of course — there’s bad HR out there — but if you’d gone to see HR in person on one of the days Rufus told you that you were dressed unprofessionally, relayed his feedback, explained that he was telling you this regularly, and asked for guidance, there’s a decent chance they’d have talked to Rufus and shut it down (even without you needing to out yourself).

I’m sorry you had to work for such a jackwagon and I’m glad you’re in a better job now.

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

A reader writes:

I’m a fairly experienced manager, but I’ve only been managing my current team for a few months.

I’ve been in a couple meetings with one of my team members that I’ve asked her to take the lead on, and she reports out at every meeting. Twice now, as she’s reporting I’ve heard her change her sentence from “we’re doing…” to “I’m doing…” But she’s not! The whole team is pitching in ideas and support, and sometimes they or I am actually doing the things she’s talking about. It seems like a really low-stakes thing, but we’ve had to have a couple of other conversations about working on a team, like making sure she’s not getting out ahead of my direction and being aware of how she talks about workload around her teammates. It’s been a lot, so I also don’t want to be focus unnecessarily on something that could really be minor. But she’s taking credit for other people’s work, and that’s not fair to them, and I don’t know if it makes her look particularly good, either. Should I bring it up or let it slide?

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

• Can I ask my colleagues not to mime shooting themselves?
• Do we have to offer the job to the only applicant?

Our friends at 270 Reasons are gathering a polyphonic orchestra of brilliant writers, teachers, doctors, filmmakers, artists, and citizens of all kinds to weigh in about their plans to vote this November. These opinion essays run the gamut from advocacy for basic human rights to acutely personal mini-manifestoes. Read the rest over at 270 Reasons.

Because She Supports a Ban on Assault Weapons

My children were six and four years old in 2012, when Sandy Hook occurred. I was horrified to see children, around the same age as my own children, killed. My own children grew up in the age of lockdown drills. They’ve become so desensitized to mass shootings that when another one occurs, they no longer seem shocked by it. When another one occurs, I’m no longer sure that they will even hear about it. They have become used to living in fear so that they have become numb to fear. Perhaps it’s not that they no longer care, but that gun violence has become routine, like the weather. It just happens.

It’s hard to believe that Sandy Hook was twelve years ago. It’s hard to believe that some of the survivors of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are graduating from high school this year. It’s hard to believe that since 2020, this country’s mass shootings (often defined as four or more people killed) have only grown. In fact, mass shootings in 2023 were the second highest (after 2021). This year is no better.

I’m voting for Kamala Harris for president for many reasons, but I support Harris because she’s been vocal about gun violence and supports a ban on assault weapons, as well as expanding background checks. I still remember the horror of Sandy Hook. Every mass shooting should evoke the same horror today. I want to live in a country where my children and future children don’t have to live in fear, and even worse, don’t have to become numb to their own fears. What happens when a society becomes numb to such horrors? More of the same horrors. Although my kids, like the Sandy Hook children, are nearly grown, I believe that Harris, if elected, will make real change in gun laws that I’ve been waiting for.

Victoria Chang is a poet, Bourne Chair in Poetry, and director of Poetry@Tech at Georgia Tech.

Read more essays (with new ones added every day) at 270reasons.com.

The arguments here represent the opinion of the authors and not necessarily those of the McSweeney’s Literary Arts Fund.

NEW YORK—Featuring nearly identical video footage in two separate $25 million ad buys, the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns both debuted new commercials Tuesday that attempt to win support for their respective candidates with a supercut of Trump’s most racist comments. The two ads—which reports confirmed would air continuously until Nov. 5—showcase clips of Trump’s inflammatory remarks about Jewish people, Black people, and immigrants, including those in which the GOP candidate says “we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now” and suggests new arrivals to the country were poisoning American blood. Both spots reportedly show Trump expounding on conspiracy theories that the Biden administration was “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas” affected by Hurricane Helene, and both claim in large letters that “This is what the next four years would look like under Trump.” However, sources indicated there is a difference in tone between the two ads, with one using sinister music and the other employing a rousing, triumphal score. Numerous viewers told reporters that only at the very end were they able to determine which candidate each ad was supporting, because one spot said “Stop Donald Trump” and the other said “Vote Donald Trump.”

The post Both Campaigns Release Ads Showcasing Trump’s Most Racist Comments appeared first on The Onion.

In brief: Today’s post discusses why the month of October is often one of Houston’s wettest months of the year, but definitely is not in 2024. We look at our continuing warm daytime temperatures through the weekend, and the possibility of finally seeing some rain next week.

State of play

With high pressure more or less in place for the forecast period, we’re going to see warmer than normal days into early next week. However, the overall flow will be somewhat drier, so we’re going to see dewpoints lower than is customary in Houston. The net effect is that daytime temperatures will warm more rapidly, but nights will be a bit cooler than we might otherwise expect. Unfortunately, the overall atmospheric pattern will remain dry through the weekend as well, continuing our very dry October.

