Douglas R. Dover: 98% Air at Ro2 Art Projects, September 30, 2023 – November 4, 2023

Douglas R. Dover, “Left of Center,” 2022, polystyrene packaging, resin, plastic toys

Douglas R. Dover, “98% Air,” installation view

Ro2 Art Projects, the gallery’s location at 1501 South Ervay, consistently takes artistic risks, as exemplified by Douglas R. Dover’s innovative use of materials like styrofoam and single-use plastics. This exhibition presents captivating interior spaces within Dover’s sculptures, which draw visitors into caves of strange arrangements. While exploring the show, one can’t help but wonder if Dover will further enhance his pieces by refining their surfaces; I am curious how they would look smoothed by acetone or roughened with sandpaper.

The color palette employed in these works is notably reminiscent of Mattel toys, featuring vivid magentas, orange-soda oranges, and subtle light greens. Dover’s sculptures demonstrate the mark of a thoughtful artist, as they benefit from being viewed “in the round.”

When observed from different angles, their various prongs and hidden caves reveal relationships to the walls that are usually more forward-facing in wall-relief objects. Styrofoam’s usual purpose — to buffer delicate materials from the rigors of shipping — is played with for the sculptures’ interesting arrangements of positive and negative space.

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Fighting: Ukrainian War Photographers, Presented by FotoFest at Silver Street Studios, October 5 – November 18, 2023

Mikhaylo Palinchak

Mstyslav Chernov (with attribution to The Associated Press)

This FotoFest exhibition confronts the challenges of misinformation, the economic and psychological consequences of, and the exhaustion resulting from Russia’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine. Organized with support from the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers, it showcases the work of sixteen photographers who have transitioned from their own personal artistic practices to photojournalistic documentation of the ongoing destruction in the country. Some photos have explanations to give greater context to the image, which is helpful for viewers in the United States. Most but not all of the works are rife with tension and mortal peril, so viewer discretion may be advised.

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Adam Marnie: The Red Show at Basket Books & Art, September 9, 2023 – October 14, 2023

Adam Marine, “The Red Show,” installation view

Adam Marnie, “Untitled (wall box II),” 2023, enamel paint on paper

Red is the color of mortality, luck, and passion. It was among the first colors to be used for dying, so it has a special kind of primary quality, at least when it comes to art history. Red and yellow are also pairings seen often in commercial food sales (red has been found to stimulate one’s appetite), as with McDonald’s and Coca Cola. On the electromagnetic spectrum of visible light, red has the longest wavelength, at about 700 nanometers. Color has strong, but usually subjective, connotations. However, red is a color that can be read as absolute positivity; it has the potency and seriousness of being alive.

At Basket Books & Art, Adam Marnie’s exhibition The Red Show features a striking array of red objects and paintings. Apples and plaster casts of human hands scatter across the second-story gallery floor, while red objects adorn the walls and pedestals. The artist’s use of red varies; some elements are painted, while others, like a Ryobi string trimmer (known as a Weed Eater, and invented by a Houstonian), incorporate red as a native color. Throughout the exhibit, the color red is allowed to form associations naturally. Marnie’s work subtly explores the rich associations of color without imposing a rigid interpretation.

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Carlos Cruz-Diez: A Legacy in Color at Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, August 31 – December 22, 2023

Installation view of a work in “Carlos Cruz-Diez: A Legacy In Color”

Carlos Cruz-Diez, much like North Texas artist Bumin Kim, masterfully engages with color, creating dynamic relationships by placing thin strands of color side by side. This engagement is not just theoretical; it offers a dynamic, ever-changing visual experience for viewers. Every angle and distance of viewing alters the perception of the artwork. In fact, the visual radiuses of these works, some of which are large, at five by 20-feet, extend so far that the pieces would be best installed along an extensive hallway. Picture a fashion model walking a runway, flanked by Cruz-Diez’s pieces, to fully appreciate the work’s dynamic perspective.

In comparison with Adam Marnie’s The Red Show, Cruz-Diez makes work that is very difficult to separate into individual colors, even when seen up close. Each piece of these sculptures melts into the whole, becoming an object that does not easily reveal its brushstrokes, so to speak. This optical phenomenology is closer to painting than it is to sculpture, though there’s no need to split hairs while having such a marvelous experience viewing the work.

William Sarradet is the Assistant Editor for Glasstire.

The post Legacies in Air and Color: October Exhibitions in Dallas and Houston appeared first on Glasstire.

