Cowboy Who?

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

I’ve been having good luck with my Bird of Paradise plant and decided to try planting some other bulb plants. I know: strictly speaking a Bird of Paradise plant is not a bulb plant, but close enough. I planted a number of ornamental bulbs, but I also planted some onions and garlic, and out of all of them, they are coming up great!

I’ve never actually seen an onion bloom. It’s kinda cool. And it’s already attracting visitors …

And one more picture … a little stink bug on a new Bird of Paradise shoot.

Performers took to the ice Saturday at the Henry Viney Arena for the Drag on Ice event, which had been postponed due to safety concerns surrounding protests.

New comic!
Today's News:

Maybe every Bramblin you've ever met was a tiny little newborn baby that had not yet grown a carapace capable of bearing the world's cruelty. Did you ever think of that?

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 boss wants to be at the hospital for my coworker’s surgery

My work has a habit of not being able to differentiate between work/life balance and sometimes even uses the phrase “we’re like family.” It’s something I’m trying to change, but these thoughts are really ingrained in management.

We have one HR manager (Amanda) and a fairly small administrative group, which I am a part of. Amanda previously had two awful situations in their personal life: (1) Her sister died and she came in to work the same day because the only other person who knew how to run payroll was our boss and there was nervousness he wouldn’t be able to do payroll properly. (2) Her husband had to go in for emergency open-heart surgery and our boss went to the hospital and BROUGHT HER WORK because he thought “she would want something to do.” He sat there with her while she waited. Even thinking about it now makes my blood boil.

Horribly, Amanda just found out she has ovarian cancer and is having surgery next week to remove her reproductive organs and find out what her options are. It’s absolutely shocking and awful, and I feel terrible for her and her husband. The thing is, my boss told me yesterday he plans on being at the hospital during her surgery to be with her husband! They have become close and the husband also works at our company, but I can’t see how this is appropriate. I said so to him and it was received terribly. He said very angrily that I just don’t get it, they’re like family, he’s definitely going to be there, and that is that.

I talked to Amanda after her husband’s surgery and was told how bad it was that our boss was there and brought work for her to do, so I feel like I’m not out of line saying that his going is inappropriate. I don’t know what to do now. He’s an owner, her boss, and apparently feels like he is close enough with them to be at the hospital. What would you suggest? I’m just completely thrown off and upset, but maybe my emotions about her diagnosis are getting in the way?

What, no, this is horrible. You don’t show up for this sort of thing without being (a) extremely close and (b) invited. If your boss hadn’t shown up uninvited with work for Amanda during her husband’s surgery (!), we could maybe give him the benefit of the doubt that Amanda’s husband asked him to come (since they’re friends) … but given his track record of violating boundaries, it’s more likely that he’s just pushing his way into an extremely high-stress personal situation.

Anyway, can you tell Amanda and/or her husband ASAP about what your boss is planning? If they know in advance, they can tell him directly not to come, or ensure he doesn’t know where and when the surgery will be, or even ask the nurses to keep him out.

Related:
my manager shows up while I’m having chemotherapy to talk about work

2. My boss is pressuring me to be more “visible”

I am the head writer at a 50-person company. For the last six months, my boss Adam has been encouraging me to be “more of a strategic leader” and more “visible.” What this seems to translate to is talking about and presenting to anyone who will listen about how amazing our writing is and what is happening in the writing industry. Adam would love me to be speaking up about all things writing in company meetings, to clients and in public forums.

I don’t want to!

I am a writer who was promoted to lead the team a few years ago. I have never pretended to want to be a public speaker, a salesman, or a PR. I know how to write well for my job, but I do not have a lot of wider industry knowledge to be able to speak as an expert.

Last year, I was off work for two months due to depression. The stress of a heavy workload was a catalyst for my ill health, and it then took many months to recover and feel like myself again. My boss was extremely understanding and continues to be mindful of my mental health and workload. I am now quieter overall and more keen to stay within my comfort zone. Some years ago in another job, I used to regularly present to 100+ people on a stage — I was good at it, but it was stressful. I would not want to return to public speaking (or increased “visibility”) in good health, let alone on the other side of this.

Now, today, my Big Boss Eve has said there is the opportunity to do a high-profile industry talk and it would be “soooo good” for me. Eve is aware of my mental health episode and has been sympathetic. How do I say no? I just want to play to my recognized strengths as a writer and manager. Help!

A lot of times managers assume you’ll be delighted to take on stuff like this, but will stop pushing it if you explain that you’re not. Not always, of course — sometimes the role really has changed in a way where the new responsibilities are now part of it, but if that’s the case it’s better to bring that into the open you can both figure out what to do about it. (In your case, I’m guessing it’s probably more the former than the latter, but who knows.)