To date, the city has recorded 0.0 inches of precipitation this month. That’s surprising, because October is often one of the wettest months of the season. The historical average is 5.46 inches of rain, which ranks as the second wettest month, behind only June. Why is this month often so wet? We sometimes see late-season influxes influxes of tropical moisture earlier in the month, and often the fronts sweeping down in later October bring storms with them. We have seen none of that this year.

Tuesday

High temperatures today will reach the mid-80s for much of the area, although a few inland parts of Houston may push into the upper 80s. Skies will be mostly sunny, with a light easterly wind. Low temperatures tonight will drop into the mid-60s.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

Skies will be mostly sunny throughout the week. High temperatures will depend on your location, ranging from the lower 80s near the coast, with the upper 80s in much of Houston, and pushing 90 degrees further inland. Days will be hot, but with dewpoints in the upper 50s and lower 60s, the air will feel modestly drier. Overnight low temperatures drop into the 60s for all but the coast.

Saturday and Sunday

You guessed it, more sunshine. Highs will remain mostly in the upper 80s, with lows in the 60s. The chance of inclement weather is basically zero, so if you have outdoor activities planned, you can feel pretty good about them. Provided you bring sunscreen, of course.

Next week

The sunny pattern continues into Monday, after which time we are likely to see the atmosphere become a bit more disturbed. This should lead to the development of some clouds by Tuesday, and some decent rain chances by Wednesday. I don’t want to over-set expectations, and no one should be expecting a few inches of rainfall to put a dent in our emerging drought. But the very dry pattern should finally begin to break during the second half of next week. The models are all over the place in terms of temperatures, so I don’t have much confidence in the weather for Halloween yet. If pushed, I’d guess that high temperatures are somewhere in the lower-80s, but I feel like that could be a trick.

At 8 years old, an unaccompanied Guadalupe Maravilla made the treacherous two-and-a-half month journey through Central America and across the U.S. border to escape El Salvador’s civil war and rejoin his family in America. Now, 40 years later, Maravilla works as a multidisciplinary artist and healer, whose practice revolves around his immigration journey and experience growing up undocumented. 

In the 2010s, Maravilla was diagnosed with colon cancer–a disease he believes to be the physical manifestation of the trauma and stress that he and his family experienced as undocumented immigrants. This illness has been a central theme in his artwork ever since. During his healing process, Maravilla came upon ancient, non-Western healing practices and natural medicines that helped him recover — one being sound therapy, which is now a key element in his practice. 

There is an inherent spiritual essence to Maravilla’s work, which simultaneously looks like an ancient relic from the past and a futuristic object from another universe. His sculptures have the visual language of a ritual altar or shrine, fusing motifs from his pre-colonial Central American ancestry with contemporary, everyday objects that hold greater meaning for him. His recent series of large-scale sculptures titled Disease Throwers combines a plethora of symbolic items and materials, including healing instruments. Maravilla activates these instruments through sound bath performances.

Commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston in 2023 as part of his Disease Throwers series, Mariposa Relámpago takes the form of a metallic school bus — the artist’s largest sculpture to date. The bus traveled to Ballroom Marfa where it was on view from November 4, 2023 through March 16, 2024, and then to The Contemporary Austin in April, where it is currently on view.

Directly translating to “butterfly lightning,” Mariposa Relámpago is decked out in hundreds of objects. Silver butter knives line the border of the bus’s front windshield. An anatomical model of a child sits at the front of its hood, surrounded by stones carved to resemble pre-Columbian glyphs. Metal butterfly wings jut out of the sides of the bus and giant grasshopper legs are attached near the rear. A small carousel and several of its horses are placed on top of the bus. The former school bus was salvaged and imported directly from El Salvador, having made its own immigration voyage mirroring Maravilla’s. Mariposa Relámpago is a shrine — to Maravilla himself, his journey, to any and all immigrants, to his community and communities everywhere.

Giant gongs (some are as big as 60 inches) are attached to the sides of the bus and on top. Maravilla, along with several other sound healers, performed several sound bath ceremonies for the community when the exhibition opened in Austin. Hundreds of local visitors showed up, laying down blankets around the bedazzled bus. Although the healers started off primarily activating the gongs on the bus, they eventually began weaving their way through the crowd with smaller instruments in hand. The sounds of the gongs rang thunderously throughout the sculpture park on that warm spring day.

Mariposa Relámpago is, quite literally, a vehicle for healing. Maravilla’s artwork confronts immigration, war, disease, and systemic abuse, all while putting community healing at the forefront.

Guadalupe Maravilla: Mariposa Relámpago is on view at The Contemporary Austin’s Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria through November 3, 2024. The sculpture will then travel to the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston during the Spring of 2025.

