The Islamic Arts Society has announced that its 11th Annual Islamic Arts Festival will take place at the University of Houston (UH) November 9-10, 2024.
Each year, the Islamic Arts Society organizes and collaborates on events and classes that promote the understanding of Islamic culture. In addition to this programming, it hosts an annual two-day festival displaying work by emerging and student artists. Past iterations of the event have seen thousands of attendees.
This year, along with the visual arts display, the event has expanded to include a film festival, a comedy show by Preacher Moss, the Sufi music group Al-Firdaus Ensemble from Spain, and an academic seminar co-organized with UH’s Kathrine G. McGovern College of the arts. The seminar will be a panel discussion exploring the current state of Islamic Arts in the U.S. There will also be live demonstrations of calligraphy, henna tattoos, ebru, and painting.
Islamic Arts Festival, live art demo.
Shaheen Rahman, the President of the Islamic Arts Society, told Glasstire, “The festival provides a platform to foster cultural understanding, highlighting the beauty and unity found in diversity. Through this event, we aim to build connections across communities, showcasing the richness of Islamic art.”
Additionally, this is the first time the festival has been moved from its suburban venue at Masjid Al-Salam to a more central location at UH. Specifically, the free event will take place at Houston Hall, Student Center South, at UH, on Saturday and Sunday, November 9 and 10, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Learn more about the Islamic Arts Society and the festival via the organization’s website.
OTTAWA – Local man Pierre Poilievre, an employee at an Ottawa small business named the House of Commons, was surprised that none of the colleagues who despise him were willing to support him with his proposal for q4 strategies. “I didn’t even listen to his ‘carbon tax election’ plan if I’m being honest,” said one […]
WASHINGTON—Troubled by the potential political fallout from the North Carolina gubernatorial candidate’s scandal, the American Black Nazi Party was reportedly worried Friday that Mark Robinson could hurt its other candidates down the ballot. “Mark Robinson does not represent the African American Third Reich,” said American Black Nazi Party chairwoman Sandra Higgins, who warned that by refusing to exit the race, Robinson was endangering the campaigns of thousands of American Black Nazi Party candidates in races ranging from county commissioner to U.S. Senate. “There are so many tight races between American Black Nazi and Democratic candidates right now. We’ve made significant inroads with racist Black voters for years, and now, I fear, we could lose them all. It’s a shame his pornography use is undercutting the very insightful comments he has made about Martin Luther King Jr.” At press time, Higgins warned that the American Black Nazi Party could even lose the House of Representatives.
RALEIGH, NC—In the wake of an explosive report that revealed several controversial posts the lieutenant governor had made years ago on a pornographic website, North Carolina voters across the state told reporters Friday that they had abandoned Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson for Nude Africa user FootPapa12. “Although we were previously excited to vote for Mark Robinson, we now see that foot fetishist and self-proclaimed ‘toe king’ FootPapa12 is the best option to lead our great state,” said North Carolina resident Jason Palmer, adding that while they had lost trust in Robinson after his concerning comments about slavery and being a black Nazi, the anonymous podophile’s views on foot jobs, pedicures, and face-trampling better represented their values. “Frankly, after doing some research, I liked what ‘FootPapa12′ said about putting middle-class voters’ feet in his mouth. We deserve a candidate who will fight for all of us to climax, whether that involves pantyhose, rubbing our feet in oil, or someone watching us wiggle our toes as we dip them into various foods. The choice is clear.” At press time, former President Donald Trump had thrown his support behind FootPapa12, claiming the anonymous user was “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
FARMINGTON HILLS, MI—Discussing the Second Amendment with Oprah Winfrey at a Michigan town hall last night, Vice President Kamala Harris admitted she may have gotten too comfortable when she remarked that any home intruders, burglars, litterbugs, or slow walkers near her house could expect to be shot. “If somebody breaks into my house, knocks on my door to sell me something, or leaves their dog’s waste on my lawn, they’re getting shot,” the Democratic presidential nominee said in an attempt to bridge the gap with conservative gun owners in the swing state, drawing applause as she pantomimed looking through a rifle scope at the audience and then mimicked the sound of gunfire. “If you trespass onto my property or take my plate away from the table before I’m finished eating, I’m going to take you out, as is my right as an American citizen. Let this serve as a warning to anyone who steals my mail, runs down the airplane aisle to deboard before it’s their turn, or talks too loudly in a movie theater—these things upset me, and I’m not afraid to defend myself accordingly. Also goes for drivers who don’t signal, heavy mouth-breathers, or if I just don’t like your face. Boom.” Later in the interview, Harris drew a gun from inside her jacket and fired a warning shot into the air after someone in the audience answered a call on speakerphone.
YouTuber MrBeast is accused of creating unsafe employment conditions, including sexual harassment and misrepresenting contestants’ odds at winning his new Amazon reality show’s $5 million grand prize, in a lawsuit filed by five unnamed participants. What do you think?
“No work environment should force people to interact with MrBeast.”
Eileen Logue, Threat Processor
“To produce any great art, there must be sacrifice.”
Roy Hartnett, Profanity Monitor
“Yeah, well, how many subscribers do the accusers have?”
We are likely to see development in the Caribbean or near the Yucatan next week.
Model guidance suggests that there are a few possible outcomes, including a quicker, stronger storm that tracks north or northeast or a slower, weaker outcome closer to the Yucatan.
Folks on the Gulf Coast, particularly between New Orleans and Florida should be flexible with their preparedness plans and be ready to implement them if necessary early next week.
We are still a few days from Caribbean development
I feel like we’ve been talking about this potential development in the Caribbean for days now. That’s one element of hurricane season that has gotten worse in recent years: The availability and democratization of weather data has kept any and every potential disturbance in the conversation for a week or two before they even form, then for a week or two as they do their thing. In some cases, you can be talking about one system from pre-inception to finish for a month! But the availability of all this information has made our job more important to help y’all make sense of what it’s saying.