Talk to Adam and say something like this: “You’ve mentioned a few times that you’d like me to talk about our work and present to clients and at meetings. While I’ve done that work in the past, it’s not an area I want to return to, especially given my health situation right now. I want to be up-front about that and find out if it will be a problem for this role.”

3. Is it okay to take a lot of vacation time when we’re understaffed?

In September 2021, I rejoined a company I previously worked at for nearly 10 years. Part of the negotiated agreement is that I am awarded the same vacation time as those with 10+ years.

During Covid, we were allowed to carry over more time than normal. I didn’t take a lot in 2022, because we were understaffed and very busy. As of 2023, I’m now left with way too much time to easily take, given the staffing and workload levels, and I don’t see either of those changing in the coming months.

I essentially need to take more than a week off every quarter to not lose any of my time, but I hate to leave my team to pick up the slack. And if I manage to do that, I’ll have a fully excessive amount of time to take off in 2024.

My boss and the president (her boss) are hesitating to fully staff the department. We need at least an intern, a digital/graphics specialist, and a generalist to cover excess workload/absences. Should I just schedule my time off as preferred, and leave the coverage to my supervisors, or do I need to take staffing levels into consideration? I don’t really care if my boss is inconvenienced, but the rest of the team are friends.

No, you don’t need to take your company’s staffing decisions into account when deciding whether to use your earned compensation. I get not wanting to inconvenience your coworkers, but your company’s staffing decisions are what’s inconveniencing them, not your own actions (just like you’re not inconveniencing your coworkers by taking your full salary even if it leaves less money for department spending). In fact, not taking your earned vacation time just makes it easier for your company to be in denial about its actual staffing needs.

Take your vacation time.

4. Shouldn’t we get premium pay for weekend work?

I’m in production engineering for a car company. Although we used to have a very complicated system of casual hours plus overtime during the week, overtime on Saturday, and double time on Sunday, that all went away with the recession of 2009. We had to fight our way through seven years of comp time and extended time hell until in 2016 they decided, hey, you guys AREN’T overtime-exempt after all, and now we get time and a half for anything over 40 hours.

With that behind us, I know that they can’t take overtime pay for overtime work away. They can have us only work 40 hours, and only get paid 40 hours, and that’s fine. The sneaky trick I am worrying about them revisiting is the dreaded “Your ‘weekend’ is now Wednesday and Thursday, so see you in here on Saturday and Sunday doing those weekend installs on straight time” dodge that they have done once before for several months.

The issue is this. Overtime pay is paid for hours over 40, but you are expected to be on the clock eight hours a day during the week. Thus, the weekend is always premium time. This jibes with the American concept of the weekend where you go and do things to have fun; your kids have ball games, you are going to a park, your family is hosting a cookout for your cousins, etc. Forcing you in on a weekend merits premium compensation, one way or the other.

So, how about it? Can a non-minimum-wage company force you to trade Saturday and Sunday for two days off during the week, even when weekends are regarded as premium time? Could they if they gave you three days off in the week as compensation?

There’s no legal requirement that weekends be treated differently than weekdays — employers aren’t required to pay you overtime for them (as long as your overall hours for the week don’t go over 40) or give you extra time off to make up for it. The law treats weekend shifts exactly like weekday shifts.

That said, your coworkers can certainly trying advocating for a weekend pay premium (and some companies offer that).

5. Is it awkward to reconnect with a contact right after she posted jobs I’m interested in?

I recently moved back to my hometown and have been working from home. I really liked my job, but our organization seems to be faltering a bit (not getting enough new business, some toxic leadership traits, too many departures). I was thinking about reconnecting with folks from my old network in my hometown who I’ve lost touch with over the past few years to kind of prepare for a future job search. Literally yesterday I thought to myself, “Oh, I should reach out to Elsa?” but I hadn’t sent the email yet. Today Elsa posted two separate jobs that I might really be interested in on LinkedIn. Should I just apply to one of the jobs and say some of what I might have said in my reconnect email in my cover letter? Should I send the reconnect email and hope she has time to chat and when we do see if that leads towards an invite to apply? Should I be more direct in my reconnect email that I also saw she posted some jobs I might be interested in? I was hoping to genuinely reconnect, but now it feels like asking for a job and I hate that.

You’re not asking for a favor — she posted saying she’s looking for people to do X, you do X, and it’s in your both of your interests to see if it would be a good match.

I think you’re feeling like it’s somehow rude to apply before you’ve reconnected separately, but it’s really not — this is how professional networks work! It’s very common to fall out of touch for a while and then get back in touch when it looks like your professional interests align again. These are business relationships; it’s different than in the social realm (where it would indeed be rude to, for example, reconnect with an old acquaintance solely because they have something you want like a lottery windfall or a summer home at the beach).