Emma S. Ahmad is an art historian and writer based in Dallas, TX.

The post A Vehicle for Healing: Guadalupe Maravilla’s “Mariposa Relámpago” at The Contemporary Austin appeared first on Glasstire.

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

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My employee says I’m triggering their unresolved trauma

I have a question as to how to manage a direct report who has admitted that they have self esteem issues resulting from unresolved childhood trauma. It is evident in any dealings with them that they struggle with any form of authority being shown — they get upset with a simple question about what have they been working on since our last fortnightly check in, particularly if tasks have not been completed. I’ve always made it clear that due to the reactive nature of their role that I understand that the action plan can be pushed to the side if urgent matters pop up, I just need to understand what they are. These conversations almost always end in emotion outbursts, no matter how I handle the conversation.

It has been getting worse and now I’ve been told that I am a trigger for their trauma but they can only say that there is “something about my style” which brings back issues. I have nothing to work with! I don’t shout, I don’t blame, and I make myself available when required even if I’m busy. Other colleagues and reports have no issues with my style and have advised me that they find me approachable. I have my moments as everyone does when I’m busy because I’m human. But how do I deal with someone who has said I trigger unresolved trauma when I have nothing to work with?

You can’t solve this for them. You should let them know that if they can propose specific changes you could make that would help them, you’re open to trying to work with what they need. (You shouldn’t promise you’ll make changes before knowing what they might be, because some could be unreasonable or unworkable, but you can certainly promise that you’ll hear them out with an open mind and try to accommodate them if you can.) But you also need to be forthright about the reality that they do need to update you on their work and answer your questions about their projects; that part isn’t negotiable. If they can suggest ways to make that easier on them (for example, maybe they’d prefer sending you updates in writing ahead of your check-ins), you’ll try to work with them — but the basic facts of having a manager (that they will need to keep you updated on their work and answer questions) won’t change. Lay that out in a kind but direct way, and let them decide if they’re up for that or not. If they decide they’re not, or that they can’t, there’s no shame in that — but you should be clear that it does need to happen if they want to stay in the role.

Related:
my employee asked me not to give him any feedback

2. Was I wrong to refuse to answer coworkers’ questions about my life?

I just started a new job, and my coworkers are trying to get to know me. One of them asked me, “Are you in a relationship or married?” I don’t see what that has to do with work so I said, “Sometimes.”

Another coworker brought her kid to work. She had to tell her child, “Please stay still, you can’t just run around.” She turned to me and said, “Ahh, kids, ya know? You don’t have any kids, do you?” I said, “I might have kids” She gave me a funny look and said, “You might?” I said, “Maybe, who knows?” Could I get fired for this? How do I fix it?

This is an extremely weird way to behave with coworkers. When you work with people and are trying to get to know them, asking if they’re married or have kids is a normal thing to do. In particular, asking if you have kids is an especially normal question when someone is talking about their own kid. Answering “sometimes” to the question of whether you’re married or in a relationship is actually pretty funny, but “I might have kids” is a weird thing to say in any circumstance.

You asked whether you could get fired for this and it’s unlikely — but what is likely is that you’re coming across as rude and cold to coworkers and making people dislike you (in part because you’re coming across as if you dislike them) and that can have all kinds or professional ramifications, from people not wanting to be on projects with you, to not sharing useful info with you, to having trouble getting promoted, to ending up first on a layoff list.

You don’t need to get deeply personal with coworkers if you don’t want to, but sharing some basic facts about your life is usually a prerequisite for having warm working relationships with people. Feel free to immediately pivot the topic if you want (turning the question around and asking them about their own lives is one good way to do it, as is having some impersonal topics you don’t mind talking about — pets, books, TV, cooking) but if you’re not willing to engage warmly with people at all, yes, there will be professional consequences to that.

Related:
should I put more effort into making friends at work?

3. Employee calls me his “lady boss”

I am a female manager in a technical field. All of my direct reports are men. One of my reports consistently refers to me as “my lady boss.” He does not speak English as his first language and his native language uses gendered nouns and adjectives. He has worked in U.S. professional environments for over 30 years and has worked for me for five years. He is in the middle of the pack in terms of performance.

I don’t love the nickname but I haven’t wanted to make a big deal out of it either, except that I get looks and questions when he refers to me as My Lady Boss in front of our colleagues. How would you address this?

“Please don’t refer me as your ‘lady boss.’ I’m just your boss, or just Jane.” You could add, “Gender isn’t relevant when you identify me, just like you wouldn’t call Bob your ‘man boss.’” Alternately, “‘Lady boss’ sounds like you have an issue with female managers, which I know is not your intent.”

