The FDIC exists to help the banking system cope with exactly the type of crisis we're now seeing: When it was created in 1933, some 4,000 banks had closed in the first few months alone.
If the case succeeds, it could have sweeping repercussions — for abortion providers and patients across the nation, as well as for the FDA's drug-approval process.
T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said the telecom giant would use its size and resources to "supercharge" Mint, which is best known for ads starring the actor who is part owner of the smaller company.
(Image credit: Lisa O'Connor/AFP via Getty Images)
Correction to what I say at 2:24 -- If you look sharply at the colour code, the transition temperature in the graph DROPS with increasing pressure, contrary to what I say. The explanation in the text of the paper is: "Tc... increases with pressure from 171 K at around 5 kbar until it peaks at 294 K at around 10 kbar. The 10-kbar turning point in the superconducting dome is followed by a reduction in Tc to approximately 200 K before about 30 kbar." -- Ie, what I say isn't exactly wrong, but doesn't fit to the figure. Sorry about that :/
Today we’ll talk about a potential breakthrough in room temperature superconductivity, new clues about the origin of water on Earth, the best ever model of our geological past, a recent report on academic freedom, an image of the moon taken with a meta-lens, hybrid coral reefs, a new institution dedicated to finding the origin of life in the universe, the first cross-country storage for carbon dioxide, and of course, the telephone will ring.
00:00 Intro 00:34 Superconductor Breakthrough -- Again 04:29 New Clues About the Origin Of Water 07:24 Best Ever Model Of Geological Past 08:37 Academic Freedom Index 2023 11:40 Moon Photographed With Meta-lens 14:02 Hybrid Coral Reefs in Miami 15:10 Founding of the Origins Federation 16:57 Carbon Storage Opens in Denmark 18:22 Nautilus Special Offer
The state-appointed managers will hold immense power. They can control the budget, school closures, collaborations with charter networks, policies around curriculum and library books, as well as hiring or firing the superintendent, among other important decisions.
Today was supposed to be just a stunning day. Ultimately, it will be, but thanks to some controlled burns in southwest Louisiana it’s starting off poorly. I didn’t intend to start with a science lesson this morning, but here we are.
Why is the air quality bad this morning?
In a nutshell: There’s smoke trapped near the ground leading to poor air quality. It will improve later this morning. If you want the rest of the forecast, scroll down. If you want to understand why there’s smoke this morning, read on.
Air quality this morning is abysmal, in the unhealthy for sensitive groups or even a bit worse.
Air quality (PM 2.5) this morning (as of 6:30) is unhealthy across most of the Houston area away from the coast. (Purple Air)
Why? Yesterday afternoon, there were several controlled burns noted on radar in southwest Louisiana.
Radar from about 1:30 PM on Tuesday showed at least 3 fires underway on either side of Lake Charles, presumably controlled burns. (RadarScope)
Because our low-level winds are coming from the east and we have an inversion in place (more on that below), that smoke cannot escape into the upper atmosphere and disperse, so it stays at ground level. I ran a backwards trajectory model (called HYSPLIT) starting at 3 PM on Tuesday and ending at 7 AM this morning. In simple terms: I wanted to see where the air we have now came from yesterday afternoon. On the map below, Houston is the black star and the red line indicates where the air came from. The plot below shows how high up in the atmosphere it came from. You can see that the air down near the surface this morning originated from northeast Louisiana, descending to only a few hundred feet above ground level in southwest Louisiana and ending up over Houston this morning.
This morning’s air came from Louisiana, likely picking up lingering smoke from yesterday’s controlled burns and depositing it over Houston this morning. (NOAA)
All that smoke is “trapped” under an atmospheric inversion. Normally, you hear us talking about a “capping inversion,” or just cap during days where severe weather is possible. The “cap” basically puts a lid on how tall clouds can grow. It’s the same concept here, except the inversion is close to ground level. In other words, what ends up near the surface stays near the surface instead of being able to escape into the higher atmosphere.
An inversion is trapping the smoke near the surface. As temperatures warm, the inversion will weaken, allowing the smoke to dissipate. (Pivotal Weather)
As temperatures warm up after sunrise, that inversion will dissipate, and the smoke will dissipate with it, leading to a much nicer setup by late morning.