Go ahead and apply the way you normally would, and then send her an email letting her know that you did (exactly the same way you would with a business acquaintance who you’d be in more frequent contact with).

Thank you to our Bonnie Bees for making this video possible: https://www.patreon.com/cgpgrey

## Related Videos:

- Minnesota is Getting a New Flag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFwwo0W5Ugg

- Grey Grades Canada's Flags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7dgkMAyln0

- US Territory Flag Grades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyF_k4pPr0s

- Minnesota Flag Redesign First Impressions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nFfMlYDync

- Even more flags! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaQwC5QbLeQ&list=PLqs5ohhass_SArUYXqErRo4STzlzKLVp7

- FOREVER WEST! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnsDYouELCE

- Why Don't You Love Hawaii? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRYNeGY9NCE

## Bonnie Bees:

💚 The Wall of 1,000 Thanks: https://www.cgpgrey.com/wall-of-thanks

🎩🐔🎩 And the 100 Top Chickens:

- Bobby
- Bob Kunz
- Andrew Bereza
- Rebecca Wortham
- Donal Botkin
- BN-12
- George Lin
- Andrea Di Biagio
- David Tyler
- iulus
- Xueqi
- Katie Scheper
- Richard Jenkins
- Oliver Steele
- Phil Gardner
- Jeromy Johnson
- Martin
- Steven Grimm
- Colin Millions
- Andrew
- David White
- Tim Stumbaugh
- Alex Simonides
- Jason Lewandowski
- سليمان العقل
- Nicholas Welna
- rictic
- Bogdan Toma
- Brian Tillman
- Chad Bramwell
- jill hoffman
- Nicolas Dedual
- Nancy Flores
- Meekay
- Anthony Paolilli
- Dennis Dimka
- Daniel Kwak
- William Sasko
- Derek Bonner
- Mikko
- Orbit_Junkie
- Nick Muggio
- chrysilis
- Claire Lomax
- Drago175
- Eliri Santana DeHendrick
- Freddi Hørlyck
- John Rogers
- Veronica Peshterianu
- John Lee
- Maxime Zielony

On Friday, the staff and I had a big party to celebrate the revival of the Texas Observer at our offices in Austin. I wanted to share my remarks with the readers who saved our bacon. The staff and I couldn’t be more grateful. xoxo

---

On Sunday, I was playing hide-and-seek with our 95-proud Golden Retriever when I got a call from Sewell Chan, editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune. He sounded harried, urgent: “Gabe, I hate to mix business and friendship, but we have a 2,300-word story coming out. It’s sensitive. We’re being respectful and going into the full history. You’re in the story.”

I interrupted him. “What are you talking about?” 

Silence. 

“You don’t know?” 

“No, what?!” 

“The board voted to lay off the entire staff and cease publication immediately.”

The blood drained from my brain, and my vision blanked. I thought of the staff. Gus Bova has a baby Observerite on the way. Josephine Lee just quit her teaching job to be an investigative journalist. They’re going to find out they’re jobless with two days’ notice, and there’s no severance. 

Sewell asked me for a quote. I blurted something out. 

“Can you wait until I call the staff?” 

“No, I’m sorry.”

With dread in my heart, I started calling our team. I said I was sorry. I said I was sorry we had to find out that way. We were shocked and outraged. 

“Do they think they’re shutting down a Tesla plant?” one worker asked. 

We got the official news the next day. The board didn’t take any questions. Most members left the call as soon as the proclamation was read. A select group of sympathizers remained to talk. 

“I love this thing,” I said. 

We had a simple ask. We thank you for your support over the years. We know you’re tired. Give us the reigns. Let us try. 

And then we got to work. James Canup, who resigned in protest, set up a GoFundMe. Lauren Benavides drafted an email to our readers. Kit O’Connell jumped on Mastodon. Lise Olsen and Gayle Reaves started planning meetings. Ivan Flores started designing ads and merch. Bob Frump advised on strategy. The whole staff rolled up their sleeves. 

And I started doing one thing I’m good at: Opening my big mouth and talking to the media. 

When we said we wanted to try, one board member said, “Where are you going to get 200K?” 

The thing that non-journalists tend not to appreciate is that magazines are not a business. Well, they are, but they’re more than that. As I Tweeted:

This is not a WalMart you can just shut down. They don’t own the Texas Observer. None of us do. It’s an idea in the minds of our readers. Of the people who work here now. Of everyone who has worked here before. 

At the office, we like to say that “When Texas is at its worst, the Texas Observer is at its best.” 

Texas is a mess, y’all. Women are under attack. Queers and trans kids are under attack. People of color are under attack. Poor people are getting poorer. The old white dudes who run the state are trying to drive away anyone who isn’t straight, white, male, and Christian from Texas until only the craziest racists, queerphobes, misogynists, and Bible-thumpers remain. 