BAY VILLAGE, OH—In an apparent effort to turn the incident into an instructional moment for their curious 1-year-old son, local parents Josh and Lisa Cohen repeated the word “gentle” Wednesday when the toddler ripped a dog’s ear clean off. “There we go, Mason, very good job petting the doggy,” said Lisa, who then…

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ATLANTA—Providing a sense of hope about the gun violence epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new study Wednesday that found there were still a bunch of kids in the United States who had not been shot yet. “We reviewed the data, and yeah, it turns out there’s a ton of kids who’ve never…

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OTTAWA – The Conservative Party of Canada announced its campaign slogan for the next election will be “You think you’re better than me?!” “Nothing encapsulates the current state of Conservative politics better than an angry, grammatically flawed invective against an unseen Liberal who the first person feels is acting all superior,” said party leader and […]

The post Conservatives announce new campaign slogan: “You Think You’re Better Than Me?!” appeared first on The Beaverton.

Knocked Up
Rosemary’s Baby

Must Love Dogs
Cujo

You’ve Got Mail
Zodiac

Confessions of a Shopaholic
American Psycho

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
The Shining

13 Going On 30
It

Serendipity
Final Destination

Enchanted
The Exorcist

27 Dresses
Midsommar

About a Boy
The Omen

The 40-Year-Old Virgin
The Wicker Man

He’s Just Not That Into You
Saw

Every Thursday we give our chairs the day off, so they can watch some TV, catch up on emails etc.

Several Girl Scout troops announced that the price of cookies will be going up next season in order to combat rising production and material costs. What do you think?

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Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
It's not you, it's me. Statistically. Like 40% you, 60% me.

Another review for A City on Mars, this one in Scientific American!

Dear Colleagues,

The University will soon announce plans to overhaul the gen ed program recently adopted by the Faculty Senate. The new program, which emphasizes post-apocalyptic survival skills rather than traditional academic content, will be implemented fall semester. We remain hopeful this is not too late.

We realize this may seem like an abrupt shift, especially since the gen ed program we just adopted took seven years to research and implement. But those seven years have featured floods and fires, political chaos, economic crises, and a global pandemic. In the aftermath, there is an urgent need to meet the region’s demand for graduates prepared to succeed in a territory soon to be governed by natural law and vigilante justice. For our future students to meet the challenges of post-apocalyptic life, we must shift our focus from “careers that don’t yet exist” to “careers that haven’t existed for quite some time,” like blacksmiths and town criers.

For some, the pivot will be relatively seamless. Our biology faculty, for instance, will remain critical contributors to general education. They will need to shift their course content away from topics like gene sequencing and biomimicry and instead focus on more relevant issues such as antibiotic-resistant wound cleaning, mushroom foraging, and how to perform safe and healthy DIY abortions (a likely upside to the inevitable collapse of formal government is the return of a woman’s right to choose).

The Twenty-First-Century University is no longer driven by technology, business, or engineering. Those careers will disappear as soon as the grid inevitably fails and society is plunged into perpetual darkness. We won’t need app developers, computer programmers, or specialists in global supply chain management (there will be no global supply chain to manage). Post-apocalyptic success will be achieved by students who can forage, hunt, build shelters, grow their own food, and defend themselves in a hostile and lawless society.

A few specifics:

• Our ethics requirement shall remain, but with a renewed focus on attending to pre-modern problems such as inter-familial mating, the appropriate timing of group suicide, and when it is okay to eat a deceased family member.
• Good news for our political sciences, whose “How to Build a Government from Scratch” project will come in handy. We’re going to create an entire class around that project.
• Some courses will simply require a name change. Foundations of Western Civilization will now be called The Fall of Western Civilization. US History will be called Ancient US History.

In retrospect, we regret letting go of so many horticulturists over the last few years. We’ll be hiring adjuncts to teach several courses on cultivating and maintaining gardens, canning food, and identifying poisonous berries.

We also regret the construction of our newly built, multimillion-dollar student rec center. It seemed like a good idea in terms of recruitment, but in a post-apocalyptic world, climbing walls and Pilates studios offer limited value. The plan for now is to convert all 300,000 square feet into storage for bottled water. Accordingly, our menu of physical education courses will no longer feature “fun” options like Zumba and scuba diving; instead, all students will focus exclusively on archery and cardio.

In closing, we understand full well that we’re violating faculty governance processes, but frankly, we’re way past that. Please continue to check your emails for as long as you have power and internet. We intend to share info by whatever means available (we’re rounding up the cheerleaders and giving them megaphones) as the University prepares to officially declare martial law.