Related:
Employee keeps referring to me as his “manageress”

4. Should I tell the person I’m interviewing with that I’m no longer in good standing at my company?

I’ve been at my current company for about three years. For the first two years, I was considered a star performer. Since then, the company’s financials have soured, the strategy has changed, and so have the expectations for my role. I’ve also been moved to a new team where my manager and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. All of this combined has unfortunately tanked my standing at work, and I’ve now received formal negative feedback on my performance and even had some of my responsibilities revoked.

I’m looking for new jobs, and I have gotten in touch with a former leader of my current company who’s hiring at his new company. He left while I was still a top performer, and I’m guessing he’s willing to recommend me based on that performance. My question is, would it be wise to let him know that I’m no longer doing well? I’m worried that if I don’t, he may reach out to some of our mutual colleagues and hear about it. On the other hand, I’m worried that if I share this info, it will sink my chances at getting hired by his new company.

You don’t need to warn him that you’re not doing well. His experience with you is his experience, and there’s no ethical or professional obligation to disclose that under different circumstances, things went differently. If he ends up hearing about it, so be it, but you’re not doing anything wrong by not volunteering it. (And it’s not at all uncommon for someone to do well in situation X with manager X but not thrive in situation Y with manager Y — and that generally says more about situation Y and manager Y than about the person themselves.)

5. Is a past run for office keeping me from getting job interviews?

I ran for the state legislature in 2020. I job searched in 2021 so I put it on my resume, towards the bottom with other volunteer work I’d done related to my field and only spoke about the aspects of running that relate to what I do for work. I don’t mention the party I was affiliated with or anything like that.

I had it on my resume at the time because it was so close to having run, any google search of my name only brought up information about my run. It didn’t ever feel right mentioning it in a cover letter and I was afraid leaving it off would seem weird once they did a google search.

Now I am putting in applications again. Is it possible continuing to have that on my resume is preventing me from getting interviews?

Now when you google me, there are a few different search results on page one — some related to current and past jobs, some which clearly show I was a candidate.

I absolutely don’t talk politics at work but I worry that having it on my resume makes it seem like that could be a problem. But I worry not mentioning it will come off weird once they search my name. Any advice on how to tackle this part of my professional history while job hunting?

It’s possible it’s concerning some employers. It’s more likely to come up as a concern if you ran on any particularly controversial or inflammatory planks, but even if you didn’t, some employers may wonder if you plan to run again, how it might affect work, etc. Also, by including it on your resume, you’re saying “I think this is at least somewhat relevant to my qualifications,” which may worry them if it the connection isn’t clear.

However, particularly if you were a fairly middle-of-the-road candidate, a lot of people won’t care at all.

Regardless, though, you can just leave it off. It 100% will not come across as weird if they google you and see that you ran for office four years ago but didn’t put it on your resume. There’s nothing shady or odd about not including it on your resume; resumes are marketing documents, not exhaustive lists of everything you’ve ever done. You can simply leave it off and make it a non-issue.

OTTAWA – Allison Carver, who has recently experienced a series of paranormal events in her home, has told reporters that she was disappointed to discover she’s undergoing a boring, metaphorical haunting rather than the blood-curdling, adrenaline-pumping kind. “My little boy and I moved here to get a fresh start after my husband died,” Carver told […]

The post Lame-ass ghost turns out to be metaphor for grief instead of a cool chain-rattling guy appeared first on The Beaverton.

Mansion: Moaning in the middle of the night
Airbnb: Changing the Wi-Fi password to alternate between zero and the letter O, like “00OO0O000O”

Mansion: Shouting, “Get out!”
Airbnb: Giving commands via posters, like EAT or LIVE LAUGH LOVE.

Mansion: Creating panic in their minds over the course of months
Airbnb: Inducing a nagging feeling over the course of hours that they forgot something at home

Mansion: Disappearing before their eyes
Airbnb: Being very responsive until they check in and then ghosting them

Mansion: Moving their possessions around
Airbnb: Storing a colander behind the television and maple syrup in the shower

Mansion: Creating cold spots in the room
Airbnb: Producing hot and cold spots throughout the unit with a broken thermostat

Mansion: Leaving riddles to help you leave this plane of existence
Airbnb: Providing directions to the Airbnb, such as “It’s three houses down from the tree with a broken branch that looks like Paul Giamatti.”

Mansion: Adding yourself to their photos
Airbnb: Altering the photos of the Airbnb to look like a completely different and nicer place

Mansion: Slashing the furniture and curtains
Airbnb: Dulling the knives to be as effective as a block of wood

Mansion: Filling the room with a smell of sulfur
Airbnb: Making it smell as if a rat died on the other side of the drywall

Mansion: Taking small trinkets to use in luring them to their death
Airbnb: Stealing by having nonrefundable fees added at the end of their stay

Mansion: Creating footstep sounds in the middle of the night
Airbnb: Making the walls so thin they can hear when the neighbor rolls over in bed

Mansion: Leaving coins and collectibles from your time
Airbnb: Ensuring there are four shakers of cumin but no salt

Mansion: Taking over their body to control them
Airbnb: Leaving complicated checkout procedures to force them to do what you wish

Mansion: Creating a fog in a room
Airbnb: Unfogging a circle on the bathroom mirror to leave them thinking they were filmed

Mansion: Leaving visible ectoplasm all over the house
Airbnb: Making the ectoplasm visible only under a black light

Mansion: Pull a sheet over your head and float around the room
Airbnb: Same. It’s a classic, and you can’t give up all tradition, so don’t change a thing.