We can’t let them. This is our state. We need to speak and fight for those who can’t. To invite people of color and women and those affected by the awful Greg Abbott’s cruelty speak for themselves, too, in our pages. 

Texas needs an Observer. Democracy needs the Texas Observer. 

On Wednesday, the board voted to rescind the layoffs. We now have a new, fired-up board with both old and new energy. We’re moving forward together to make sure this thing is around in six months. That we’re here in another 69 years. 

The immediate crisis is over, but these are still dark times, and we need you. Sign up to subscribe. Sign up for our free newsletter. Get one of our t-shirts. Write me and tell me what you want to see in our pages. Stay with us. 

I’m exhausted. All of us are. 

But our hearts are full of gratitude to all of you. Thank you, from the core of my being, for believing in us. We’re still here today because of you. 

Let’s keep fighting, folks. 

The post The Texas Observer Lives! appeared first on The Texas Observer.

The City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts & Culture has opened the window for individual artists to submit an Intent to Apply to be considered for 2024 artist grants.

Since its establishment in 2022, the Individual Artist Project Grants, of $5,000 each, have been offered annually to artists who are San Antonio residents or who operate their art business/studio within the city limits. The purpose of the funds is to help expand local artists’ professional growth by supporting the creation of new works. As stipulated in the grant guidelines, the funds must go toward the public display or performance of an artwork in San Antonio between October 1, 2023 and April 30, 2025.

In a press release, the Department of Arts & Culture Director Krystal Jones said, “To date, more than 100 visual artists, performers, filmmakers, musicians, poets and multi-disciplinary artists have benefited from grants through this program. The outcome has been phenomenal. Not only have these artists created incredible art that is accessible to all, but a natural synergy has been developed between artists and nonprofits, non-traditional art spaces and other artists.”

Artists working in a variety of disciplines were among last year’s nearly 50 grantees, including multi-disciplinary visual artist Raul Rene Gonzalez, author and filmmaker Alex Ramirez, and photographer and digital journalist Bria Woods. The year before, for the inaugural 2022 awards, nearly 60 artists were chosen, including textile and installation artist Jenelle Esparza, sculptor Luis Valderas, and multimedia artist Sarah Fox.

Artists who live or work in San Antonio are encouraged to apply. According to the criteria, applicants must: have at least three years of relevant work experience or must have received specialized training in their craft; drive a portion of their income from their artist practice, areas related to their field, or demonstrate an investment of time and resources into the creation of new work; and have previously published or publicly displayed works.

The deadline for artists to submit their Intent to Apply, which includes a portfolio, bio, and contact information, is Friday, April 14, 2023 by 5 pm CDT. Applicants who meet the eligibility criteria will then be given access to the application. The final application deadline is Monday, May 1, 2023 at 5 pm CDT. Learn more and apply at the City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts & Culture website.

The post City of San Antonio Opens Call for 2024 Individual Artist Grants appeared first on Glasstire.

This article is part three of a multipart series. Click here to read Part One and Part Two. 

Readers, are you ready for our next adventure? After traveling around the western region of the state, let’s tour some of the post office murals of North Texas. 

We’ll start out west in Seymour, which calls itself “the crossroads of North Texas” due to its central location at the junction of five major highways. In the town’s old post office building is the 1942 mural Comanches by our friend from El Paso, Tom Lea. It’s painted in that classic Tom Lea style with which we’ve become acquainted (see his murals we visited in Odessa and El Paso). Lea has centered the composition around three mounted warriors galloping towards their next fight. The word Comanche derives from the Ute Indian word that means “enemy” or literally, “anyone who wants to fight me all the time.” In their native language, the Comanche take a different view, calling themselves Nʉmʉnʉʉ (nuh-muh-nuh), which means “the people.”

For those who know anything about Texas history, you’re probably familiar with the reputation of the Comanche people as the “lords of the plains” and as powerfully skilled with horses. Seymour is located in the region that, in the 18th and 19th centuries, was often referred to as Comanchería, or about 250,000 square miles of northwestern Texas (and adjacent states) that the Comanches dominated. Although the U.S. government eventually forced the Comanche out of Texas and into southwestern Oklahoma, where the Comanche Nation is today, the Comanches played an integral role in determining how and when the American West opened to settler colonialism. Think about it: Why did the French stop moving west from Louisiana? The Comanches. Why did the Spanish stop moving north from Mexico? The Comanches. In fact, it’s why the Mexican government allowed Stephen F. Austin and his group to settle in Texas in the first place — to act as a barrier between the Mexicans and the Comanches. 