BATON ROUGE, LA—Forced to defend their decision to sell Black people in such a problematic location, local white couple Nate and Caroline Harper faced criticism Tuesday for choosing a former plantation as the venue for their slave auction. “I know it’s considered a bit controversial these days, but ever since I was a…

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DENVER—Asked for his thoughts a week before his team’s 2023-24 opener, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic told reporters Tuesday he was looking forward to the season ending. “I’ll be honest, I’m ready to get out there and walk away from the arena after the last game of the season,” said Jokic, adding that he believed…

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Joe Biden has strongly insisted that the U.S., “the most powerful nation in the history of the world,” can back two wars in Israel and Ukraine at the same time as the conflict in the Middle East continues to deepen. What do you think?

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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 got hit on while staying in a coworker’s home

I have an employee, Andrea, who works remotely, but came into our office for a week of training. Originally she said she would not need a hotel as she would be staying with a fellow employee, Boris (not same department), who had a guest room. Their private lives are their own, and I didn’t think anything of it. Halfway through the week, Andrea came to me and said she needed to move to a hotel because Boris gave her an “I have feelings for you” talk. She spoke with HR and told me and HR that she has taken care of speaking to him and doesn’t want HR to do anything about it, because she doesn’t want to make it more awkward because our office is small.

I understand Andrea’s wishes, but when I was getting things sorted out with the hotel, the employee helping me handle the booking wasn’t surprised and said this wasn’t the first time Boris has hit on people he’s met through work. I have now reported everything to Boris’s manager, and I want to make sure this never happens again, but HR says that saying anything will definitely implicate Andrea. I am personally furious at Boris for putting Andrea in this position, and I worry that is clouding my judgment.

Yeah, Boris sucks — not simply for declaring his feelings to Andrea, but for doing it while she was staying in his house and thus was in a more vulnerable situation. And if he has a pattern of hitting on colleagues, it might indeed be that it’s time for someone (his manager or HR) to speak to him about it.

However, you don’t really have standing to be the one to do it, particularly when Andrea and HR have both told you not to. That said, you could make the case to HR that if this is a known pattern, it needs to be addressed (and that whoever addresses it would also need to make it clear to Boris that he won’t be permitted to make things weird for Andrea). Similarly, someone could explain to Andrea that the company needs to address Boris’s pattern of behavior toward colleagues, not just his behavior with her. But you shouldn’t overrule the two of them on your own (and if you’re tempted to anyway, keep in mind that you don’t have the power needed to ensure Boris doesn’t make life weirder for Andrea; that’s part of why someone with official standing to handle it needs to do it).

2. My coworkers keep joking about a short team member’s height

My colleague, Kate, is relatively small (about 4’8″) and other members of my team regularly make comments and jokes about her height. This includes our manager and people who are senior to Kate (I am the joint most junior person in the team). The jokes are sometimes to her face, but mostly behind her back. When Kate hears them, she reacts by smiling, but has told me that she hates them and feels they undermine her professionalism.

The jokes aren’t intended to be cruel, but no one else in the team is on the receiving end of so many comments about their appearance. Other than the height jokes, my colleagues are actually very nice people, and the team has a great dynamic. Kate has told me the reason she hasn’t addressed it with the others is because she has an otherwise good relationship with everyone and doesn’t want to have an awkward conversation about it. But Kate doesn’t even know that most of the jokes are happening behind her back.

I hate hearing these comments and I think that as the team are genuinely nice people they would stop immediately if they knew she disliked it. But I can’t work out the best way to address it. Saying something in the moment is the obvious choice but it feels excruciating with senior team members. An email afterwards feels overly dramatic.

You can speak up because it bothers you to hear it, without speaking for Kate or divulging anything she’s said to you. For example: “It really bugs me to hear people joking about someone else’s body. Can we stop?” And if necessary after that: “Kate is polite about it, but this is so unkind to keep joking about. We’d never do this about someone’s weight. Why is this okay?” (I realize a lot of the people doing this are senior to you, but if the team really is otherwise great, you should have standing to say this. If you feel like it would go over badly, modify accordingly — but it’s a reasonable thing to say.)

3. My job expected me to work 10-hour days, but didn’t tell me

I recently left my job due to a conflict with my manager, the CEO, regarding my work hours. I worked as an executive assistant at a high-pressure startup. During the interview, I asked about work-life balance, and the CEO assured me they didn’t routinely require late hours, except in critical situations. I was hired as a remote exempt employee and was told to start work by 9 am daily. Initially, I worked from 9 am to at least 5:30 pm, but eventually, I often worked until 6:30 pm or later, and late evening Zoom check-ins with my boss were a daily occurrence. After a year, the company had a RIF in which our event manager was laid off and I was tasked with taking on their role in addition to my own for several months while they figured out who could take on these duties long-term. For several months, I worked at least 52 hours a week to make sure I was successful in both positions. I became stressed and started attending yoga twice a week, signing off on those days at 5:45 and communicating that to the CEO via Slack or text daily.