The probability of Caribbean development remained at 40 percent this morning. We’ll see if the afternoon update in a bit increases those odds. (NOAA NHC)
Yesterday’s post has aged pretty well, thankfully. Frankly, not a whole lot has changed. But I think there’s a clear dichotomy taking shape now between the European modeling and the GFS modeling Yesterday, I noted how the Euro was apt to consolidate the disturbance next week near or over the Yucatan, whereas the GFS did so mostly in the Caribbean. Those models have not changed their view on this today. Trends over the last couple days have led to the European AI modeling, the AIFS to trend a little closer to the GFS solution of stronger, faster, more north and east. The ICON model is also taking that stand, so there is some slowly building support for the GFS here, I think.
The last 5 AIFS runs showing an erratic but general trend toward the more eastern outcomes for late next week. (Tropical Tidbits)
That said, if we look at ensemble guidance, there continues to be a gigantic split among the 30 to 50 ensemble members in both the GFS and European suite. The Euro seems to be split about 80/20 favoring the western/weaker outcome, whereas the GFS is more of a 40/60 blend favoring stronger and more east/north leaning outcomes.
Latest 12z GFS Ensemble outlook shows about a 60/40 or 70/30 type split in outcomes favoring a stronger, more east and north type track over a system that stays stuck near the Yucatan. (StormVista)
It may have even gotten more confident in that eastward lean in today’s 12z model guidance as seen above. The one big, big takeaway from both of these examples showing the AIFS and GFS Ensemble members is that there is still *very* little agreement on track, just many generalizations that can be inferred from this output.
I continue to think this sort of scenario favors either a Mexico or Yucatan impact or a Florida through New Orleans type impact on the northern Gulf Coast. I remain convinced that Texas is *not* the most likely outcome here, but I would continue advising Texans to monitor things heading into next week.
There are also gigantic timing differences here. The storms that come north and northeast tend to do so quickly, with impacts possible as early as next Thursday. So for folks in Louisiana through Florida, you would need to be ready to act as soon as Monday if this looks like a building threat. For Texas and Mexico, if the western outcome happens, this would likely remain a middling system for several days before organizing later next week and coming north next weekend. This would deliver impacts to the central Gulf Coast by next Sunday or so. That’s a large spread of timing options, so folks on the Gulf Coast should be flexible with their preparedness and be ready to act early next week once things become clearer.
We will have daily posts this weekend to keep you all informed.
Elsewhere in your tropical Atlantic!
Invest 96L has developed in the open Atlantic, and between it and the remnants of Gordon, we could maybe see something try to form over the next few days. Neither system is likely to impact land.
More interestingly, we have potential for a Cabo Verde system to develop later next week. The European ensemble has been quite bullish on this. There is plentiful support for this from other modeling as well. Expect this potential to show up around midweek next week.
The Euro ensemble, as well as other models show a growing likelihood of development later next week off Africa. (Weathernerds.org)
Now, is this system likely to be a land threat? It’s too early to say definitively, but the current thinking is that this would probably end up moving out to sea ultimately. Plenty of time to watch. No other threats are seen closer to home right now after next week’s Caribbean/Gulf story.
It couldn’t have been more fitting and uplifting than having three stellar bands roll through my last weekend out in Magdalena, New Mexico. Echoing the three solo shows by Sarita Johnson, Estelle Roberge, and Hills Snyder at Warehouse 1-10 the gallery hosted a set of concerts organized by kind of a small array. The evening got off to a banger start with Sunjammer playing until sunset, followed by a funny, moving, heady rendezvous with Buttercup. GARRETT T. CAPPS with NASA COUNTRY brought the cosmic twang home and closed out the night, sending us off stargazing for more. Having lived a small lifetime ago in San Antonio, it was an excellent reminder of the city’s great music, and a lively opportunity to catch up to evolving trajectories. Really good music takes you places; mixed with Buttercup banter it’s a reassuring trip. Forming a preamble of sorts to their new song, “Zero Control,” Erik Sanden’s honest, vigilant words mingle and muse with the audience:
“Everything that’s happened to me — all the wonderful things and most of the hard things — it turns out had nothing to do with my efforts. And that somehow letting go of ‘efforting’ and trying to bend things to my will is liberation.”
The song was written in an individual and collective “I” about “efforting,” and in and with grief and loss. What to do with the untenable. It’s a rhetorical question that elicits as much silence as volume. Control and/or lack thereof is part of that existential circle jerk one may or may not entertain from time to time. It’s an age-old topic in philosophy often under the tutelage of (or in relation to) “free will” or lack thereof.
A work by Hills Snyder
What can we control? Do I want that control? Is control just hubris with a dash of conceit, or a side of fear? Perhaps for Sanden, it takes some concerted effort to create the kind of music that continues to sing long after the show’s over. So it’s that “effortless” effort that corrals rather than controls, that bends with rather than forces a way through. This is the path that the artist Hills Snyder has been drawing, and literally cutting, upon arriving in Magdalena. Once a neighboring dirt road was gated, it blocked an access point along the otherwise privately landlocked public land trail that hikes up Magdalena Peak. Entering a natural clearing nearby, Snyder began cutting a new trail following the contours of the land, mindful of its geological and biological inhabitants. This is the similar path in his drawing series Magdalena (2022-23), which follows in the footsteps of his exploratory drawing series Altered States (2016–ongoing) and Your Nowhere is My Somewhere. See You There (2017).
The drawings are based on snapshots taken in and around Magdalena, the village where Snyder and his wife took their time moving to from 2017 to 2019. Purposefully utilizing only thumbnails to choose from because that is the scale in which the content’s energy jumps out, Snyder then looks at the full-scale image a while before setting to mark. The aim isn’t to render and it’s not aimless; it is, as the artist refers to it, a “call and response” with each move or line or mark responding to the other(s) there and not there, including the empty space of the paper. Here, effort and control could be conjured like call and response, neither forcing a will rather allowing it to happen, mindful of when to stop.