Having written novels about the southwest, Lea was no stranger to the reputation of the Comanches. Lea explained his choice of subject matter: “The town [Seymour] is in the heart of the former marches of the wild Comanches; and any old timer’s eye will light up with a Comanche story at the mere mention of the name…Among all the wild and daring and skillful riders North America has seen, authorities place the Comanches at the top of the list. So it is natural to paint them [on] horseback — wild and free on the boundless plains in the early morning light.” The artist recognized the contributions of the Indigenous spirit to the conscience and character of the country, and celebrated the Comanches in his Seymour post office mural.

Next we travel east to Decatur. Whereas many of the post office murals I’ve visited so far are heavily populated with people and action, Ray Strong’s 1939 Texas Plains is all about the land, with a tiny mounted cowboy barely visible in the central foreground. His post office mural portrays the fundamental characteristics of the region’s environment. Strong preferred to paint plein-air, urging other artists to, “Look at the land! Get out, live in it! Sleep in it! Paint it!” In his Decatur mural, Strong captures the light, the color, and the geography of the area. 

Not a Texan by any means, Strong grew up in Oregon, studied at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (which became the the San Francisco Art Institute), and then at the Art Students League in NYC. Later in the 1930s he helped organize the Art Students League of San Francisco, where he taught with Maynard Dixon, who later became one of the premier artists of the American West. Strong is known for western landscapes, particularly of California, but in the case of the Decatur post office mural, he depicts the landscape of the Texas plains. Strong viewed the natural world as the essential ingredient for making art; his work responded to the world around him. Sometimes his landscape paintings were a means through which to highlight conservation and environmental issues.

In it’s seemingly endless, rolling landscape, topped with perfectly puffy clouds, Strong’s mural captures the vastness of the open plains of North Texas. Strong was intentional in his subject and composition. “From contact with the western country and small town folk I know they prefer a decoration with a living quality rather than too formal a decorative treatment of the space. The herd of beef will suggest a major industry of Texas, but my immediate concern about the design was to open up the small Post office lobby and give the person viewing it a sense of great space, sunlight and air.” Today the Decatur post office is a visitor center, which means rather than having 24/7 access, like a functioning post office, you have to catch the mural during business hours — but it’s worth the effort. 

Traveling out west a bit on I-20 we stumble across the tiny, quiet town of Ranger. Just off the main strip of downtown is the old post office building with Emil Bristtram’s 1939 mural, The Crossroads Town. 

You might not know it by looking at the Ranger mural, but Bisttram’s style ranged from the conventional representational classicism seen here to cosmic abstractions and nonobjective art. The Hungarian-born New Mexico artist had studied Diego Rivera’s fresco technique while visiting Mexico on a Guggenheim grant in 1931, and later cofounded the Taos School of Art. But today, Bisttram is considered one of the best-known members of the Transcendental Painting Group of New Mexico, which was devoted to non-objective painting with the intent to enhance one’s spiritual experience, exemplified in paintings with titles like The Oversoul, or Upward.

Bisttram tried his hand at enhancing the experience of the Ranger by depicting a peaceful scene of the townscape, while in reality the artist found Ranger to be a virtual ghost town. He used his artistic license to imagine the early days as a clean, prosperous place. Visiting Ranger today, it’s clear this small town used to have some life, likely from the boom of oil found nearby in 1918. Obviously this industry went bust since then, as the streets were nearly empty as I drove around town. 

A mere ten miles west on I-20 is the more bustling town of Eastland. Just beyond the adorable downtown square is the post office with Suzanne Scheuer’s 1938 mural, Indian Buffalo Hunt. Unlike many other post office murals, it doesn’t expand across the entire wall space above the postmaster’s door, which for me gave it the aura of a history painting rather than embedded decoration. The artist had respect and admiration for the American Indians, and paid tribute to Plains Indian sportsmanship in her Eastland mural. “I am interested in the American Indian and feel sympathetic towards that race of people which was so speedily eradicated by our present civilization. I believe that a reminder, even though it be in the form of a picture, to any one of us of the life in this country that preceded ours can do no harm, especially since that life, in its simplicity and harmony with nature, can be a lesson to us in many ways.” 

Scheuer was a California-based artist, studying at the California School of Fine Arts and the California School of Arts and Crafts. For her, art was intended to help us connect with and recognize the humanity in each other, to “make the world a more human dwelling place,” as James Baldwin would say. Because the Eastland mural feels somewhat subdued and unassuming, I was surprised to read about Scheuer’s strong and direct language as an outspoken critic, particularly for the 1930s, of the ways in which Indigenous people were treated. “I think it is well for us to be reminded at times of these people that have speedily been cleared away from their territory to make room for the ‘superior’ white man.” I have to say I agree with Scheuer, that reminders were and are needed, considering the U.S. government’s practices of ethnocide: erasing Native cultures, forcibly moving American Indians onto reservations, and the establishment of boarding schools with the intent to assimilate Indigenous children into American society. 