Soon after, the CEO’s attitude changed, and she accused me of “stealing time” but did not provide examples. This confused and upset me as I have never been accused of this in 25 years. I was very unhappy with the situation and the relationship was fraught, so I quit for a position elsewhere. On my last day, I learned from the head of people ops that the company had expected my work hours to be 8:30-6:30 daily, which I had never been informed of. Apparently, the “stealing time” was about me leaving for yoga twice a week. I explained that I was unaware of this expectation and would not have accepted the job if that had been explained up-front. I cautioned them to make sure they had realistic expectations around hours for my replacement.

A few months later, my replacement contacted me under the pretense of having a work-related question for which the CEO had given her my number. The actual purpose of the call seemed to be for her to vent as she had just learned, two months into the role, that they wanted her to work 8:30-6:30, and she was frustrated by that and thinking of quitting.

Can a company can legally require daily 10-hour days for exempt employees? I’m open to extra hours when necessary, but this seems excessive. I’d like to avoid this situation in the future, and I feel like my former employer was out of line. However, I’m wondering if that is the expectation now for remote employees, and if I need to change my own expectations around work hours.

Yes, a company can legally require 10-hour days for exempt employees (or non-exempt ones, for that matter, although then overtime pay could come into play). Federal law doesn’t limit the number of hours that adults can be required to work, although some states require employees to have a certain number of hours off in between shifts or during a work week.

But that doesn’t make it a reasonable expectation within our work culture, particularly in fields where it’s not the norm for actual work-related reasons or outside of something like a 4/10 schedule (four 10-hour days instead of five eight-hour days). It’s also particularly bizarre that your former employer apparently expects that schedule but doesn’t bother to tell people until they’ve already been on the job a few months. It should be discussed explicitly during the hiring process; it’s not something you spring on people after they’re already working there (and it’s definitely not something you accuse them of “stealing time” for after you didn’t bother to tell them).

Your former employer is terrible; don’t read anything more into it than that.

4. My boss wants me to work evenings for two weeks … and is even saying she’ll drive me

My boss needs me to cover a shift outside my regular scheduled hours. I share a vehicle with my husband. I work during the day, and he works nights. This is our routine. It’s a struggle — we barely see each other, but we make it work. We have a quick meal together at the end of my day/start of his day.

My boss is aware that I do not have a vehicle and therefore not able to work most evenings. They are suggesting they come and pick me up/take me home so this shift can be covered. I live almost one hour away (one way) from my place of work. My workplace is short-staffed as it is. One coworker is on a medical leave, with the return date a big question mark. The shift needs coverage because a different coworker is going away on a two-week vacation. My other coworker has already said they are unavailable because they have a course starting on these particular dates and have prior commitments in the evenings, so they have told our boss that they will take my normal day shifts and so I can work every evening shift for these two weeks. (I’m the office manager, most of my responsibilities can only be completed during daytime hours and this coworker isn’t trained in these.) I’m a morning person and take medication for ADHD and I struggle to focus at night (medication has worn off by then).

I’m uncomfortable with this idea because it brings up many questions, like if work is discussed on these drives with my boss, am I still “on the clock” and being paid? Or if I have to wait around after the end of the shift for my boss to wrap up their day, is this paid time? If my boss is this desperate to go out of their way to do this, is this the time to discuss my value and worth/compensation? This just seems like a big “ask.” Why isn’t my current schedule/known availability reason enough for them to accept I am not available? Why are they assuming I am willing to work this shift if all I need is for them to drive me to and from work? I don’t like this at all.

It doesn’t sounds like you’ve said no yet! Say no. You can say it this way: “I’m not able to do that because of my own commitments during those hours.” If your boss pushes anyway, it’s perfectly reasonable (and true) to say, “There are medical reasons why that schedule wouldn’t work for me. It’s really not possible.”

Getting someone to cover that shift isn’t your problem to solve; it’s your boss’s. You just need to be clear that you are not available during the hours she’s hoping you will be (just as your coworker has done).

5. What the deal with “stay interviews”?

Have you ever heard of “stay interviews,” a counterpart to exit interviews? My organization has just announced they will be conducting them and will be talking to current employees about their job satisfaction. I’ve just been invited to participate in one.