Today (rest of the forecast)
Sunny. Once the smoke clears, it’ll be great. Low-70s. Modest, relatively low humidity for Houston. Tough to argue that. If you want something to complain about today besides smoke, look to the wind. Gusts of 20 to 25 mph will be possible, especially along the coast, so that may annoy some people. Tough to argue that also.
One thing I want to briefly highlight today in concert with our friends at the NWS Houston office are rip currents. Many of you may be in Galveston or other coastal locales for spring break. Please, please use caution if you head into the water.
There will be a high rip current risk on Wednesday, as well as possibly Thursday on the Gulf Coast. Please use caution while swimming. (NWS Houston)
Rip currents can catch even the most experienced swimmers off-guard, so please emphasize safety over the next couple days.
Meanwhile, at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, you’re in luck. Again. If you’ll be heading to see Kenny Chesney tonight, you can expect around 70 degrees on your way in, with temperatures only falling a bit during the show. Look for no worse than mid-60s on your way home. That breeze will continue a bit as well.
Thursday
Tomorrow poses some forecast challenges. The morning looks fine. We’ll have a good bit of cloud cover around, but no real issues are expected. Temperatures will probably bottom out before sunrise, warming through the 60s and into the 70s by mid-morning. During the afternoon, we’ll likely be in a favorable spot for showers and thunderstorms to develop well out ahead of Friday’s cold front.
Houston is in a slight risk (level 2/5) for severe weather tomorrow, with the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex at higher risk. (NOAA)
What does that mean for us? Well, there is a bit of a cap (see the smoke section above if you don’t know what that means) still in place tomorrow, so that will limit our severe chances a bit, especially south of I-10. To the north, less capping means a better chance that storms can fire up tomorrow afternoon. Any storm that can get going tomorrow has a chance to become strong to severe with strong winds, hail, or even a brief tornado possible. Again, the highest odds of this occurring will be north of the Houston area but close enough to keep an eye on things.
In addition to storms, it will be another breezy day tomorrow, even more than we see today. Look for onshore winds of 20 to 30 mph through much of Thursday afternoon.
Thursday night and Friday
Once Thursday afternoon’s storms exit, we’ll await the front. That is likely to push through between midnight and sunrise on Friday. During Thursday evening, we’ll likely have some showers around. But around midnight or a bit after, a squall line of heavy rain and thunderstorms will push through. You can never entirely rule out a severe storm with those, thought our main issues will be lightning, heavy rain, and gusty winds I think. More on this tomorrow.
Friday itself will be much cooler and continued breezy, with northerly, offshore winds of 20 to 25 mph and temperatures generally holding in the 50s from predawn through most of, if not all of the day.
Total rainfall from Thursday and Friday’s storms will likely be a half inch or less south of I-10 and an inch or so north of I-10, although varying amounts are likely, both higher and lower than that. (Pivotal Weather)
Total rainfall from our front and storm system looks to be about an inch or less for most, but it will vary with higher amounts north and lower amounts south.
Weekend
So, this weekend looks intriguing. In terms of weather impacts, it looks minimal: It’s going to be mostly cloudy, chilly, and breezy most of the weekend. Expect lows in the 30s and 40s and highs in the 50s both days. If that’s all you need, skip ahead. Otherwise…
Meteorology geek-out: I am interested though to see if we can’t squeeze some showers out the passing rising air over our area, especially on Sunday. We’ve got some leftover “noise” and a stronger than normal jet stream in the upper atmosphere in the wake of Friday’s front. If we can produce enough lift in the atmosphere, we may be able to start squeezing out some precipitation. Given how cold it is aloft (temperatures at 5,000 feet over our heads will be running 20 degrees colder than normal) and how dry the air is, it’s entirely possible that we see ice pellets falling in any better organized showers on Saturday or Sunday, even with temperatures in the 40s or 50s. We’ll speculate more on that tomorrow or Friday.
Early next week
It would appear that we get one more reinforcing shot of cold air via another storm and front on Monday. Modeling has been indicating that in parts of interior Texas, even some snow or sleet could mix in with the rain. Again, we’ll cover that more later this week should it become more of an issue. But that’s probably not for the Houston area. Just expect a dreary, chilly Monday, followed by a milder and more pleasant Tuesday. We have a shot at 80 degree weather again by Thursday.