The subject matter of the Eastland mural is exactly what the title describes — a couple of Indigenous men hunting a scattered herd of bison. The colors are subtle, and the scene, though depicting violence, is rather muted, almost gentle. In the lower right corner is a little Texas horned toad. Legend has it that builders of the 1896 county courthouse placed a lizard, among other artifacts, into the cornerstone. Nearly 3 decades later in 1927, when officials opened the cornerstone after tearing down the building, they pulled out the dusty lizard. It was (supposedly) still alive! The reptile went on to become the town’s mascot, known as Ol’ Rip, and visited President Calvin Coolidge at the White House. Can you imagine? 

Let’s move east into the heart of the DFW metroplex with a visit to Arlington. Otis Dozier’s 1941 mural, Gathering Pecans, is an uplifting scene. Family members gather pecans, but it’s more than just an afternoon leisure activity. They’re on their hands and knees collecting buckets of pecans and have several large sacks full. When trying to decide what to paint (oscillating between the town’s cotton, pecan, and dairy industries), Dozier learned that during the 1930s the North Texas Agricultural College (now University of Texas at Arlington, though it was part of the Texas A&M University System at the time), offered a federally supported program for pecan propagation and orchard planning. Similar to how the federal government was supporting public projects like the post office murals, federal assistance for the pecan industry and agricultural economy benefited Arlington and its residents, like the family depicted in Dozier’s mural. 

A member of the Dallas Nine, Dozier was a Dallas-based artist, where he had studied with early Texas greats like Frank Reaugh and Vivian Aunspaugh. Dozier himself would later become an art teacher, both in Colorado Springs and Dallas. The Arlington mural exhibits a muted palette that viewers of Dozier’s work will see transform into brilliant hues later in his career. Likewise, his naturalistic figures and forms in this mural will morph into a more semi abstract style in later years.

A word to the wise traveler: this mural has moved since I first viewed it. The occupants of the Arlington post office building have changed over the years — most recently it was a branch of the Worthington National Bank. The Amon Carter Museum of American Art acquired the mural in 2017, removing it from the building and moving it to the museum, where it could undergo restoration. Last I checked, it hangs beautifully on display across from the museum store. 

We’ll end our North Texas travels in Fort Worth with Frank Mechau’s 1940 murals. For a city that embraces its slogan, “Where the West Begins,” the subject matter for the Fort Worth murals is fitting: folk heroes of the “wild west.” One mural depicts a couple of Texas Rangers among cowboys in a horse corral. With rifles in hand, they’re prepared for a potentially violent confrontation. The other mural shows the beginning of that confrontation with the legendary outlaw Sam Bass (random fact: the confrontation depicted, which ended in Bass’s death, took place in Round Rock, located over 170 miles south of Fort Worth). I suppose the subject is also fitting for a courtroom, where the law reinforces social order and justice. The Texas Rangers have long been seen as keepers of justice, but the agency’s history is much more complicated.

Recent scholarship has unveiled the dark side of the Rangers. While seen by many as defenders of the innocent, they also slaughtered many innocents, particularly among the Mexican and Mexican American population along the Texas-Mexico border, where police brutality at the hands of the Rangers was rampant, establishing their reputation as the Los Diablo Tejanos, the Texas devils. 

Frank Mechau (pronounced may-show) was a Colorado-based artist and avid painter of the American West, painting its landscapes, rodeos, oilfields, and wild horses. Having studied in both the U.S. and Europe, Mechau’s artistic influences ranged from Picasso’s cubism to the surrealism of Giorgio de Chirico to ancient Chinese painters. He is a master of line. Look at the sinuous curves of the horses’ tails in the Sam Bass composition.

Mechau is also the master of the public mural. He was awarded 11 commissions during the WPA art projects, the Fort Worth panels being the last of his New Deal murals. Because the Fort Worth murals are not only located in a federal court of appeals, but in an actual courtroom, one must get permission in advance from the presiding judge. Out of all the murals I’ve visited, it required the most effort to view (security nearly confiscated my camera). And I live here!

I hope you enjoyed this journey around North Texas. I’ll meet you down south next time, when we explore Central Texas via some of its post office murals. 

The post Texas Post Office Murals, Part III: North Texas appeared first on Glasstire.

VANCOUVER – The Vancouver-shot television show Yellowjackets has returned for another highly anticipated season and audiences are clambering to watch the horror that will unfold as a group of stranded American teenagers devolve into insane cannibals while experiencing a fairly typical Canadian winter. “Most Americans are just not prepared for Canadian winters,” says immigration expert […]

The post Yellowjackets tells harrowing tale of Americans trying to cope with Canadian winter appeared first on The Beaverton.

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Please consult yesterday's comments (we have comments now) for the excellent post by Hans Rickheit.