If I were having my exit interview, I would definitely keep my feedback fairly neutral, for reasons you’ve covered in the past. However, in holding these conversations, the organization is making a gesture to ostensibly help with employee retention. So might it be worth it to be a bit more honest? I have been at this organization for almost a decade and seen other similar initiatives fizzle out, so I’m not optimistic.

Yes, stay interviews are a thing! The idea is that you shouldn’t wait until people are walking out the door to ask the kinds of questions that get asked in exit interviews; you should be talking to current employees about what’s going well, what’s not going well, what they’d like to see change, and what it would help retain your best people. Having a structured time for those conversations helps ensure they actually happen.

Of course, how useful stay interviews are — and how honest people will be, and how honest you should be — depends on how healthy the work environment is: how feedback is handled, much groundwork the company has done to elicit honesty from people, and whether anything ever comes of the feedback people supply. If stay interviews turn into a bureaucratic exercise that never leads to any meaningful change, people will quickly get cynical about them and they won’t be useful.

Related:
do you conduct entry interviews?

MINNEAPOLIS—Describing the physician’s remarks as “patronizing” and “unprofessional,” local man David Kohr confirmed Tuesday that he did not go to the doctor for a lecture about what should and should not go in his ass. “Jeez, can’t you just yank it out and be on your way?” said Kohr, who reportedly struggled not to…

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Enlarge (credit: Stack Overflow)

Stack Overflow used to be every developer's favorite site for coding help, but with the rise of generative AI like ChatGPT, chatbots can offer more specific help than a 5-year-old forum post ever could. You can get instant corrections to your exact code, optimization suggestions, and explanations of what each line of code is doing. While no chatbot is 100 percent reliable, code has the unique ability to be instantly verified by just testing it in your IDE (integrated development environment), which makes it an ideal use case for chatbots. Where exactly does that leave sites like Stack Overflow? Apparently, not in a great situation. Today, CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar announced Stack Overflow is laying off 28 percent of its staff.

In a post on the Stack Overflow blog, the CEO says the company is on a "path to profitability" and "continued product innovation." You might think of Stack Overflow as "just a forum," but the company is working on a direct answer to ChatGPT in the form of "Overflow AI," which was announced in July. Stack Overflow's profitability plan includes cutting costs, and that's the justification for the layoffs. Stack Overflow doubled its headcount in 2022 with 525 people. ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022, making for unfortunate timing.

Of course, the great irony of ChatGPT hurting Stack Overflow is that a great deal of the chatbot's development prowess comes from scraping sites like Stack Overflow. Chatbots have many questions to answer about the sustainability of the web. They vacuum up all this data and give nothing back, so what is supposed to happen when you drive all your data sources out of business?

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

You, step forth.

What is this… jean… you wear about your waist, child?

A “’90s Crop”? Is that really what they call it now? You dare speak of the Wide-Leg jean? You think I do not know their secrets, their deep magicks, their bountiful pockets? You dare, even, to don them in my presence?

Ha! The youth mocks me with my own image. It was I whose jeans once billowed freely in the summer winds! The ancient labels: Pepe Jeans, True Religion, JNCO—I wore them all. You will never know their rivets as I have known them. You will never bear their weight as I have, heavy with mud and PBR. My denim was vintage, its holes earned through wear, not carved by the machines of many falsehoods!

Yes, it was I who did battle with the sorcerer Ed Hardy. And then we made love… the wallet chains of all the earth were surely rattled that day.

This was before I sold them. I sold my own Wide-Leg jeans for black skinnies that would achieve clout on MySpace…

So, you pair this jean with a teeny tiny crop top? Fool! I laugh at your naiveté. Soon, the top will form tan lines upon your shoulders, the waist of these jeans shall chafe against your midriff like the armies of Bugle Boy.

Speak NOT of what you do not know, witch who is called Aiden! You dare reference the old names so plainly, so openly? Kate? Naomi? Britney? JUSTIN? I know the arcane texts like the back pocket of a 501. Denim was once an entire themed issue of the Vogue magazine I kept beneath my pillow for not one, but two blue moons!

Excuse me, “WHAT IS A MAGAZINE?” Oh, spite! Oh, wickedness!

I curse your false, suddenly trendy again Wide-Leg jeans. I curse them in the name of the miners, the factory workers, the cattle drivers. I curse them in the name of Levi Strauss & Co. Tremble before my power, Aiden: I even curse them in the name of the car mechanic’s buttcrack!

May the loops of your jeans always catch on a cabinet drawer and cause a great ruckus.