SAN DIEGO—Saying this was the sort of sweetheart deal that he wouldn’t give his own mother, a fast-talking Joe Biden reportedly upsold Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on two extra nuclear submarines this week, but emphasized that he had to sign today. “Look, Tony—cool if I call you Tony, right?—you seem…
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is the largest failure of a financial institution since Washington Mutual went under in 2008. The Onion asked tech moguls how they felt about the bank’s failure, and this is what they said.
Margaret Atwood's first collection of short stories in almost a decade is a dazzling mixture of tales showcasing her imagination and humor — and exploring everything from love to the afterlife.
A major bank in Silicon Valley experienced a bank run and failed. Fearing a cascading catastrophe in tech and banking, the government stepped in to prevent contagion.
Yesterday ended up being an absolutely spectacular day for most of the area, except perhaps southwest of Galveston, which hung on to clouds. We maxed out at 71° officially at Bush Airport, making Monday our coolest day since February 18th! Today will be even cooler, as we battle some cloud cover. And we’re still watching a pretty good chance of some very cool air this weekend.
Today
For Houston proper, today looks like a decent day. About 20,000 feet up today, a weak disturbance is going to cross the northern half of Texas, rotating around the base of a trough that’s helping supply a major snowstorm for the interior Northeast.
A disturbance passing through North Texas will bring a few clouds and slightly cooler air today. (Tropical Tidbits)
That disturbance won’t do much more than give us a few extra clouds and slightly cooler temperatures today, especially north of Houston. Based on morning satellite imagery, I’m not super impressed by the cloud cover this morning, so the day should start decent at the least. Highs will peak in the lower half of the 60s north of Houston and the upper half of the 60s south of Houston. We could do 70 or so from about Sugar Land south and west or anywhere that avoids clouds. The best chance for a shower or some sprinkles would be along or north of Highway 105, but we are probably talking meager stuff overall.
Bring a light JKT if you’re checking out MGK tonight at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo. Mid-60s or so walking in and near 60 as you head home. No weather woes again.
Wednesday
Between our current weather and the stronger onshore flow ahead of our next front, we get Wednesday, which looks just sublime. Chamber of commerce type weather, with sunshine, morning lows in the 50s and upper-40s (near 60 at the coast), then just mild and pleasant with low to mid-70s and Goldilocks humidity levels…not too dry, not too humid. Enjoy!
Thursday & Friday
On Thursday, you’ll notice the onshore flow increasing. Humidity will be going up, there will be more clouds, and we’ll likely see temperatures quite mild in the morning (60s), warming into the 70s to near 80° again on Thursday afternoon. A few showers or a thunderstorm are possible on Thursday, especially to the north and west of Houston.
The primary cold front that will be impacting us comes through Friday morning. Ahead of it, expect showers and thunderstorms to be likely. While locally heavy rain and locally strong storms are possible, we aren’t expecting any serious or widespread severe weather at this time. It could get a bit noisy late Thursday night and Friday morning though. We’ll continue to keep an eye on this in case things change.
Rain totals from Thursday and Friday’s storms are likely to reach 1 to 3 inches across a chunk of the area. Not everyone will see that much, but most places should see at least some rainfall. (Pivotal Weather)
The big question on Friday is how much clearing we see. I think we’ll remain cloudy into early afternoon right now, but then possibly filter in some sunshine from northwest to southeast before day’s end. Friday’s high temperature will probably occur around or just after midnight, near 70 degrees, falling into the mid-50s by morning. Maybe we can warm to near 60 degrees Friday afternoon, but that would be quite optimistic.
One thing you’ll also notice Thursday and Friday? The wind. Gusts of 25 to 35 mph are likely across the area, with stronger winds possible over the water.
Weekend
Perhaps this will be our final real winter-like weekend of the season. Temperatures should bottom out in the 40s on Saturday morning, with some 30s possible north and west. We do not expect freezing temperatures, however. During the day, however, it will feel very un-March like. Our average high this time of year is up to the mid-70s. We may struggle to get into the mid-50s on Saturday with a lot of clouds and maybe a few pockets of light rain or drizzle.
Temperatures are going to be running 15 to 25 degrees or even more below normal values on Saturday afternoon across Texas. (Pivotal Weather)
Sunday will only be marginally warmer with morning lows again in the 40s mostly, daytime highs in the 50s, and a mix of clouds and sun. Another system is pegged for Monday before we warm up a good bit next week. More on all that tomorrow and Thursday.