The Texas governor had not publicly shared his thoughts on the actions of a bipartisan group of lawmakers that stopped the scheduled execution of Robert Roberson.

Headlines

• Tropical Storm Oscar will continue to dump heavy rain on parts of Cuba and the Bahamas as it exits out to sea this week.
• We take a look at why we wrote Invest 94L off on Friday before it became Oscar, and in our Monday morning quarterbacking, we look at hints we could have missed.
• Conditions may become favorable for further tropical development next week in the western Caribbean; we discuss who is usually still on the hook in early November.

Tropical Storm Oscar’s route to surprising us

Oscar is still lashing parts of the southwest Atlantic with heavy rain and gusty winds today. According to Michael Lowry, Oscar was indeed the smallest known Atlantic hurricane on record. He also accurately described Oscar’s development pathway as “nightmare fuel” for forecasters, and this forecaster could not agree more. Oscar went from nothingness to probably a category 2 or even 3 microstorm over the course of hours. This has happened in the Pacific as recently as this past summer with Hurricane John. To a lesser extent, we saw Otis last season defy forecasts and go ballistic to a category 5 storm. But every so often these storms serve as a reminder that modeling is imperfect, very imperfect.

Here’s an animated loop of Invest 94L’s forecast from the GFS model last Friday morning. You can see it takes 94L/Oscar to the west over the Turks and Caicos Islands north of Hispaniola but never develops the system and has it fall it apart rather quickly.

The European model from Friday morning offered a somewhat more realistic outcome, but even it did not look foreboding at the time and probably justified somewhere between a 10 and 30 percent chance of tropical development.

Still, a minimum pressure of around 986 mb was reported over the weekend from Oscar, well under the minimum of about 1003 mb shown here on the Euro. Somewhat surprisingly, the European AI model did fairly well here, or at least was somewhat similar in nature to the Euro shown above. The ICON model did not do well, which marks one of its worst forecasts of the season.

I am somewhat intrigued by the European performance though. Small storms are tough to forecast, and we’ve noted in the past that model resolution has a lot to do with this. You simply cannot capture a hurricane that is basically the size of a typical thunderstorm complex. However, there remains something of an “art” to forecasting where one can paintbrush in some accents to improve on an otherwise finished canvas. This is a situation where looking at the Euro probably would give most of us some pause at least for writing something off. Perhaps that’s something I should have noticed more back on Friday. There are whispers of 2007’s Hurricane Humberto in cases like this. I think it just goes to show you never to take anything for granted in the tropics. You’re constantly humbled in this world.

Anyway, Oscar will turn back away from Cuba and head out to sea over the next day or so. But it will dump extensive rainfall over Cuba and the southeast Bahamas.

Rains in excess of a foot (300 mm) are possible for small portions of southeast Cuba and up to 150 mm in the southeast Bahamas.

Beyond Oscar: Quiet, then what?

No additional tropical development is expected across the Atlantic for the rest of this week. Typically, we would begin talking about the season shutting down around now. While November storms do happen at times, they tend to be infrequent, and on an ACE basis, hurricane season is now 90 percent over. And after this week it will be about 93 percent over. But that said, the background state of the Atlantic appears as if it is going to get more favorable for development again just as we head toward November. Where would you expect storms to form in November?

Typically, you’d look in the open Atlantic north and east of the Caribbean or in the Caribbean, just east of Central America. The latter area is the one to watch heading into November, as numerous ensemble members are beginning to pick up on activity there. Where it goes is TBD, but the water in that area remains very, very warm, which could more than support a significant storm for portions of the western Caribbean, perhaps including Central America. These storms typically get brushed off to the north and east relatively quickly by wind shear and cold fronts, so the western Gulf is probably off the hook. The eastern Gulf should still keep an eye on things, but the Caribbean should definitely keep tabs on anything that tries to develop next week. For now it’s just speculation and model hints. We’ll keep you posted as things clear up some closer in.

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

A reader writes:

I am a middle manager who works with an employee I’ll call “John.” John does not report to me, but there are scenarios in which I supervise aspects of John’s work and am in a position to give him feedback.