May your indigos fade in an unflattering way. Their original vibrance shall be but a fleeting memory of a bygone age of glory as you are buried in “50% Off” emails.

May you never again go to a thrift store and find your size. May you find only spandex stretch jeans designed for a newborn baby.

May your denim fray only at the crotch! No one can make that work.

You shall be cursed for all time. Your children will turn your jeans into jorts that are “upcycled!” Your name will NEVER be rhinestoned on Juicy Couture.

What jeans am I wearing? Insolent youth. These skinny jeans are all I have left. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t put my phone in a pocket for ten years. I no longer feel pain beneath my pelvic floor. I am doing fine.

Wrong Gong by The Octopus Project https://theoctopusproject.bandcamp.com/track/wrong-gong

Today's links

• One of America's most corporate-crime-friendly bankruptcy judges forced to recuse himself: Judge David Jones rigged the 'Texas Two-Step' cases his secret girlfriend argued in his court.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022
• Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

One of America's most corporate-crime-friendly bankruptcy judges forced to recuse himself (permalink)

"I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one." The now-famous quip from Robert Reich cuts to the bone of corporate personhood. Corporations are people with speech rights. They are heat-shields that absorb liability on behalf of their owners and managers.

But the membrane separating corporations from people is selectively permeable. A corporation is separate from its owners, who are not liable for its deeds – but it can also be "closely held," and so inseparable from those owners that their religious beliefs can excuse their companies from obeying laws they don't like:

https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2014/10/13/hobby-lobby-and-closely-held-corporations/

Corporations – not their owners – are liable for their misdeeds (that's the "limited liability" in "limited liablity corporation"). But owners of a murderous company can hold their victims' families hostage and secure bankruptcies for their companies that wipe out their owners' culpability – without any requirement for the owners to surrender their billions to the people they killed and maimed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

Corporations are, in other words, a kind of Schroedinger's Cat for impunity: when it helps the ruling class, corporations are inseparable from their owners; when that would hinder the rich and powerful, corporations are wholly distinct entities. They exist in a state of convenient superposition that collapses only when a plutocrat opens the box and decides what is inside it. Heads they win, tails we lose.

Key to corporate impunity is the rigged bankruptcy system. "Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid," so every successful civilization has some system for discharging debt, or it risks collapse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/bankruptcy-protects-fake-people-brutalizes-real-ones/

When you or I declare bankruptcy, we have to give up virtually everything and endure years (or a lifetime) of punitive retaliation based on our stained credit records, and even then, our student debts continue to haunt us, as do lawless scumbag debt-collectors:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act

When a giant corporation declares bankruptcy, by contrast, it emerges shorn of its union pension obligations and liabilities owed to workers and customers it abused or killed, and continues merrily on its way, re-offending at will. Big companies have mastered the Texas Two-Step, whereby a company creates a subsidiary that inherits all its liabilities, but not its assets. The liability-burdened company is declared bankrupt, and the company's sins are shriven at the bang of a judge's gavel:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

Three US judges oversee the majority of large corporate bankruptcies, and they are so reliable in their deference to this scheme that an entire industry of high-priced lawyers exists solely to game the system to ensure that their clients end up before one of these judges. When the Sacklers were seeking to abscond with their billions in opioid blood-money and stiff their victims' families, they set their sights on Judge Robert Drain in the Southern District of New York:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/23/a-bankrupt-process/#sacklers

To get in front of Drain, the Sacklers opened an office in White Plains, NY, then waited 192 days to file bankruptcy papers there (it takes six months to establish jurisdiction). Their papers including invisible metadata that identified the case as destined for Judge Drain's court, in a bid to trick the court's Case Management/Electronic Case Files system to assign the case to him.

The case was even pre-captioned "RDD" ("Robert D Drain"), to nudge clerks into getting their case into a friendly forum.

If the Sacklers hadn't opted for Judge Drain, they might have set their sights on the Houston courthouse presided over by Judge David Jones, the second of of the three most corporate-friendly large bankruptcy judges. Judge Jones is a Texas judge – as in "Texas Two-Step" – and he has a long history of allowing corporate murderers and thieves to escape with their fortunes intact and their victims penniless:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/07/hr-4193/#shoppers-choice

But David Jones's reign of error is now in limbo. It turns out that he was secretly romantically involved with Elizabeth Freeman, a leading Texas corporate bankruptcy lawyer who argues Texas Two-Step cases in front of her boyfriend, Judge David Jones.