The Fondren Library at Rice University in Houston recently acquired a functional replica of Romantic English polymath William Blake’s printing press. Mr. Blake (1757-1827) gained posthumous notoriety for his paintings, poems, and prints, which often appeared together in ornate illuminated books hand-bound by the artist. Though in his time he was dismissed as a bit of a madman, today he is widely considered one of the most noteworthy figures in British history. The replica printing machine, a star-wheel copper-plate rolling press, joins an extensive collection of Mr. Blake’s work already at Rice. Upon the press’s arrival from its prior home at Christ Church, Oxford, the Fondren Library is now the only place in North America where such an object exists.
Detail from “The Ancient of Days,” a design by William Blake originally published as the frontispiece to his 1794 work “Europe: A Prophecy.” Photo: Brandon Martin.
The press was built by printmaker and scholar Michael Phillips, whose website sells replicas of some of Mr. Blake’s most famous illuminated works. According to his bio, Mr. Phillips is an Emeritus Fellow at the interdisciplinary Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York with over 30 years of research into Mr. Blake’s materials and processes.
His replica prints and plates have been collected by institutions including the Pierpont Morgan Library, Victoria University Library, University of Toronto Special Collections, Union College Library, Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections at Northwestern University, King’s College, Cambridge, Eton College Library, and the British Library. In a press release from Rice, Mr. Phillips explained some of the significance of Mr. Blake’s practice:
For 400 years, conventionally, the printing of an illustrated book required two completely different kinds of printing workshops, each one having numbers of specialists for each stage of the process. Blake’s invention brought all of that into one — not only for writing the poems and drawing the design, but from the method of reproducing them. Apart from the copper plate and the paper, Blake was responsible for every stage in the creation and reproduction of his works — even stitching the leaves into paper wrappers and selling them to his customers.
Replica of William Blake’s printing press
The press was unveiled to the public on March 1, and can now be visited in the Fondren Library’s Woodson Research Center. The acquisition was spearheaded by professor of English Alexander Regier and Vice Provost and University Librarian Sara Lowman. Mr. Regier, whose published works include 2019’s Exorbitant Enlightenment: Blake, Hamann, and Anglo-German Constellations, has a previous working relationship with Mr. Phillips. The idea to bring the press to Houston originated several years ago after the two scholars met in Oxford to discuss Mr. Blake’s printing process.
Mr. Reiger said the press “makes real and tangible many things that you often only hear about in theory in the classroom.” He can be seen discussing Mr. Blake’s prints and their presence in Rice’s collection in a YouTube video produced by Brandon Martin for the University in 2019.
For more information on how to view the press, check the Rice Library website.
Installation view of”Kaleidoscope Eyes” by Mara Held and Julia Kunin at McClain Gallery, Houston.
It felt like I was being lured in by an angler fish. The psychedelic and captivating beauty of Kaleidoscope Eyes at McClain Gallery lulled me into a state of visual hypnosis. I was fully entranced by the perfect pairing of Mara Held’s radiant, spiraling, and tessellated paintings, and Julia Kunin’s shimmering, oil slick, and fluorescent ceramic forms. As if waking from a dream, I slowly became aware of references to art history, spirituality, and music — the title of the show comes from a line in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by The Beatles. The psychedelic and lyrical energy is accentuated with lines and edges that permeate these objects, creating caverns, windows, and pools for meditation and contemplation. These are timeless works that feel at once ancient and futuristic, unplaceable yet undeniable.
Installation view of”Kaleidoscope Eyes” by Mara Held and Julia Kunin at McClain Gallery, Houston.
Angler fish are dangerous; beneath the vibrant veneer of these objects lies something murky, mysterious, and alive. I feel this most viscerally from the serpentine pairing of Kunin’s Le Boulon and Held’s Straight Lines 15. Referencing The Bolt, a work by 18th-century painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Kunin’s coiling ceramic sculpture, constructed with conjoined padlocks, is similarly about the thrill and potential risk of romance. Held’s painting of a swirling, convoluting form is composed entirely of small, straight lines. This humorous and irreverent work also signals the perils of believing what we are told, over what we see and experience, in art and in the world more broadly.
Installation view of”Kaleidoscope Eyes” by Mara Held and Julia Kunin at McClain Gallery, Houston.