John has a lot of experience (he’s been doing his job about as long as I’ve been alive), but at times he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. He reacts defensively to most disagreements/feedback and regularly gives staff feedback and suggestions that directly contradict what managers have told them to do. He also is willing to die on pretty much every hill (let’s say we were making teapots with flowers painted on them and each flower had six petals; John would loudly and publicly insist it is CRUCIAL that the flowers have seven petals, to the point of making a scene in front of his peers). There have been times when I have had to pull John aside to discuss this behavior.

One thing John does in those conversations drives me bonkers. He will insist I don’t understand his argument, and then say some variation of, “Repeat back to me the point I was just making.”

This feels so condescending and I hate it. I recognize I may be sensitive to this in part because of the gender dynamics (he is a man and I am a woman, and he has done this with other female managers). It feels like he is a professor who is scolding his student.

On the other hand, I don’t want to overlook something I could improve in our interactions simply because his behavior gives me the ick. I now try to summarize his points early on in the conversation (“what I’m hearing you say is…”), but somehow we still usually end up with him pushing me to repeat his argument back to him. It almost feels like an attitude of “Clearly you don’t understand my point, otherwise you would agree,” but of course I don’t know for sure that that is his intention.

What can I do to help improve the quality of our conversations without being a pushover?

Ugh, yes, he sounds condescending.

There are times when it can make sense to say something like, “Can you tell me your understanding of my concern, so we can spot if something is getting lost in translation?” And when I’m managing someone and assigning work, I’m a fan of, “To make sure we’re on the same page and I didn’t miss anything, can you do a quick summary of next steps?” (The latter can be really helpful because managers sometimes think they’ve been clear about their expectations and then are shocked to discover that the other person came away with a very different understanding.)

But the minute there’s any whiff of any condescension in your tone or manner, this will stop sounding collaborative and start sounding obnoxious. And it doesn’t sound like John is doing it in contexts where it would make sense; as you say, it sounds more like he implying, “Maybe you aren’t smart enough to understand what I’m saying.”

Since he clearly thinks this is an acceptable way to communicate, I’m curious what would happen if you start doing it back to him to  level the playing field. The next time he asks you to repeat back his point, do it — and then say, “And now I’d like to ask you to repeat back the point I was making too, so we can ensure we’re both understanding each other.” Do this a few times and he might dislike it enough that he’ll stop doing it to you. Or who knows, maybe it will result in improved communication on both sides, which would also be good!

There’s also the option of simply telling him how it’s coming across. For example: “I get the sense you’re asking me to repeat back your point because you assume I must be misunderstanding or I’d agree with you. That’s not the case.” And maybe: “You’re coming across as very adversarial right now. Is that what you intend?” (You need to say this calmly and in a tone of genuine curiosity — don’t sound agitated or it loses its power.)

But also, John sounds like a tool and, if you haven’t already, it might be useful to share some feedback about his approach with his manager.

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

A reader writes:

I work for a small company (less than 50 people) and Jane has been with us for about four years. She came with a lot of fanfare because she is specialist in her field and has a history of otherworldly production. Jane loves having a squad of adoring colleagues and subordinates and is, to say the least, a diva.

She also escalates every conflict to the C-suite, no matter how small. Tell her no … it goes up to the CEO. Ask her to do something different … same thing. And she’s placated most of the time because if not, her beef goes to the board of directors.

Jane was restricted from purchasing for a couple of days because she doesn’t follow guidelines and of course it made it all the way to the board president, who reversed the CFO’s decision.

I know this is poor management and even poorer employee conduct, but what to do? I am looking for other employment opportunities.

It’s one thing for Jane to escalate to the CEO in such a small company — but the board? The first time that happened, the board should have told her they don’t get involved in day-to-day management decisions and directed her back to her manager. And now that the CEO sees it’s happening so frequently, she should be shutting down the vast majority of the escalations — sending Jane back to her own manager and including making it clear that Jane’s manager has the final call in 99% of what comes up.

Moreover, if the CEO disagrees with the calls Jane’s manager is making enough to want to reverse them so often, that’s a sign that the CEO and Jane’s manager needs to get themselves better aligned so that they’re not making such different calls.

On your end of things: you’re in a cesspool of mismanagement that for whatever reason wants to keep placating Jane. If no one above you is willing to take this on, the best thing you can do is to work on emotionally detaching from it. Remind yourself that it’s their company, not yours, and if they want to bend over backwards to placate Jane on the reg, so be it. It’s going to make you less emotionally invested in your job and less engaged in your work, which is bad for them in the long run, but that’s what happens when a company operates this way.

One caveat: if Jane is truly a rock star, is there any chance she’s right about a lot of what she’s escalating? Particularly if she was brought in to improve operations in her area, there’s at least a possibility that she’s in the right … and if she was specifically brought in to change the way things work, there’s even a chance that she was told to escalate things  … which could explain why she’s getting her way so often. It could be interesting to look at it through that lens for a while and see if it changes anything about your conclusions.