Today's News:

We have them, like it's the 90s again! Please don't be a dick - I would like to keep moderation light. Also, if you have mod experience, please email me.

null

The ACLU of Texas, the Houston NAACP and other groups say the takeover is a violation of the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.

The Austin real estate developer is central to allegations that his friend, Attorney General Ken Paxton, abused his office to help Paul’s business affairs.

🌎 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➡️ https://NordVPN.com/sabine It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee!

I recently learned there’s a new trend on social media: monk mode. It means cutting out distractions and going into self-isolation to become more productive. It’s supposedly based on science and particularly concerned with avoiding social media, because that’s addictive. But can social media really be addictive? Does the monk mode work? And what’s the science behind it? In this video, we'll sort it out.

👉 Transcript and References on Patreon ➜ https://www.patreon.com/Sabine
📩 Sign up for my weekly science newsletter. It's free! ➜ https://sabinehossenfelder.com/newsletter/
🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1yNl2E66ZzKApQdRuTQ4tw/join

00:00 Intro
00:41 What Is Monk Mode?
03:18 What Is A Dopamine Addiction?
05:51 How Does Dopamine Work?
10:00 Can You Get Addicted to Social Media?
13:37 Summary
14:25 Protect Your Privacy With NordVPN

#science #mentalhealth

In the first half of March, three banks - Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Silvergate - all had relatively classic bank runs and collapsed. Which sparked some major banking stress. As a result, the Federal Reserve got a lot of requests to use one of its oldest and most important tools for soothing such troubles: the discount window.

The discount window is like a safety net for banks. And recently, a lot of banks have needed it. So, what is the discount window, where did it come from, and how does it work? And, amidst all the recent banking turmoil, has it been working the way it should? In this episode, we crack open the discount window.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee with help from Willa Rubin. It was engineered by Katherine Silva. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and edited by Sally Helm. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

For those asking how you can support the Internet Archive, there will be a rally on the steps of the Internet Archive on Saturday, April 8 @ 11am PT.

Learn more & sign up

Reposted from https://actionnetwork.org/events/dont-delete-our-books-rally-in-san-francisco

Rally for the digital future of libraries!

The nonprofit Internet Archive is appealing a judgment that threatens the future of all libraries. Big publishers are suing to cut off libraries’ ownership and control of digital books, opening new paths for censorship and surveillance. If this ruling is allowed to stand, it will result in:

— Increased censorship or even deletion of books, decided only by big publishing shareholders
— Big Tech growing its overreach into library patron’s data, making people unsafe by monitizing intimate personal information on what they read or research
— Even more predatory licensing fees from Big Media monopolies, who are gobbling up public and school library budgets
— Reduced access to books for people from every community
— Losing libraries as preservers of vast swaths of history and culture, because they will never be allowed to own and preserve digital books

More information is available at BattleForLibraries.com. The organizers of that website are holding a rally at the Internet Archive on Funston St in San Francisco on Saturday, April 8, 2023 at 11 am.

All are welcome. Bring signs (we’ll also have some to share!) and join us to stand up for the rights of libraries to own and preserve books—whether they’re digital or print.

Can’t make it to the rally?

You can still participate & show your support for the digital rights of libraries in the following ways:

•  Get live updates from the rally at #DigitalRightsForLibraries

•  Make & share a rally sign & tag @internetarchive on social media
  Need a suggestion? Try: 
  Internet Archive is a Library For Everyone!
  eBooks are Books

•  Join the Battle for Libraries to stand up for all libraries.

The post Don’t Delete Our Books! Rally appeared first on Internet Archive Blogs.

In order to PUT AN END TO THE INJUSTICE perpetrated by Manhattan District Attorney ALVIN BRAGG’s recent INDICTMENT of our BELOVED LEADER, MAGA PATRIOTS can now DONATE HERE to HELP PROTECT OUR BEAUTIFUL PRESIDENT TRUMP. The BEST PRESIDENT THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER HAD is under ATTACK by a POLITICALLY MOTIVATED WITCH HUNT…

Read more...

Read more...

PALM BEACH, FL—Pushing a hastily packed steamer trunk filled with clothes and money aboard his yacht before setting sail for the open seas, a desperate Donald Trump reportedly fled Friday for the remote island of Manhattan. “It’ll be a long journey—almost 10 days, by my count—but they’ll never think to look for me…

Read more...

PALM BEACH, FL—Responding to the news that the Manhattan District Attorney had indicted him over payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, former President Donald Trump denounced the move Friday, telling reporters, “All arrests are politically motivated, as the legal system is the codified exercise of political…

Read more...

NEW YORK—Explaining that the matter could at long last be put to rest, the nation’s major news outlets announced Thursday that this week’s indictment of the former president would finally close the chapter on media coverage of Donald Trump. “Now that he’s been indicted, Mr. Trump can’t possibly have any future in…

Read more...