Towards the back of the gallery, past a sea of scholar’s rocks and kaleidoscopic paintings, there is a kind of sanctuary, with another flawless pairing of works. Held’s Autumn 3 and Kunin’s Copper Machine Dreams are bursting with shared echoes and ripples. Both works are almost symmetrical, somewhere between geometric and organic abstraction. Mirrored in Held’s diptych and in Kunin’s wall-mounted sculpture are circular, triangular, and linear shapes, which form edges and barriers. Egg tempera and gouache paint and rare Hungarian glazes lap the shores of these barriers. The resulting effervescent spaces become folds, vessels, and relics of some ancient and forgotten language, or cogs in a futuristic machine.
Mara Held, “Autumn 3,” 2018, egg tempera on linen over panel, 9 x 24 1/2 inches.
The synchronicity of this two-person exhibition is almost unbelievable, especially given that most of the works were made before any discussion of showing together. Kaleidoscope Eyes is a radiant and hypnotic symphony of repeating, spiraling, and undulating forms, effortlessly harmonized. These are primal, symbolic, and sublime works, riddled with references, and overflowing with spaces to store our memories and desires.
Julia Kunin, “Copper Machine Dreams,” 2017, ceramic, 56 x 24 x 3 1/2 inches.
Kaleidoscope Eyes is on view at McClain Gallery through May 6, 2023.
A work from Gina Gwen Palacios’ exhibition “Vale la Pena/It’s Worth It,” on view at the Branigan Cultural Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Photo: Hannah Dean.
In the heart of Las Cruces, New Mexico’s vibrant downtown sits the Branigan Cultural Center, a charming adobe museum with a bright red door. Recently, my daughter and I made a day trip to the institution to see Gina Gwen Palacios’s Vale La Pena/It’s Worth It, an exhibition of multimedia cardboard and painted portraits of the artist’s own family and their experience as migrant workers along the south Texas/Mexico border.
Palacios presents a specific personal history, like the reference to her hometown of Taft, Texas. A cardboard sign boasting the slogan “Friendliest Cotton Pickin’ Town in Texas” sits above three figures — Palacios’s grandmother, father, and tia (aunt). The artist left their faces blank, but stained the color of the cardboard using oil, leaving the portrait ambiguous. Many of the large cardboard works leave the figures “open” in this way by abstracting, obscuring, or completely omitting the individual features of the people portrayed, blending the person into the background of the piece. This mother and her children represent generations who lived and worked as migrant farm laborers — treated as outsiders in a place they may have inhabited for centuries.
There is a desolation in the aesthetics of the show, with humble shapes of cardboard casting shadows and silhouettes. The color palette is by no means dull — the patterns and cuts that create each slice of an ear holding back hair, a linoleum floor, the pattern of a dress, or the clasp of an overall are masterful and overwhelmingly delicate. By merging the individual into their settings, there is a nod to liminal space and borders, but even more a strong acknowledgment of a laborer’s body being swallowed up by the sun, the earth, or rather, land, which implies ownership.
A work from Gina Gwen Palacios’ exhibition “Vale la Pena/It’s Worth It,” on view at the Branigan Cultural Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Photo: Hannah Dean.
Borders shift and change — what is now Taft, Texas was formerly the ranch of the half-brother of President Taft. Before that, it was a settlement of Mexican-government granted land for Irish settlers. Before that, the Lipan Apache (a group with a massive territory that also assimilated other groups) had settled what is now New Mexico and Texas since the 1300s. Borders designate ownership and place, but they also have rote, practical functions — something that was easy to forget when the “build the wall” slogan has become a mantra for xenophobia.
Words are a core feature of this new tribalism. For instance, in researching Taft, the website for the Texas State Historical Association describes the Mexican army as an “ever present menace” in the newly developed San Patricio county. Palacios neatly points to these tensions of a new United States in her work — especially in Cotton-Pickin’, where her grandmother poses with her children in front of the Taft town welcome sign — and it’s easy to assume this is a gesture of belonging to this community. The sign itself has a defunct “S” in the word “Friendliest,” which is carved sliding down the sign itself, a nod to the attention to detail Palacios imbues in her work. Colloquially, the phrase “cotton pickin’” has overtly racist origins, and is typically used as a euphemism for the word “damn,” or is often used with derogatory intent. This restrained and minimal artwork is layered and loaded with meaning, with Palacios’s adept hand twisting the gears of critical thought.
A work from Gina Gwen Palacios’ exhibition “Vale la Pena/It’s Worth It,” on view at the Branigan Cultural Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Photo: Hannah Dean.