Judge Jones doesn't deny that he and Freeman are romantically involved, but said that he didn't think this fact warranted disclosure – let alone recusal – because they aren't married and "he didn't benefit economically from her legal work." He said that he'd only have to disclose if the two owned communal property, but the deed for their house lists them as co-owners:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24032507-general-warranty-deed

(Jones claims they don't live together – rather, he owns the house and pays the utility bills but lets Freeman live there.)

Even if they didn't own communal property, judges should not hear cases where one of the parties is represented by their long term romantic partner. I mean, that is a weird sentence to have to type, but I stand by it.

The case that led to the revelation and Jones's stepping away from his cases while the Fifth Circuit investigates is a ghastly – but typical – corporate murder trial. Corizon is a prison healthcare provider that killed prisoners with neglect, in the most cruel and awful ways imaginable. Their families sued, so Corizon budded off two new companies: YesCare got all the contracts and other assets, while Tehum Care Services got all the liabilities:

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/prominent-bankruptcy-judge-david-jones-033801325.html

Then, Tehum paid Freeman to tell her boyfriend, Judge Jones, to let it declare bankruptcy, leaving $173m for YesCare and allocating $37m for the victims suing Tehum. Corizon owes more than $1.2b, "including tens of millions of dollars in unpaid invoices and hundreds of malpractice suits filed by prisoners and their families who have alleged negligent care":

https://www.kccllc.net/tehum/document/2390086230522000000000041

Under the deal, if Corizon murdered your family member, you would get $5,000 in compensation. Corizon gets to continue operating, using that $173m to prolong its yearslong murder spree.

The revelation that Jones and Freeman are lovers has derailed this deal. Jones is under investigation and has recused himself from his cases. The US Trustee – who represents creditors in bankruptcy cases – has intervened to block the deal, calling Tehum "a barren estate, one that was stripped of all of its valuable assets as a result of the combination and divisional mergers that occurred prior to the bankruptcy filing."

This is the third high-profile sleazy corporate bankruptcy that had victory snatched from the jaws of defeat this year: there was Johnson and Johnson's attempt to escape from liability from tricking women into powdering their vulvas with asbestos (no, really), the Sacklers' attempt to abscond with billions after kicking off the opioid epidemic that's killed 800,000+ Americans and counting, and now this one.

This one might be the most consequential, though – it has the potential to eliminate one third of the major crime-enabling bankruptcy judges serving today.

One down.

Two to go.

Hey look at this (permalink)

• Shitposting, Shit-mining and Shit-farming https://programmablemutter.substack.com/p/shitposting-shit-mining-and-shit (h/t John Naughton)

• Quest at the Museum http://questatthemuseum.com

• Marked by Stars Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/agrippa-occult-philosophy/

This day in history (permalink)

#20yrsago Enron’s email laid bare https://www.salon.com/2001/11/09/enron/

#20yrsago Identity thief steals sex-offender’s name https://web.archive.org/web/20031002192428/http://www.sexcriminals.com/news/15382/

#15yrsago Librivox free audiobook library now has 365 days’ worth of continuous listening material https://librivox.org/2008/10/15/365-days-of-librivox-audio/

#15yrsago Canada elects 34 copyfighters to Parliament https://web.archive.org/web/20081018165923/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3450/125/

#15yrsago BART directors to management: stop using terrorism “fearmongering” https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/bart-debates-allowing-drinks-on-trains-3266010.php

#15yrsago Wedding Ring Cipher contest winners https://memex.craphound.com/2008/10/15/wedding-ring-cipher-contest-winners/

#15yrsago McCain-Palin campaign calls for respect for fair use https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/mccain-campaign-feels-dmca-sting

#15yrsago Fafblog brings us the real Obama facts https://fafblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/barack-obama-black.html

#15yrsago Scientist who did groundwork for Chemistry Nobel now works for $10/h at a Toyota dealership https://web.archive.org/web/20081014042957/http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081011/NEWS/810110328

#15yrsago US Constitution in graphic novel form https://memex.craphound.com/2008/10/14/us-constitution-in-graphic-novel-form/

#10yrsago Snowden: US lets NSA liars go; stops at nothing to bust those who tell the truth https://www.techdirt.com/2013/10/14/what-does-it-say-when-us-wont-prosecute-official-lying-to-congress-will-stop-nothing-to-persecute-someone-telling-truth/

#10yrsago South London school bans “slang” https://memex.craphound.com/2013/10/15/south-london-school-bans-slang/

#10yrsago Why email services should be court-order resistant https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2013/10/15/a-court-order-is-an-insider-attack/

#10yrsago EFF to Comic-Con: protect our secret identities! https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/open-letter-comic-con-organizers-protect-our-secret-identities