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

Donald Trump has been indicted for allegedly paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. To test your knowledge of the case, see if you can guess which sordid details are true and which ones are made up.

1. What happened in 2006?
A. Donald Trump met porn actress Stormy Daniels at a charity golf tournament.

B. Stormy and Trump allegedly had sex in his Lake Tahoe hotel room.

C. Melania Trump gave birth to Barron.

D. During an appearance on the Howard Stern Show, Stern joked that Donald Trump was a sexual predator, and Trump replied, “That’s true.”

E. Trump told the co-hosts of The View, “I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

F. All of the above, although I wish I were making even one of them up.

2. What did Stormy Daniels say about their sexual encounter?
A. They had generic sex and Trump did not wear a condom.

B. He compared Stormy to his daughter Ivanka.

C. He asked Stormy to spank him with a Forbes magazine.

D. He appeared on the cover of that same spanking Forbes magazine with two of his children, Ivanka and Don Jr.

E. Once again, and sadly, all of the above.

3. After the Lake Tahoe affair, what did Trump do?
A. He stayed in touch with Stormy for about a year.

B. He said that he would get Stormy on The Apprentice and rig the show for her to win.

C. He said that he would get Stormy a condo in Florida.

D. You guessed it: all of the above.

4. Wait, this is the same guy beloved by American Christian Evangelists, right?
A. Yes, they call him a “miracle.”

B. Yes, they worship him more than Jesus.

C. Yes, but no surprises there as this movement has a history of aligning with racism.

D. It’s one of the saddest aspects of this whole era, but all of the above.

5. Okay, what happened in 2011?
A. Stormy Daniels tried to sell the Trump affair story to celeb magazine Life & Style for $15K.

B. The tabloid In Touch magazine got ready to publish a 5,000-word interview with Stormy Daniels about her affair with Trump.

C. Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen threatened to sue Life & Style.

D. Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen threatened to sue In Touch magazine.

E. Life & Style and In Touch killed their Stormy stories.

F. A man approached Stormy Daniels and her infant daughter in a Las Vegas car park and told her to, “Leave Trump alone… That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.”

G. All. Of. The. Above.

6. In Touch magazine? I thought it was the National Enquirer.
A. No, you’re thinking of how the National Enquirer conspired with Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign to buy the story about Trump’s affair with Karen McDougal and then kill the story so that the affair wouldn’t hurt his campaign. I bet you forgot about Karen McDougal, didn’t you?

B. No, the National Enquirer publisher offered to buy the rights to the McDougal story and also to other stories that might hurt Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and then not publish them—a practice known as “catch and kill.”

C. The National Enquirer’s publisher was named David Pecker.

D. Seriously, his name was David Pecker. Also: all of the above.

7. The National Enquirer? I thought it was Access Hollywood?
A. No, you’re thinking of the Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump said, “I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden, I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything.”

B. No, you’re thinking of the Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump said, “I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it.”

C. No, you’re thinking of the Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump said, “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

D. I remind you that this is still the same guy beloved by American Christian Evangelists, who make up the base of his supporters. And, obviously, all of the above.

8. Why is Trump being indicted again?
A. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen set up an LLC shell company to secretly pay people off on behalf of Trump, and used this account to pay Stormy Daniels $130K, once again to keep the story about the affair quiet.

B. Michael Cohen said that Trump didn’t know about the payment.

C. In May 2018, Donald Trump’s other lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show and said that his client, the President of the United States, did, in fact, know about the payment.

D. In December 2018, American President Donald Trump also admitted to knowing about the payment to Stormy Daniels.

E. It’s anyone’s guess. Was the reimbursement to Michael Cohen made from campaign funds? Did Trump falsify business records when he reimbursed Cohen? Was there money laundering involved? The indictment is sealed, so we won’t know the exact charge until next week.

F. Whatever happens, we’ll always have Rudy’s astonishing incompetence on that Hannity interview, not to mention the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference. Oh, right, we’re still doing this part: all of the above.

9. How will all this affect the 2024 election?
A. Trump is already fundraising off the right-wing outrage over this indictment.

B. Trump is claiming victimhood, his favorite role, to drum up support from his grievance-addicted-white-people-are-the-real-victims supporters.

C. All the Republicans are rallying around Trump, and not one of them cares that he broke the law.

D. They also don’t seem to care that Trump is going on trial for allegedly raping E. Jean Carroll.

E. This is the same man that took away women’s reproductive rights in the United States.

F. The January 6th crowd is preparing for a civil war because Donald Trump cheated on Melania and paid a porn star hush money?

G. I hate it here. I genuinely wish I had made any of these up. Anyway, yep, of course, all of the above.