The constraints are like the contours of the land posing an array of possibilities: is it best to skirt around the rock formation or accept the natural step or two it affords to the next plateau? Where Snyder ends up and what you end up seeing can be as surprising as discoveries on the trail — a petrified curvilinear stick takes on the shape of a snake or is it a leather strap having lost its stirrup? Sometimes all it takes is a gesture, a stray line alongside a pointed one, or just enough multi-hued shading as in Hop Canyon Workshop (2023) that suggests a particular place and direction fantastically unidentifiable. Hints of Prismacolor take certain moves, pink overtakes orange in line around the corner from the blue line curve in El Farolito (2022) contouring a sci-fi pictogram. They are playful and poetic. Sierra Propane (2023) renders this inference transference most acutely. It’s levitating, but also rushing toward the upper right edge, and still — caught within a perpendicular, intangible simultaneity. In this energetic stasis, ghost lines appear in traces and erasures. An indecipherable prism apparatus anchors the piece with arms adrift, maybe it’s loosely in control or dancing. The artist affirms and suggests that his “drawings are not meant to reveal anything about the base locations except maybe as a quantum fantasy. Quantum because it can’t be seen, fantasy because I’m pretending it can.”
I have zero control I, I, I, I have zero control
Sarita Johnson had a vision: a donkey. There in her wife’s hospital room stood a donkey as though it were keeping a watchful eye — a surefooted guardian, a patient, calming figure of support. For her wife Susan Alexander, and for herself, The Equus asinus was the reassuring presence Johnson needed to draw from and draw out. Countless hours in such rooms filled five drawing books; countless hours of final drawing, color work, and learning Photoshop filled the pages of the first chapter of The Donkey in Albany (2019).
Sarita Johnson, a page from “The Donkey in Albany”
Chapter one begins in Magdalena, where Johnson and Alexander were visiting for a future place to retire. The story starts off in a full-page rainstorm with a gray van heading down a muddy brown streaming road, green booted kids playing in the pooling waters. On the next page, behind the wheel in a deep red shirt, we learn from Johnson that they are racing back home due to Alexander’s severe and mysterious symptoms. Interspersed with the outlines, color blocks and text bubbles, a sepia toned landscape view of the high desert places us along the way as they descend towards California. There, via a series of mini flashbacks, we meet Johnson’s doting daughter, witness intimacy and vulnerability, and watch Alexander’s pending cancer diagnosis frame-by-frame. That was fourteen years ago. She passed away thirteen and a half years later.
Donkeys, a highly intelligent species, are also known for their excellent memories. It happens to be another characteristic essential to Johnson’s work as she often draws from memory together with photographs which act as placeholders. Whether she draws on paper or tablet, each “image cell” she renders is like a memory frame, winding and unwinding a story. The art of the age-old form of pictographic storytelling relies on an economy of means and an expertise in utilizing those means. Johnson masters the slightest of gestures, highlighting or exaggerating an expression, playing with color and pattern, and objects, like the knives and flames piercing down Alexander’s back yield “excruciating!” A former public-school teacher, Johnson has been drawing and coloring since she was a kid. Growing up in rural Kentucky, comic books were portals to other worlds yielding an endless supply of inspiration and respite. It is natural then that the artist would draw solace and joy from the pages of her sketchbooks, in the art of drawing a way through the untenable.
Drowning in her vigil I can hang around I’m told I can take it
At a time when the precarity of existence was resolutely palpable on a daily basis the world over, Estelle Roberge looked to bird sanctuaries to find sanctuary amidst the tragedy of the Covid-19 pandemic. She migrated toward the Sandhill crane in particular whose gatherings at the nature preserve were a needed flight from isolation. Encumbered by the omnipotence of permanence and impermanence, the artist engrossed herself in studies — reading about birds, cranes, and all about the Sandhill cranes. She also looked to the poetic philosophy of Gaston Bachelard and his Poetics of Space. Together they created an atmosphere, a palette, a space, where Roberge could set to work and almost literally spread her wings.
Estelle Roberge, a spread from “The Book of Cranes”
The Book of Cranes (2022) eventually emerged. An artist’s book of collage, it is drawn through cutting and placing, “cutting and recutting, measuring, tracing, drawing, coloring and pushing various colored and patterned papers on a surface.” Working with reams of gorgeous handmade papers, Roberge draws crane populated worlds in patterned forms, colored shapes, and textured grounds. The book, which is also editioned as individual collage and giclée prints, is like a vast forest of cranes within rich, textured, worlds that appear faintly recognizable and unimaginably fantastical. Some lean towards the abstract, where colored and patterned forms and grounds seem to merge across a textured field. The artist’s compositional acumen and deft attention to detail come together to create a poetic sanctuary of Robergian cranes.
At the end of her artist’s talk, Roberge shared that we “have to notice what goes unnoticed.” It sounds almost like an artists’ adage, and in all three shows, the artists have in their singular ways drawn on this. In seeing or finding or being open to other ways of drawing or being drawn through. Billed as a set of solo exhibitions, Warehouse 1-10 presents these three diverse takes on drawing by three distinct artists. In Sarita Johnson, Estelle Roberge, and Hills Snyder, gallery director and curator Catherine DeMaria has found community and kinship in natural fault lines. Echoing what San Antonio artist Chris Sauter has said of Buttercup’s music which can be applied to all the aforementioned artists and musicians––life affirming.
Submission is a form of loss Sha sha sha Submission is not giving up the ghost
Three Solo Shows: Sarita Johnson | Estelle Roberge | Hills Snyder was on view at Warehouse 1-10 in Magdalena, New Mexico and online at warehouse110.com.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…
1. Trainer had religious messages on his presentation screen
I attended a multi-day training a few months back where the trainer who was running the presentations had extreme religious images/quotes as his laptop background, so every time they were between presentations, the image was projected on the screens at the front of the classroom. If the images/quotes had been of the “love thy neighbor” type, I probably would’ve clocked it as not the most appropriate in a professional environment but also pretty harmless. The message was not this. It was “the wages of sin is death,” we’re all sinners who will burn in hell if not for Jesus type of quotes, arranged in the shape of a large cross. It was … extremely unsettling.
I’m guessing someone said something about it, because about halfway through the training he switched his background to a generic Microsoft background. I had wanted to say something, but was unsure how to approach it since religion is such an individual and personal thing, and it felt weird as an attendee to ask the trainer to change his screen. How would one go about asking someone who is in a position of authority at least if not power to make such a change?
To make the question more interesting, I’m interviewing for a senior leader position next month, and that position supervises that particular trainer. If I were this person’s supervisor and saw that kind of religious message on his computer, how would I address it? If it’s just on his computer background and wasn’t projected to an audience, do you say nothing? If it were a less violent message, would it be okay if it were projected to an audience? Would a blanket “don’t have a religious background when projecting to an audience at work” rule be legally appropriate? I know general expression of one’s religion in the workplace is protected and I would never want to single someone out for their religious beliefs, but this feels different.