In the pieces that depict home life, both titled Esperando/Esperanza I and II (Waiting/Hoping), young girls gaze off to the side, heavy with expectation. The same tyvek curtain appears in both pieces — in the first it is tied back to expose an equally black view outside as inside the room, in which Palacios’s grandmother sits on a suitcase. A small crucifix and patterned floor are the only visual cues to the interior of the home. The young lady’s Mary Jane shoes and ankle socks lend a feeling of youth, along with her leg casually weighted and bent at the ankle. Just like in Esperando/Esperanza II, the natural repose and body language of the seated figures gives these pieces an air of timeliness, being of the now, rather than distant history.
A work from Gina Gwen Palacios’ exhibition “Vale la Pena/It’s Worth It,” on view at the Branigan Cultural Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Photo: Hannah Dean.
Material use in the show speaks volumes. The hand-carved cardboard, cotton, and charcoal bear meaning and mood. In Hermana y Hermano (Sister and Brother), the posterized cuts that depict the faces of Palacios’s father and tia imply intense sunlight bearing down on the children as they pose for a photo in their cotton clothing (to which the artist gave immense attention in comparison to the person they adorn). While made of small fluffy clouds against the black surface of the work, the clothing holds weight. The overarching theme of exploitation of migrant workers is constant throughout the exhibition — and the clothing that overwhelms each child’s figure easily speaks to the continued exploitation of people through the fast fashion industry. While Palacios’s work is specific to the southern U.S./MX border, the themes she addresses also touch a nerve globally.
A work from Gina Gwen Palacios’ exhibition “Vale la Pena/It’s Worth It,” on view at the Branigan Cultural Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Photo: Hannah Dean.
The inclusion of oil paintings on canvas enhances the feeling of intense sunlight cascading down upon the exposed hands and faces of farm laborers. This harsh light comes through in one small painting, Mezquite, with hot pink and orange light playing upon the twisting branches of a mesquite thicket. This painting puts forth notions of shade, respite, or peace in contrast to heat, sweat, or a tangle of thorns. Palacios, through her own family history and archives, shows us the space between othering and belonging, narrative and place, importance and dismissal — themes that permeate the cultural heritage and future of our borderlands and our country.
Vale La Pena/It’s Worth It is on view at the Branigan Cultural Center at the Las Cruces Art Museum through March 25, 2023
Los Angeles-based artist Eamon Ore-Giron will produce a new artwork for Landmarks, the University of Texas at Austin’s public art program. The piece, called Tras los ojos (Behind The Eyes), is a 15 1/2-by-13-foot digital print based on a painting Landmarks commissioned from the artist. Beginning in late April, the mural-sized print will be on view within the main lobby of the Sarah M. & Charles E. Seay Building on the University’s main campus in Austin.
Eamon Ore-Giron, “Tras los ojos.” Image courtesy Landmarks.
Mr. Ore-Giron, who was born in Arizona and has an MFA from the University of California at Los Angeles, has developed a reputation for his abstract paintings. The works were described by Landmarks in a press release as references to “indigenous and Latin American craft traditions, as well as 20th-century avant-garde movements such as Russian Suprematism and the Dutch De Stijl movement.”
Landmarks Founding Director and Curator Andreé Bober called Mr. Ore-Giron “one of the most interesting artists working today” and said “the blended cultures represented in both Eamon’s life and art are a fitting reflection of the communities [Landmarks] serve[s].”
In Mr. Ore-Giron’s words, the piece considers “the scientific and emotional dimensions of our visual perception and how a work of art can function to enhance public space and contribute to an individual’s sense of purpose or belonging.”
The commission comes on the heels of Mr. Ore-Giron’s solo exhibition down the road at the Contemporary Austin, which opened on March 3 and runs until August 20. To correspond with the debut of Tras los ojos (Behind The Eyes), Landmarks has scheduled a free public conversation between the artist, UT art history professor C. Ondine Chavoy, and Landmarks curatorial contributor Florencia Portocarrero. The talk will be held on April 27 at 6 pm on the Contemporary Austin’s Jones Center Rooftop.