The post We Need To Take Trump’s Rhetoric Seriously, But Not Literally vs. Have That Guy Killed appeared first on The Onion.

A new fire station in central Germany, which was destroyed in a fire, did not have a fire alarm system, with local officials claiming no alarm was installed because experts had considered it unnecessary. What do you think?

The post Fire Station That Burned Down Didn’t Have Fire Alarm appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—In an attempt to sow further doubt about the vice president’s employment history, Donald Trump accused Kamala Harris Monday of lying about having a job at the White House. “Phony Kamala says she worked in a junior position at the White House for years, but they say they’ve got no record of her being there,” the former president said during an appearance at a campaign rally, following up on a Truth Social post in which he wrote the phrase “NEVER WORKED THERE” under an image of the White House. “She’s made it this huge part of her campaign, but why haven’t we seen a single photograph of her in the Oval Office? Because it’s a lie, folks. She hasn’t spent a second there. She just wants to pander to the people who actually were employed there.” At press time, Trump had devoted a 15-minute campaign stop to working at the White House in an apparent effort to show up Harris and fuel greater uncertainty about her claims.

The post Trump Accuses Kamala Harris Of Lying About Having Job At White House appeared first on The Onion.

STANFORD, CA—Concluding that the window in which to give themselves a little pat on the back was rapidly closing, a report released Monday by Stanford University found that Americans needed to cut carbon emissions by 3% in order to tell themselves they did their best. “It’s clear that as the planet continues to grow hotter, U.S. residents have no choice but to slightly lower emissions if they want to rationalize their actions by thinking they did everything they possibly could,” said head researcher Albert Sikora, explaining that anything less than 3% would be insufficient to completely absolve Americans’ sense of guilt over having failed to meet the moment and prevent a climate disaster. “Time is of the essence if we want to have any hope of convincing ourselves that we gave reining in fossil fuels the old college try. It is up to each and every one of us to work together to marginally cut airborne carbon as a way of safeguarding ourselves from accusations that something more should have been done.” At press time, Sikora warned that if the United States failed to act now, it would have no plausible deniability for the death and destruction that record-breaking storms, heat, floods, and drought will inevitably bring.

The post Report Finds Americans Need To Cut Emissions By 3% In Order To Tell Themselves They Did Their Best appeared first on The Onion.

Our friends at 270 Reasons are gathering a polyphonic orchestra of brilliant writers, teachers, doctors, filmmakers, artists, and citizens of all kinds to weigh in about their plans to vote this November. These opinion essays run the gamut from advocacy for basic human rights to acutely personal mini-manifestoes. Read the rest over at 270 Reasons.

Because You Shouldn’t Throw Your Vote Away

I don’t know any “undecided” voters—are they real?—and I don’t think someone like me can convince a right-winger to switch sides. But I know many people to the Left of Kamala who are torn between voting for her, abstaining, and voting for a third-party candidate. Those people have been on my mind a lot.

Here’s how my father and his friends used to vote in 1950s Hungary, where election results were preordained: They’d make an “X” on one thumb with an inky, black marker. Then they’d bring their own pen to the voting place, filled with disappearing ink. You had no booth to hide in, and election officials would watch you. Vote for the wrong candidate and your name could wind up on a list. So, they’d mark the “correct” box with disappearing ink, lick their thumbs, and—as they folded the ballot in half and put it in the ballot box—transfer that inky “X” to the spot they actually wanted. This was extremely dangerous, all of it.

But my point here is not about the satisfaction of the protest vote. It’s instead about not taking your vote for granted, not treating it so lightly that you might toss it around just to make yourself feel better. My father and his friends knew that their only hope was to make this one very small statement. Had they been given the chance to cast an actual, critical vote for the future of their country, they would never have dreamed of throwing that vote away because the better candidate was imperfect.

Kamala Harris is the one viable candidate who will listen to progressives, who can be pressured and swayed by progressives. In whatever area you deem her opinions and policies questionable or downright bad—US support of Israel will come to mind for many—ask yourself if there’s a route to pressuring her, once she’s in office, to come closer to your own position. Because she’s a reasonable person—a formidably intelligent person—and a career public servant, I believe there is. Because Trump is an irrational agent of chaos and a megalomaniac, I believe that for him, there is not.

While there are issues on which she’s swerved to the Right (fracking, for one), there are others where she’s been successfully pulled to the Left (decriminalization of border crossings). If you think there’s a chance of Trump being pulled to the Left on any of his current positions, I have some crappy steaks and a degree from a fake university to sell you.

“If we do not know our own history,” Hannah Arendt wrote, “we are doomed to live it as though it were our private fate.”

Vote like you just earned the right to vote. For those of us who aren’t white men, and for those who grew up under a totalitarian regime like many in my family, that’s in fact true. Vote like your vote is the deciding vote in the election. Who’s to say it won’t be? Vote like people’s lives and rights are in your hands. They are.