Wow, yeah, that’s wildly inappropriate. You weren’t there for religious proselytizing; you were there for a work training.
You were absolutely entitled as a training participant to speak up and ask him to change it. One way to do it would be to talk to him privately on a break and say, “I don’t know if you realize your screen background has religious quotes, but I’d appreciate if you’d change it to something neutral since we’re here for a work training.” On the other hand, you’d also be on solid ground in speaking up during the class itself and saying, “I find that background really distracting and off-topic. Could it be changed?” (Personally I’d do that one because I think there’s value in other people seeing pushback on this stuff, and I also wouldn’t want to sit here with it for hours before an opportunity to talk to him privately, but I’m also less shy about making a scene over this sort of BS than many people are.)
As his manager, it would be 100% okay to require that all your trainers use neutral presentation backgrounds with no personal messages on them (this would cover not just religion, but sports, politics, marijuana leaves, and on and on).
2. Should I report my son’s friend’s dad for sharing confidential student data?
I teach history an elite prep school (something akin to Chilton for you Gilmore Girls fans out there). Thanks to tuition discounts that faculty receive, my son “Jack” is able to attend and is in the fifth grade. The school does standardized testing twice a year. During the most recent round of testing, Jack was sick and did not perform his best. My husband and I chose not to show him his test scores because he’s a perfectionist and we knew it didn’t reflect what he is capable of. Recently, I overheard his best friend, “Milo,” teasing him because Milo had outscored him on the test. He knew Jack’s scores in specific categories and was able to compare them to his own.
Given that Jack had no idea what his score was, Milo had to get the information somewhere else. I strongly suspect Milo learned the scores from his father, who works for the school in IT. His father has the ability to access grades and test scores that others can’t.
Here’s my dilemma — do I report my suspicions? On the one hand, Milo’s father is potentially sharing confidential information with students, which is a fireable offense. On the other hand, if Milo’s father loses his job, there’s no way their family can afford to continue to send Milo to our school. We’ve discussed our financial circumstances before, and the fact that our children can only attend due to our employment with the school. I don’t want Milo to suffer for his father’s mistake. I also have no proof, just my suspicions.
I think you should report it. Disclosing confidential student data is a really big deal, and if Milo’s father was truly oblivious enough to that that he’d disclose Jack’s data to Jack’s best friend (what did he think was going to happen?!), there’s a problem that needs to be addressed.
That said, you don’t actually know this came from Milo’s father. You only know that somehow Jack’s confidential data found its way to a schoolmate. Report that part of it, not the part you can’t prove. The school knows who Milo’s dad is, and if that is indeed what happened, they’re highly likely to be able to put it together themselves. But for all we know, it leaked out some other way — so just stick to the pieces you know for sure.
3. Why won’t people include my middle name?
My name is Alexandra Jane Smith, and I’m very attached to it in full. My first name is Alexandra, and that is what I introduce myself as, but I hate it when things are addressed to Alexandra Smith, or my name badge misses out Jane. I know this is a small thing, but it’s my name! It’s particularly frustrating when I get official or important documents without my middle name.
Any suggestions on how to approach this, or just accept my fate as Alexandra (Jane) Smith?
Yeah, if you introduce yourself as Alexandra and you go by Alexandra, you’re going to get addressed as Alexandra (or Alexandra Smith) and Alexandra (or Alexandra Smith) will be on your name badge … since most people don’t use their middle names except on extremely formal legal documents (and often not even then).
You can certainly try to head it off beforehand by letting people know, “I prefer my full name, Alexandra Jane Smith, on documents/name badges.” That will work some of the time, but it won’t work all the time.
Even if you went by Alexandra Jane, you’d still be fighting an uphill battle — ask all the Mary Janes who find Mary on their name tags, or all the people with hyphenated last names who find only half of their last name printed.
It’s perfectly fine to have the preference! But you’ll be happier if you accept that, realistically, your preferences are different from the naming conventions people are used to.
4. Can I put relevant jobs first on my resume?
I did some health counseling work decades ago, and started again during the pandemic for a major hospital system. In between I did a variety of things totally outside the health-related field. As I try to get back into health-related jobs, can I list my work experience by relevant experiences first, and then fill in the rest underneath? Like so:
RELEVANT WORK EXPERIENCE:
2020-2023 – relevant health-related job
1997-2004 – relevant health related job
1992-1997 – relevant health related job
2004-2020 – list other non-health-related jobs here
Would that seem weird on a resume? I’m concerned that a quick glance won’t show me off in the best light if I list the jobs chronologically.
It’s completely normal to separate out relevant experience and list it first, when some of your recent work history is really unrelated to what you’re applying for now. You just need an additional heading in the other for the less relevant jobs, like this:
RELEVANT EXPERIENCE:
2020-2023 – relevant health-related job
1997-2004 – relevant health related job
1992-1997 – relevant health related job
OTHER EXPERIENCE:
2004-2020 – list other non-health-related jobs here
Also, you don’t need to go back 20 years. Feel free to stop at 12-15, depending on what produces the strongest resume. (It’s also okay to go back further for the relevant jobs while only including the more recent non-relevant ones.)
AFTON, WI—Remarking on the hay-stuffed decoy’s surprisingly shapely form, passersby reported Friday that a scarecrow in a local cornfield boasted double-D breasts. “Damn, she’s got hay in all the right places, don’t she?” area man Jim Bickford said to a group of visibly dumbstruck bystanders who either leered and catcalled or stood with jaws agape as they contemplated the ample, overstuffed bust straining against the straw mannequin’s faded, stretched-out blouse. “Them buttons is fixin’ to pop right off! Man, I wouldn’t mind getting my hands around those knotted nests of brittle sticks and hay. Her burlap face ain’t too bad, either.” At press time there were multiple injuries reported among local men who scratched their faces on stray twigs and straw while attempting to motorboat the scarecrow.