#10yrsago Homlessness and technological literacy: the Tenderloin Technology Lab https://www.wired.com/2013/10/homeless-but-wired/

#5yrsago Epson is teaching the internet not to install security updates https://www.vice.com/en/article/pa98ab/printer-makers-are-crippling-cheap-ink-cartridges-via-bogus-security-updates

#5yrsago Printer refuses humor magazine because “Christian owners” want to protect “the kids” https://www.patreon.com/posts/good-evening-21990238

#5yrsago Parkland kids’ Rube Goldberg machine illustrates the aftermath of school shootings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mue3N5a9NQE

#5yrsago A sensible, free guide to negotiating book contracts https://www.authorsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/20181003_AuthorsAllianceGuidePublicationContracts.pdf

#5yrsago Wannacry ransomware cost the British National Health Service £92m ($121m) https://web.archive.org/web/20181015161904/https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3064515/wannacry-attack-cost-cash-strapped-nhs-an-estimated-gbp92m

#5yrsago What would a “counterculture of AI” look like? https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/rethinking-ai-through-politics-of-1968/

#5yrsago Bruce Sterling on the next 50 years of climate-wracked maker architecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p4DV80xrm8

#5yrsago China’s panicked upper middle class are easy picking for offshore real estate scams https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2167731/desperate-chinese-middle-class-take-big-risks-move-money-and-themselves

#5yrsago Blame billionaires for climate change https://www.gq.com/story/billionaires-climate-change

#5yrsago Georgia Senator, asked about voter suppression, mugs constituent for his phone https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/10/14/david-perdue-snatch-phone-voter-suppression-sot-nr-vpx.cnn

#5yrsago A dating website for Trump supporters leaked its customers’ data ON DAY ONE https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/15/donald-daters-a-dating-app-for-trump-supporters-leaked-its-users-data/

#5yrsago Canada Pension Plan is long on US private prisons and immigrant detention centers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/12/canada-pension-fund-invests-in-us-immigration-detention-firms

#5yrsago The Congressional Progressive Caucus is (still) awash in corporate money https://theintercept.com/2018/10/14/congressional-progressive-caucus-corporate-pac-money/

#5yrsago Capitalism torched the world, fascism rose from the ashes https://web.archive.org/web/20181014161843/https://eand.co/how-capitalism-torched-the-planet-and-left-it-a-smoking-fascist-greenhouse-fe687e99f070?gi=f85bd26fe222

#5yrsago Obama’s policy on Bush’s crimes is how Kavanaugh got to the Supreme Court https://theintercept.com/2018/10/09/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-bush-administration/

#1yrsago Billionaire dilettantes vs good Democrats https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/14/competitors-critics-customers/#billionaire-dilletantes

#1yrsago Medieval Times invents a modern union-busting tactic https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/14/competitors-critics-customers/#ip

#1yrago How lawyers became sadists https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/15/lex-sadist/#incentives-matter

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Super Punch (https://www.superpunch.net).

Currently writing:

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025

• The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024

• Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

• Moral Hazard, a short story for MIT Tech Review's 12 Tomorrows. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE, ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION

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Latest podcast: The Lost Cause (excerpt) https://craphound.com/news/2023/10/12/the-lost-cause-excerpt/
Upcoming appearances:

• 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing keynote (Minneapolis), Oct 16
  https://cscw.acm.org/2023/index.php/keynotes/

• 41st annual McCreight Lecture in the Humanities (Charleston, WV), Oct 19
  https://festivallcharleston.com/venue/university-of-charleston/

• Taylor Books (Charleston, WV), Oct 20, 12h-14h
  http://www.taylorbooks.com/

• Seizing the Means of Computation (Edinburgh Futures Institute), Oct 25
  https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/seizing-the-means-of-computation-with-cory-doctorow/

• The Internet Con at the Internet Archive (virtual), Oct 31
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-talk-the-internet-con-tickets-730939137637

Recent appearances:

• Grim Grinning Ghosts (That Hallowe'en Podcast)
  https://thathalloweenpodcast.libsyn.com/grim-grinning-ghosts-with-author-cory-doctorow

• 1000 w/Ron Placone
  https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1000wronplacone/episodes/Cory-Doctorow—004-e2a420a

• An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification (Burning Man Center Camp)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu2fzvKxKvU

Latest books:

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

Upcoming books:

• The Lost Cause: a post-Green New Deal eco-topian novel about truth and reconciliation with white nationalist militias, Tor Books, November 2023

• The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024

• Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

• Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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