Rebecca Makkai writes fiction and lives near Chicago.

Read more essays (with new ones added every day) at 270reasons.com.

The arguments here represent the opinion of the authors and not necessarily those of the McSweeney’s Literary Arts Fund.

I'm in Austin for a meeting at the Texas Capitol for the Alzheimer’s Association ahead of the 89th Texas Legislative Session. The meeting will discuss recent advances in Alzheimer's research and treatment.We had success here last session, getting a bill passed to help those living with the disease.Speaking of the Association, you can still help my Walk team raise money to fight and hopefully end

In an appeal to the powerful voting bloc, Trump told a group of influential Amish megadonors that, if elected, he would make turning on the lights or plugging in an appliance a criminal offense.

The post Trump Vows To Outlaw Electricity To Secure Powerful Amish Vote appeared first on The Onion.

In recovering from recent cyberattacks on October 8, the Internet Archive has resumed the Wayback Machine (starting October 13) and Archive-It (October 17), and as of today (October 21), has begun offering provisional availability of archive.org in a read-only manner. Features like uploading, borrowing, reviewing items, interlibrary loan, and other services are not yet available. 

Please note that these services will have limited availability as we continue maintenance. 

Hackers disclosed archive.org email and encrypted passwords to a transparency website, and also sent emails to patrons by exploiting a 3rd party helpdesk system.

The safety and integrity of the Internet Archive’s data and patrons remain our top priorities. As the security incident is analyzed and contained by our team, we are relaunching services as defenses are strengthened. These efforts are focused on reinforcing firewall systems and further protecting the data stores.

We appreciate your patience and support as we work through these challenges. For ongoing updates, please follow our blog and official social media channels on X/Twitter, Bluesky, and Mastodon.

We stand with all libraries that have faced similar attacks—British Library, Seattle Public Library, Toronto Public Library, and Calgary Public Library—and with the communities we serve. Thank you for standing with the Internet Archive as we continue to fight back on behalf of all affected readers.

In brief: The forecast for this week is fairly boring. If you like dynamic change you’re out of luck, as our days for at least the next week will be rather warm, sunny, but with modestly drier air. Nights will be somewhat cool, but definitely not chilly. Although rain chances are essentially zero for the next seven days, but there starts to be some hope for precipitation after that.

A cool spell ends

The second half of last week produced the region’s first run of cooler-than-normal temperatures since early September, with a couple of days with high temperatures in the 70s, and a few nights in the 40s and 50s. This provided a nice preview of fall-like weather, but our daytime highs are headed back into the upper 80s later this week.

However our nights will remain a touch cooler, with slightly drier air from the northeast helping to cool us off into the low- to mid-60s most nights. As for rain, we’ve been talking about how dry things have been, and that is not going to change this week. However, I have some hope for some change in a little more than a week from now.

Monday

High temperatures will reach the mid-80s today, with sunny skies. Winds will generally be from the east, at about 5 to 10 mph. Skies will be mostly sunny, but with dewpoints in the 50s, the air will feel fairly dry. Low temperatures will drop into the lower 60s tonight. Clear skies should continue to prevail.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

There won’t be much change in the weather this week after today. Each day will see mostly sunny skies, with high temperatures ranging from the lower 80s near the coast, upper-80s for much of the city, and about 90 degrees for inland areas. The air will be modestly dry, and this will help push highs so warm (90-degree days in late October are no unheard of, but they’re quite rare). Lows will drop into the low- to mid-60s for most locations away from the coast, so nights and evenings will be pleasant.

Saturday and Sunday

Not much changes this weekend. A (very) weak front may push highs back down into the mid-80s, and take a degree or two off nighttime temperatures. But we should continue to see sunny days and cool-ish nights. If you have outdoor plans for the weekend, you can make them with confidence.

Next week

The forecast for next week is uncertain. There are hints of a front in the Monday timeframe, or possibly later in the week, but I don’t have great confidence in any of that happening for sure. However, we may finally see a break from a pattern in which high pressure prevails. Most of our modeling guidance does suggest that Houston may start to see some better rain chances by around Wednesday or Thursday of next week. Now that’s nine or ten days into the future, so I would not set out your cisterns just yet. But it does provide some hope after a very dry fall.

Flames erupted near the intersection of Engelke and Ennis streets after a helicopter apparently hit the tower just before 8 p.m., according to the Houston Fire Department. 

The Texas Supreme Court halted Roberson’s execution late Thursday — the first time in Texas history, experts believed, that one high court blocked an execution that was already approved by the other.

Early voting in Harris County runs from Monday until Nov. 1. 88 polling locations around Harris County will open up at 7 a.m. Monday and close at 7 p.m.

In-person early voting in Texas runs from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1. Our guide outlines your voting rights, where to vote, and the necessary steps for early voting.