LAKE OF FIRE, HELL—Complaining that it was almost impossible to get any torturing done with the constant interruption, hellspawn were reportedly annoyed Friday by the sound of earth’s residents stomping around overhead. “It’s just unbelievably frustrating to be flaying the skin of a glutton or sodomite and not even be able to hear their screams over the loud clomp-clomp-clomp coming from the plane of existence above us,” said demon Asmodeus, picking up a broom and hitting it repeatedly against the ceiling of hell in an effort to alert humanity to how noisy it was being. “They’re listening to music at all hours, getting into huge fights, and just constantly walking back and forth across the planet. I swear, last year around the holidays the walls started shaking so hard from all the noise that an entire basket of red-hot pokers fell off a shelf and shattered on the floor. I’ve tried calling God about it, but He just gives me the usual runaround—He knows we’re not going to move out, so He doesn’t give a shit.” At press time, Asmodeus was heard cursing after seepage from a burst pipe on earth had caused water damage to spread throughout Hell.
ÖLAND, SWEDEN—Assuring her children that she really meant it this time, Mother Earth reportedly insisted Friday that she didn’t want any pagan sacrifices this autumn equinox. “I know you think this is just me being self-effacing, but I genuinely don’t want you to make a big thing of slitting the throat of a fatted calf next to one of my knotted oak trees,” said humanity’s ancestral mother, who stressed that she appreciated all the blood sacrifices her spiritual offspring had given her in the past to commemorate the turning of seasons and the autumn harvest. “Obviously, I’ve loved everything you’ve slaughtered for me over the years. But I don’t want to draw attention to myself. Right now, the only thing I want is to see all my children together frolicking amongst the flames of the bonfires. Heck, smear some of that virgin blood on yourself for once.” At press time, Mother Earth was said to be sulking after humanity took her at her word and didn’t even throw a single newborn child off a cliff for her.
Sean “Diddy” Combs faces federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges in a newly unsealed indictment that claims he hit and abused women for over a decade while presiding over a sordid empire of sexual crimes. What do you think?
“If only there were any warning songs.”
Andrew Ponce, Unemployed
“I think he goes by ‘Defendant’ now.”
Tyler Damron, Leaflet Folder
“It’s always the ones with a history of abusing women that you least suspect.”
In brief: After enduring one of the longest, strongest late season heat waves on record in Houston, we will begin to slowly reduce heat after today and tomorrow. Look for slightly “less hot” weather next week and an opportunity at a weak cool front. We’re also watching the tropics but are not currently too worried about what develops near the Yucatan as it pertains to Houston.
We hit 98 degrees yesterday officially in Houston, our seventh straight day above 95 degrees that began on September 13th. In the history of Houston’s weather records back to the 1880s, a one week stretch above 95 degrees has not ever occurred after September 13th. We had a couple five day stretches back in 2011 and late last September but never a week. If you’re like me and hate September because it only teases and never delivers autumn in any lengthy fashion, then this stretch of weather inspires much loathing. It’s just that it hasn’t been this hot for this long this late in the season before in Houston. We may make a run at an eighth straight day of this today, but the good news is that change is on the horizon.
Today through Sunday
Today and tomorrow should be similar in nature, with highs generally in the mid-90s, give or take, with limited rain chances. We will probably get the same out of Sunday, though it may be a degree or two cooler. It should still be above 90 though. Morning lows should be stable, generally in the mid-70s. If you’re out for a morning walk, it’ll really depend on exactly when you step outside. Either way, it will be quite humid.
Wet bulb globe temperatures are not far from “extreme” heat levels today, but there will be a slow, steady march back to moderate or even just “elevated” levels into next week. (Weather Bell)
Next week
I get the sense that next week is the week we really start to transition to autumn. It won’t be cool and refreshing by any means, but we will see high temperatures shave off a degree or two each day. We’ll start the week on Monday likely in the low-90s and finish the week in the upper-80s. Morning lows will go from the mid-70s Monday to the low-70s by Friday.
Forecast weather map for next Wednesday morning shows a weak cool front pushing through the area. (NOAA WPC)
The Weather Prediction Center’s forecast map for next Wednesday does show a cold front pushing into our area. This won’t be a sudden ultra-refreshing change, but I think this will reinforce this idea of a slow drift back toward “less hot” weather next week. With high humidity early in the week and an approaching front there will be a slight chance of showers each day, especially south and east of Houston. But meaningful rain seems unlikely next week.
Tropics
Odds of tropical development are steady (around 40%) next week in the southwest Gulf or northwest Caribbean. (NOAA NHC)
Yesterday evening I pushed a post out at our companion site, The Eyewall to discuss the latest on the Caribbean disturbance we expect to try to develop next week. In the post, I included a section about Texas and why I don’t believe this one is our storm. Meteorologically, the setup is such that whatever it becomes should move very slowly in the southern Gulf or near the Yucatan for several days before eventually getting scooped up by a trough in the Eastern U.S. and whisked off to the northeast. Overnight modeling did nothing to dispel that thinking on my end, so I’ll refer you to the post yesterday to get a better understanding of why we’re not currently too worried. That said, we’ll keep monitoring things this weekend and have the latest for you on Monday, assuming this remains likely to stay away. We will also update The Eyewall this weekend with more. For those of you with travel plans next weekend in that region, you’ll want to keep tuned in.
If you track the motion of individual stars in the ultra-dense star cluster at the very center of the Milky Way you’ll see that they swing in sharp orbits around some vast but invisible mass—that’s the Sagittarius A* supermassive black hole. These are perilous orbits, and sometimes a star wanders just a little too close to that lurking monster, leading to its utter destruction in the spectacular phenomenon known as a tidal disruption event. We’ve never seen a TDE in the Milky Way, but we’ve seen them in distant galaxies—and we now know how to spot stellar destructions so extreme that they reveal properties of the black hole itself.
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Model support for development in the Caribbean or near the Yucatan is increasing next week with development likely to begin after this weekend.
Models continue to disagree significantly on track outcomes and intensity outcomes, not to mention timing outcomes with weak solutions, strong solutions, late week solutions and next week solutions all on the table.
We explain below why Texas is not currently favored but should still at least keep tabs on things.
No other significant tropical concerns exist beyond this feature.