Throughout April there will also be free public screenings of Subterranean Homesick Cumbia_Remix, a video work created by Mr. Ore-Giron and Julio Cesar Morales under the collaborative name LOS JAICHACKERS. According to the website of French artspace Jeu De Paume, that piece “is the videographic keepsake of the artists’ journey to trace the mythological birth of Cumbia music, the first Latin American hybrid musical form.” It will play, at regular intervals, on a monitor in the lobby of the University’s Art Building, which functions as a video art screening station for Landmarks.
For more information on Mr. Ore-Giron or other public art projects at UT, visit the Landmarks website.
KITCHENER, ON – Local lesbian couple Maggie Chaney and Marianne Mathams recently created a sociopolitical stir in a No Frills by engaging in the bold act of being homosexuals out in the world. According to eyewitnesses, the couple’s nonchalant attitude and focus on buying orange juice for their home made it quite clear that these […]
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
My small organization is currently in transition. We have had significant staff turnover in the last two years, and the result has pushed the organization into a level of dysfunction that I know will drive many good quality candidates away.
However, I still have to hire people (I have two positions currently open), and I want to hire the best people possible, particularly as I think that poor hires will just make the situation worse. How, do I manage to be open about the current state of the organization without scaring people off?
Mainly the problem is that we have a key department that simply can’t function. They are late on key deadlines, they don’t complete work, and they have terrible attitudes. We are making moves to change the management, but I think it will be another year or so before those issues are successfully addressed.
We offer industry standard benefits and market rate pay, and generally we don’t have any major red flags for candidates who are interviewing. However, I don’t want to mislead candidates. But I am also very concerned that if I’m open, anyone who is a decent candidate will go running a million miles in the other direction. Any suggestions?
I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. I got drunk at a work event — but it was because of my medication
I have been at my company for six years and attend two or three in-person events a year that always include alcohol. The last event, my pharmacy gave me a higher dose antidepressant without my knowledge and the first night I had a couple drinks that ended up making me very drunk. Normally, the two to three drinks I had would not had affected me as they did that night. I didn’t do anything wrong, was just (not just … but didn’t cause a scene or fall on my face, etc.) intoxicated in front of our board of directors.
Naturally, my CEO wrote me up. I said I understood and apologized. I wasn’t defensive because I understand I was in the wrong but I did mention the medication issue.
I received the formal write-up and it leaves space for me to comment. Do I comment saying anything about the medication mix-up or just sign off and move on?
I certainly would; this is a record of the incident that will stay in your employee file, and I’d want it to contain the full story — because this wasn’t a situation where you just decided to pound shots at a work event with reckless abandon; this was you reacting to a medication in a way you had no reason to anticipate. In fact, I’m not convinced you shouldn’t push back on the write-up itself, given the circumstances — but that’ll depend on your sense of your boss, how much it will matter, your own capital, etc.
All that said, I’d argue “two to three” drinks at a work event is on the high side, regardless of your medication situation. Two might be fine, but three can be a lot in a work context.
2. Can I be friends with managers who aren’t my manager?
I know I’m not supposed to be friends with my manager, but what about other managers in different parts of the organization? What if they used to be my manager, but now they aren’t? Can we move from friendly to actual friends?
The potential friends I’m thinking of are in positions higher up the org chart than I am, but they are over other teams, so I don’t report to them, nor does anyone else on my team. So, no direct hiring/firing authority over me. But in a lot of ways they are also more the peers of my manager than me because of their roles. Any particular issues where this could cause problems at work (or outside of work)?
Also, one of the could-be friends used to be my boss. I reported to them in my previous role (in the same organization), then a few years ago I switched to a different role and started reporting to someone else. We get along well, we have some mutual friends, and it seems like this person wants to hang out more outside of work. Could this be weird given the past boss/employee relationship? Is this an issue if I ever needed to list this person as a reference?
I’m in a role where I often interact with other teams around the organization, and I often interact with people at different “levels” of the organization. I also have a hand in some decision making that might not be expected based on the “level” of my role alone. All of this makes it difficult to define who my peers are in my workplace, which just adds to the challenge in making friends at work!
If you’re not currently in each other’s chain of command, there’s no reason to avoid these friendships. It is worth thinking about whether you might ever be in each other’s chain of command in the future and whether that could cause issues — for example, if you become good friends with Jane, be aware that it might be complicated if you want to transfer on to Jane’s team in the future.
Reference-wise: as a hiring manager, I’d rather not talk to a reference who’s a very close friend of yours (because of bias) but realistically, reference-checkers are pretty unlikely to know it’s a close friendship unless one of you volunteers it.