Honing in on Caribbean possibilities
Apologies for the late post today. As many of you are well aware, Eric and I both have day jobs which occasionally do have to take priority! The good news is that not a whole lot changed between late morning or afternoon and this evening, which is to be expected when a storm is about a week or more out.
Yesterday, I noted how modeling did not exactly seem helpful at this point because there had been much bouncing around, little strong ensemble signal, and no one model being more consistent than others. Today, let’s re-evaluate things and also take a look at the upper air pattern that may be in place around the time this system develops in the Caribbean. First, I also noted yesterday that the NHC tends to be conservative with development odds this early in the game, and the 20 percent was probably a little low in reality. Well, they’ve doubled those odds today, and we’re now at 40 percent.
NHC odds of development are up to 40 percent now over the next week with the Caribbean disturbance next week. (NOAA NHC)
The Hurricane Center has to do things fairly by the book, which is understandable. The biggest reason I think their odds are not higher is because we’re talking “over the next seven days.” If it were over the next 10 days, I might say this would be up and over 50 percent. Either way, we’re kind of getting way too in the weeds of nuance: The takeaway is that development odds are elevated and continue to increase.
We still don’t have a disturbance to latch onto. We tend to take this for granted sometimes. Weather models are literally sniffing out a disturbance that has not even formed yet and sending up caution signals that something will form, and they’ve been doing it for days. That’s pretty wild. Anyway, all we have is an area of disorganized thunderstorms in the eastern Pacific and near Panama.
Disorganized thunderstorms will likely persist for at least another 2 to 3 days before any sort of consolidated development attempts to begin. (Weathernerds.org)
Over the next few days, we’ll probably see this mass of thunderstorms wax and wane but generally persist in this area. It will gradually ooze northward into the weekend before any sort of attempt at consolidation occurs. When and where that happens is critically important for the future of this system. If those storms end up a bit west and more focused near the Yucatan, then development will struggle to occur. If that occurs a bit east, more into the very warm waters of the northwest Caribbean, then development and organization may begin to occur more rapidly next week.
The problem with these gyre-type systems is that modeling struggles in telling us where that consolidation will occur. For example, the 12z European model today takes the western track of things and basically buries this over the Yucatan or Bay of Campeche for a few days before eventually blowing it up over the western Gulf. The GFS on the other hand does this closer to the northwest Caribbean, which leads to a stronger storm quicker and a more eastward leaning track into Florida.
12z Euro and 18Z GFS operational model guidance presents a good example of the forecast risks with this system, as one keeps it weaker and to the west, while the other goes farther east faster. (Tropical Tidbits)
For those curious about such things, the ICON model leans toward the European model, while the ECMWF AI model, the AIFS is more apt to split the difference between the two possibilities. We can get a sense of timing with this now too. The faster GFS brings this across Florida next Thursday/Friday, while the Euro keeps this sitting in the western Gulf through at least next weekend. So not only do we have limited track confidence, we also have limited timing confidence.
Sidebar: If you are planning a trip to the Caribbean next week or weekend, I cannot tell you what to expect right now. You will need to monitor the forecast, stay in touch with your hotel or cruise line, and just be prepared for some disruption potentially. Everyone has unique circumstances and we just can’t get to every trip question.
Anyway, let’s take a quick look at the ensemble guidance from earlier today. The European ensemble shows nicely what I explained above. A bunch of the 51 ensemble members follow the operational Euro and keep this buried in the Bay of Campeche, while a minority are more GFS-like and go toward Florida or the eastern or central Gulf.
A bit of an ensemble “bifurcation” exists with a majority weaker/westward cluster and a minority stronger/northeastward cluster. (Weathernerds.org)
So, there remains significant spread in possibilities with this system and no one should ignore it on the Gulf Coast for now. But any land impact should not occur before next Thursday, outside of perhaps the Yucatan or Cuba.
Bottom line: Interests along the Gulf Coast should continue to monitor the progress of this system as it evolves over the next week.
The Texas angle on all this
With so many readers in Texas, I just want to jump in here and explain why I think we should continue to watch this storm — but should not lose sleep over it. The other aspect of this setup that will be critical to where it goes is how strong and deep troughing over the Eastern U.S. gets. A deeper trough means a stronger push of cooler air and a much easier scenario to “capture” the storm. The GFS shows this rather progressive pattern outcome. The Euro does too to some extent, but because the storm is weak and over the Yucatan it gets left behind and has to wait for the next one.
Caribbean system likely to get trapped between two areas of high pressure. The strength of an incoming trough, in addition to the position and strength of the system itself will help determine where it goes. (Tropical Tidbits)
You can see this on the Euro ensemble panel from day 10 above, next weekend. High pressure over west Texas and the Southwest will impart a north to south component to the steering currents, while high pressure to the east of the system will impart a south to north component. This effectively cancels out any real storm motion, and it will probably be at the whim of whatever comes through the Eastern U.S. or it has to wait for that pattern to change.
So if you live in Texas and you look at the Euro and the ICON model and see this thing inching west or northwest, it would be natural to start to panic. However, when you look at the bigger picture, the sense I have right now is that this is going to take a hard right turn before it would get to Texas. Of course, that’s not great news in Louisiana or the eastern Gulf through Florida. So, yes, we should continue to watch this for changes, but the upper pattern supports a slow movement until an upper level trough can grab this thing and whisk it northeast.
Bottom line: Keep watching in Texas but there’s some meteorological support to believe this isn’t our storm.
Elsewhere
The remnants of Gordon have a 30 percent chance to develop over the next week. Another disturbance to the east of there also does, but neither is a threat to land.
There is growing model support for an African wave to develop near the Cabo Verde Islands next weekend, but it too seems destined to go out to sea. Right now, almost all our attention is fixated on the Caribbean.
Texas House Bill 3 is a school safety bill that requires an armed security officer to be present at every district campus. Less than half of the school districts in Texas have been able to comply with the HB 3 requirement, according to the Texas Education Agency.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I’m attending a professional conference this week and it struck me that super long conference schedules are not something I’ve seen discussed on the blog.
Here is an example: The conference I am attending has optional workout events starting at 6:30 in the morning. Breakfast starts at 8 and runs until 9, and as I am tabling for my company at this conference, I am required to be there at 8 sharp (despite the required tabling hours ending at 7 pm last night). Today, tabling ends at 4 and the required sessions run until 5:30 pm. There is a cocktail hour from 6:30 to 7:30. Dinner is a banquet from 7:30 to 9 pm.
Even if I showed up at 8:30 am, the latest reasonable time for breakfast, and left ASAP after dinner, that is over 11 hours. I have a chronic illness that I choose not to disclose to my employer. As such, I hightailed it out of the conference center and back to my hotel at 5 pm to order some food (I am lucky to have a corporate card so I’m unaffected by missing the free dinner). My coworkers are complaining about the long days and I’m frankly not sure why they’re doing it except to save face with our EVP, who is in attendance. One colleague, who traveled internationally, mysteriously vanished midday and hasn’t been heard from since. I suspect they are unwell.
This schedule is frankly ableist and inconsiderate, yet extremely common for these kind of events, and I’m unapologetically choosing not to adhere to anything that is not explicitly required of me. They can’t force me to stay for cocktails and dinner. But I’m wondering if you have a good suggested script for people who simply cannot with these long days. Unfortunately, we do lose face/miss opportunities for not going to networking events at all hours of the evening, and I’m okay with that, but I need a good way to justify it to others.
Amen, sister. Those days are really long, and also really common.
Event organizers generally try to pack as much as they can into the few days of an event, but they usually assume that people won’t necessarily attend everything and instead will pick and choose what interests them. But then you get employers who expect employees to stay for everything, and who see ducking out as early as shirking their responsibilities in some way so you not only have to spend a full day networking and attending presentations, but you also need to get in face time in the evening to bond with your team and do more networking. Some people are fine with this and even thrive on it. But for a lot of people, it’s exhausting and too much.
Some ways to explain why you won’t be at everything:
* “I get run down if I don’t get a break somewhere in here, and I want to be fully engaged at tomorrow’s sessions on X and Y.”
* “I want to be at my best in the morning, which won’t happen if I don’t get some rest tonight.”
* “Health-wise, I can’t do days this long.”
* “Energy-wise, I can’t do days this long.”
* “I can’t do days this long with no break without getting sick by the end of it.”
* “I have some things I need to take care of but I’ll see you in the morning.”
* “Enjoy it and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Israel blew up thousands of two-way personal radios used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon, the second wave of an intelligence operation that started with the explosions of pager devices the day before. What do you think?
“Israel can’t risk survivors being radicalized by Israel’s actions.”
Marcos Pantoja, Necktie Steamer
“We can’t negotiate with innocent bystanders.”
Shari Kurz, Rhetoric Analyst
“I don’t see why every device has to have so many different functions these days.”
The Golden Bachelorette, the latest spin-off from The Bachelor franchise, premiered Wednesday night on ABC. Here is everything you need to know about the reality dating series.
Q: Why is it called The Golden Bachelorette?
A: It tested better with audiences than The Bachelorette Who Will Likely Die in the Not Too Distant Future.
Q: Who is the Golden Bachelorette?
A: Joan Vassos competed in TheGolden Bachelor but was benched due to an ACL injury. She returns to the franchise after a strong season competing in Junior College Bachelor.
Q: How old is she?
A: Vassos is 61 years old, or 304 in television years.
Q: Why is she trying to replace dad?
A: She’s not, there is no replacement for your father, but she deserves a chance to be with someone and find happiness again, okay?
Q: How is the show breaking stereotypes about aging?
A: The show will serve as proof that you can find social media fame at any stage of life.
Q: What do the contestants hope to get out of this?
A: They’re hoping one of the PAs can help unlock their iPhone.
Q: Will she find love?
A: If you’re genuinely asking that, the entire ABC comms team deserves a raise.
I work in a regional office of a global company. Every year, global HR sends out a staff survey, and I noticed that the leadership likes to pick one little complaint that popped up in the survey and address it and make a big celebration about the improvement. So every year when the annual survey comes out, I round up as many staff members as I can and we agree on the one thing we are going to complain about, so it can’t be ignored.
One year we all complained about the terrible health insurance, so the leadership started offering a better health insurance option. The next year, we complained about paltry salary raises that don’t even match typical cost-of-living increases, and the leadership gave us all better raises. Most recently, we all complained about the lack of paid parental leave, and the leadership came up with a parental leave package that we were all pretty happy with.
If the leadership has noticed that the complaints are remarkably similar between different staff members, they haven’t pointed it out.
2. The Christmas gift exchange revolt
Christmas/holiday gift exchange revolt! Our fearless leader loved Christmas (small group, everyone celebrated Christmas) and the culture in the office had been for everyone to get everyone (eight people) a small gift, exchange as a group, everyone watch everyone open, etc.
Two years ago, six of us banded together privately to work out that Person 1 would ask for the Christmas plans during the October meeting, #2 would suggest drawing names, #3 and #4 would chime in that they love that idea, #5 would suggest how to do it, #1, 2, 3 & 4 would all back that idea, and #6 would be like, “Great! Are we all good with that?”
Fearless Leader tried to protest but #1-6 kind of steamrolled the conversation. It was fantastic and a well coordinated attack!
3. The bad manager
My department got a new manager, and she was awful. She made five people cry within her first four months. She joked about having to regularly apologize to other managers around the building. She was accusatory, she openly mistrusted her staff, and she was badly mismanaging some of our most successful projects.
Two assistants left because they didn’t get paid enough to deal with her. We encouraged them to be honest in their exit interviews, but both were early-career and really didn’t want to burn any bridges. A few of the veteran staffers went to HR individually, but they didn’t seem to get very far. Mostly, HR insisted that any displeasure with the new manager was just because the old manager was so well-liked and respected.
Finally, our staff started banding together. We talked out exactly what we wanted to say to upper management, we went to HR in groups of two where it made sense, and we all followed through on requesting meetings with HR right after any incidents with the manager. One person left during this time, and she was very honest and direct in her exit interview.
Eventually, management started observing our manager more closely, and surprise surprise, they didn’t like what they saw. She was given the option to leave voluntarily, or be fired. She left without saying a single word to any of the staff she’d managed for well over a year.