3. My boss decided I can’t work remotely, but I turned down another job offer to do it
I informed my boss I was moving out of state. He asked if I would consider working remotely. After a bit of thought, he clarified that I would work remotely for five months with a review of how it was working “for both of us” in two. (Timeline is tied to an academic calendar.) I had a job offer elsewhere, which I mentioned — but I decided to stay. At the review, he said I’d be done in May because he “needs his team in person.” I was gracious but now want to revisit this. I wrongly assumed the review would be about how to adjust, not that I was done. Although I say so myself, I am great at my job. Is it worth asking him to reconsider or for a longer exit time? My field is dismal in terms of openings.
Oh no. Yeah, his statement that you could do it for five months meant that nothing beyond that was guaranteed (and the point of assessing two months in was presumably so that you’d have those three months of notice if he didn’t want to continue).
You could certainly ask him if there are adjustments that would make the situation more workable, or for a longer exit time. Who knows, he might be open to that — but I would be prepared for him to feel like he laid out the terms pretty clearly at the beginning (that he was only committing to trying it for five months).
4. How can I make fewer typos in my emails?
I have so many typos at work. Mostly small occurrences, rarely does it change the intent of the email, but nevertheless I feel so unprofessional when I look back at things I’ve sent. I’ve tried drafting emails and stepping away for a moment so I can proofread with fresh eyes, but I still manage to make minor mistakes. I’ve caught two this morning already! I typed “of” instead of “or” and I left off the “ed” in a sentence in a different email (“I insert Person’s Name to claim this”).
It’s never been mentioned in a performance review or pointed out by my coworkers, but I can’t help but think people have noticed. I know I notice other people’s typos (usually because it makes me feel better about my own!). I re-read all my emails before sending, English is my first language, I’m well spoken verbally – why am I so bad at emails? Any thoughts on how to improve my written communication and catch these before I hit send? Just looking through the last week of emails I think it’s happening like, A LOT.
If you do good work and you don’t have typos when they would really matter (like in public communications, not in casual internal emails), it’s very unlikely that this is an issue. People make the sort of typos you described in casual internal emails — you’re typing fast, you’re being efficient, and it’s not always efficient to let an email sit for hours so you can re-read it with truly fresh eyes. In casual contexts, it’s not likely to be a big deal.
That said, since you’re looking for ways to combat it, you could try reading some of the emails out loud to yourself — for a lot of people that’s an effective way to spot typos that your eyes will gloss right over. (Although obviously if you don’t have your own office, it’s not practical — and it’s potentially weird and annoying to your neighbors — to read all your emails out loud to yourself.) There are other proofreading tricks like reading a sentence backwards, but realistically those are likely to slow you down enough that they’re not worth the trade-off except in situations where it’s particularly important that the message be flawless.
5. I couldn’t submit my application without contact info for managers from over a decade ago
I am job searching, as my current position is being eliminated after budget cuts. I’ve worked for my current organization for just over a decade, and can offer five different glowing references for my various positions with them, including my current manager. I recently filled in a job application that asked if they could contact my managers from all of my previous jobs. If I clicked “yes”, it also asked for those references’ names, phone numbers, and emails as required fields. I clicked “no” because I do not have that information readily accessible for managers from over a decade ago. Should I have waited to apply until I had tracked all of them down just so I could choose “yes” for that question? It seems like a lot to ask in an initial application before I’ve even had a phone screen interview. Do organizations really care that much about references from jobs going that far back into my employment history?
That’s bad application design, but as a general rule you should avoid checking “no” as the answer to “can we contact the manager from X job” unless you absolutely have to. You meant “no” as in “I can’t facilitate that process/don’t have their contact info” but employers tend to read “no” as “I do not give you permission talk to that employer, even if you can figure out how to contact them.”
Ideally you would have selected “yes” and either looked up the general contact info for the employer (company contact info would be fine; it wouldn’t have to be the manager’s personal contact info if you don’t have it) or put in a placeholder for the time being.
The hiring manager might not care about talking to references from 10 years ago, but at this point you were just trying to get your application accepted by an electronic system that isn’t set up to deal with that kind of nuance.
Silicon Valley Bank collapsed after a stunning 48 hours in which a bank run and a capital crisis led to the second-largest failure of a financial institution in U.S. history. What do you think?
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