I think this worked because the department was very organized, high functioning, professional, and friendly before the issue. We all really, genuinely enjoyed working together, we trusted each other, and we were willing to organize to heal our department. For upper management’s part, while I think they fumbled and missed the early warning signs, they handled the aftermath particularly well. They individually met with each staff member afterward, apologized for allowing the situation to go on for too long, and laid out how they were going to ensure a good pick with the next hire. The culture rebounded better than I would have expected.
4. The professors
I work for a college. Our health insurance costs recently went up by 50%, while also offering less coverage. The president tried to announce this as “austerity measures, but it’s not that bad, and we all have to chip in” and then brush past it.
The math professor raised his hand to give the exact dollar figure that the increase would represent for anyone with a kid. Then the accounting professor raised her hand to point out that we met our budget this year. Then the sociology professor raised his hand to mention that health insurance costs had recently decreased in our area. Then the anthropology professor raised his hand to ask how this fit with the school’s stated mission to support working parents. Then the media studies professor emailed the entire room a link to price comparison across different health insurance providers. Then, then, then.
The 20-minute meeting let out 90 minutes later. It’s been six weeks, and the president just emailed all faculty to announce we were changing health insurance providers and to expect a 75% reduction in monthly costs. Sometimes I love PhDilibusters.
5. The new hires
Almost a year ago, I started at my current job, fully remote, great on paper. I got a few minor flags during the interviews with the CEO and project manager but I let it go. I had an orientation type thing with two other new hires for different departments and for a marketing firm I was shocked at how over-complicated their processes were. I could tell the other new-hires were just as confused as I was. The project management software, which I’d been using for years, was an overcomplicated mess and I have no idea how anyone got their work done.
Within a week, I was blown away by how horribly the staff spoke each other, how accusatory and mean they all were, and also overworked since the procedures were needlessly complicated. I got the inkling that the project manager fostered a lot of this and was one of those people who created a complicated system so they had an actual job to do, that job being making a mess and then fixing it themselves.
The culture was awful. As a former onboarding trainer myself, I’d never speak to a new employee or trainee the way I was spoken to by management or my coworkers. For example, I had to mute myself as there was construction going on outside my window, my coworker yelled at me for muting myself and said I wasn’t paying attention. I unmuted myself and then they yelled at me for the noise and not taking work seriously. They had a policy that all work calls were recorded, so I recorded it and kept it, along with MANY others like it. It was one of the most toxic environments I’d ever started in.
The other new-hires and I met in on a personal Zoom call after hours and decided to talk to the CEO. We collected screen shots and video calls from our first ten days and asked to meet with the VP and CEO. They were appalled, especially with how department heads, the project manager, and especially HR spoke to us. That was a Friday on a holiday weekend. The next workday the CEO, VP, and two other silent partners had a staff call where they apologized for not being as present as they should be but also said the attitude and tone of the company has to change. It helped that me and another new hire who are experts they desperately needed were both were willing to leave with nothing else lined up.
Magically, the project board got organized and intuitive, people started saying please and thank you, and we don’t record every thought and idea we have as a gotcha. We have a new HR person. We’ve had four new hires since and their onboarding is smooth, organized, and most importantly, welcoming.
6. The training
I was a teacher. New admin decided to schedule mandatory “teacher training” for a week late in the summer but before the school year started. This was to be a week long off-site that required most people to stay in college dorms and eat cafeteria food so we could attend useless lectures – and now it was going to be smack during our precious summer vacation.
Folks pushed back HARD. So the admin said if folks had proof of travel plans that conflicted with that time, they’d be excused. Everyone went and bought $13 bus tickets to a town just across the border that … isn’t exactly a vacation destination, hence the tickets being $13. But we all had the tickets for the dates of the training, so everyone was excused. They canceled the training. (None of us actually took the bus trip. $13 was worth it to get out of that nonsense.)
7. The pay equality
At every single place I’ve worked, people have asked for pay transparency and leadership has always declined. Well, one day I was in a meeting with everyone who had the same title as me, and someone asked if we would all feel comfortable sharing our salaries with each other. An anonymous poll revealed that everyone was fine with it. So we all around, round robin style, and shared our salaries with each other.
It is the first and last time anything in my life has happened like that. It also revealed that women were grossly underpaid, and we took that to leadership. The women in the team were given hefty market adjustments that brought their compensation on the same level of the men, along with apologies and some flimsy excuse about for why it happened.
Had just one woman gone to leadership and asked if they were paid fairly, I don’t know that any change would have come from that. But when the whole group went and said “WTF” (the men in the group were also outraged and demanded more equal pay), then there was change.
8. The pay adjustment
My manager called me on my day off to let me know my team was transitioning from hourly to salary. I did the math and realized that with the amount of overtime I worked I would be losing about $7K in income a year. When I came back to the office, I talked to my manager about it and told her I wasn’t happy. She said the overtime had been taken into account by HR when creating our offers and there wasn’t much to be done. I said, “Well, I’m still not happy, so what is our next step?” And then I was quiet. She agreed to get me a meeting with the higher ups. From there, I went to my team and asked them if they had the same experience. They had almost all decided to accept the change but when I pointed out my large income discrepancy (and I was the most junior team member working the least overtime), they ran their own numbers and then everyone was mad lol. I asked for their permission to speak for them at my upcoming meeting and they agreed.
Meeting day came and I was given a lot of BS about how they ran the numbers and they accounted for overtime and I just needed to sign the paperwork and get past my feelings. I stopped them mid-sentence and said, “I hate to interrupt but I just wanted to check and see if we should reschedule this for a time when the whole team can be present, because nobody is happy.” They paused and said no one but me was complaining. I told them I had discussed it with the team and everyone was unhappy and asked again if they wanted to reschedule the meeting, and then I was quiet. At this point my manager stepped in and said she never found me to be unreasonable and that my attention to detail was great so if I ran numbers and found an error, then something was off.
Upper management ended up going back to HR and discovered that everyone’s overtime had been calculated at .5 instead of 1.5 and the HR person who did it just didn’t realize because of how our payroll system listed everything out (suuuure).
My entire team ended up with salaries that were $7-15K higher than originally proposed for the transition. It was a great experience in team bonding and taught me a lot about being calm but vocal and the power of remaining silent at key times. If it hadn’t been for this blog and Alison’s advice, I don’t know that I would have had the guts to do it.
