Under Texas law, homeowners can claim a homestead exemption only on their primary residence. The GOP Senate candidate registered to vote in Georgia last year.
Good morning. I hope this message finds you happy and healthy on this Thanksgiving morning. I have much to be thankful for in both my personal and professional life. One of the things I am most happy about is the trust placed by readers in the work Matt and I do. So thank you for spending a few moments with Space City Weather on this holiday morning.
This morning’s forecast will focus the forthcoming rain event that will bring two days of showers and thunderstorms to the Houston region. While most of this rainfall will be manageable—most locations should receive 1 to 4 inches—we’re concerned about more isolated areas that could receive up to 6 inches of precipitation between now and Saturday morning. This may cause street flooding, and therefore we have called for a Stage 1 flood alert.
Chance of “excessive” rainfall for Thursday and Thursday night. (NOAA)
Thursday
As anticipated, we are seeing the development of storms near the coast this morning, in the Freeport and Lake Jackson area. These storms are associated with a warm front moving in from the Gulf of Mexico, and will become more widespread leater this morning. This front should progress toward Interstate 10 by around noon, and it is likely that the strongest storms this afternoon will lie to its north. Therefore, today, we are most concerned about rain accumulations along and north of Interstate 10. Highs today will reach about 70 degrees, give or take, with cloudy skies and muggy air. I expect that showers will back off this evening and during the overnight hours, while the atmosphere recharges.
Chance of “excessive” rainfall for Friday and Friday night. (NOAA)
Friday
Conditions will continue to favor widespread showers and thunderstorms as a cut-off low pressure system lifts moist air at the surface. At this time our higher resolution models are suggesting that storms on Friday will peak during the afternoon, evening, and overnight hours. Over the last couple of days the overall movement of this low pressure system has slowed down, so it’s entirely possible the heavy rainfall threat will extend into Saturday morning. That’s something we’ll be watching for. Highs on Friday will be in the mid-60s.
Saturday and Sunday
We’re still expecting things to clear out significantly this weekend, but there’s now the potential for some lingering storms on Saturday morning. Skies should become partly sunny during the afternoon, with highs in the mid-60s. We’ll be sunny, with a high near 70 on Sunday. Expect this warming trend to continue until Tuesday or Wednesday, when the next front arrives.
As we continue to track this dynamic rainfall situation, Matt will have an update for you this afternoon.
The outlook for heavy rainfall on Thanksgiving, overnight, and into Friday continues to worsen for the greater Houston area. As we get closer to the onset of rains on Thursday, high resolution models are indicating that the interaction of a warm front—you’ll definitely notice the warmer and muggier air tomorrow morning—and a cut-off low pressure system will produce a lot of rain. To account for this, we are issuing a Stage 1 flood alert for the entire Houston metro area, which means we are likely to see some street flooding. For more information about our flood scale, see here. The alert is in effect from Thursday morning through Friday evening.
Timing
So what can you expect tomorrow? The pre-dawn hours should be fairly quiet, but by around sunrise or shortly thereafter we can probably expect storms to form to the southwest of Houston, near Matagorda Bay, and move inland toward Houston. By the mid-morning hours, I expect to see fairly widespread, heavy rainfall across much of the region, with the possible expection of areas far inland, such as Conroe or College Station. The potential for intermittent, moderate to heavy rainfall will continue throughout the afternoon and into the evening hours.
At some point on Thursday evening the atmosphere may be fairly well “wrung out,” and need time to recover. So while things may quiet down during the overnight hours, we expect a recharged atmosphere to produce more widespread rainfall on Friday. I don’t think these showers will be as heavy as those on Thanksgiving Day, but we’ll have to see about that. Drier air should finally move into the region on Saturday morning, ending the threat of rainfall and leading to a pleasant, sunny weekend.
Note: This is for illustration purposes only. However, this radar reflectivity forecast from the HRRR model gives you some idea of what to expect at 11am CT on Thanksgiving Day. (Weather Bell)
Accumulations
I don’t feel particularly confident in predicting how much rain will fall, but given the overall setup and fairly moist atmosphere, I think areas south of Interstate 10 could be looking at 2 to 6 inches of rainfall over both days, with 1 to 5 inches for areas further inland. It is possible that some areas will see more. This is enough to flood some streets, at least for a short time.
I hate to say it, but this really is a fluid situation, and we can probably expect additional forecast changes. For now, we want you to be weather aware tomorrow when you’re out and about celebrating the holiday. Be sure to check the radar before hitting the road, and of course do not go outside into storms where there is lightning.
We’ll have our next update no later than early Thursday morning, and will provide coverage throughout the holiday as needed.
This little book is really more of a mild tirade about communism and eroding of traditional American ideals. Thanksgiving, in particular. There was an old school history lesson about the pilgrims, settlement of Plymouth, settlement of Jamestown, and President Lincoln’s proclamation of a “day of thanksgiving”. This recitation of questionable “facts” was an attempt to get at the real controversy: The first Thanksgiving. Naturally, the native Americans are barely secondary players in this story.
In my opinion, this book was a waste of time and paper. I made a cursory attempt to find out if this author had significance beyond this little book. I didn’t find too much about the author other than a couple of other titles about the FBI and the Nixon administration.
Is this worth keeping? For a public library, probably not, unless the collection is super deep. University collections would probably be okay with something like this, depending on collection parameters or research interests.
I will keep to our family traditions of sweatpants, watching the Detroit Lions lose, and eating too much — just like the pilgrims.
People say the holidays are about spending time with family and friends, but we all know what it’s really about—food. From best to worst, here is a ranking of the iconic Thanksgiving dishes we all grew up eating.
The Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal from former President Donald Trump seeking to shield his tax returns from House Democrats, capping a three-year legal battle and paving the way for the release of his tax returns. What do you think?
I’m squeezing in one more big firmware update for the BMOW Floppy Emu disk emulator before the Thanksgiving break. This update brings a major improvement for Smartport hard disk selection and management, as well as a new settings menu that combines all of the Floppy Emu’s various user preferences. Based on the suggestions and questions I’ve received in the past, I think this update is going to make a lot of people happy.
Disk Image Selection UI for Smartport Hard Disks
For Apple II computers, Floppy Emu offers a Smartport hard disk emulation mode, providing up to four simultaneously-available hard disks to your computer. Today’s firmware update introduces a new UI for dynamically managing and selecting the desired disk images, entirely within the Floppy Emu menus, and without needing to rename any files on the SD card. After pressing a button to pause the Smartport disk emulation, a setup screen appears. For each of the four hard disk slots, you can view or change the associated disk image, or remove the disk image and leave the slot empty. Disk images are selected through the the same file browser menus as in other emulation modes.
It sounds simple, it was a bit of a bear to implement, but it was worth it. The new interface is a much more flexible and intuitive way of configuring Smartport hard disks, and it’s no longer necessary to name or rename the disk images using a fixed naming convention like smart0-gsos-6.0.2.po.
System Settings Menu
This update also introduces a new system settings menu for all Macintosh, Lisa, and Apple II firmware versions. Press SELECT when prompted during Floppy Emu’s startup, and you’ll arrive at this new top-level menu. From here you can change the current emulation mode, adjust the display type and brightness, view software version information, and more. This menu replaces the scattered settings interfaces that existed before, each requiring a different hard-to-remember button combination to reach.
The Jumbo OLED option that appears in the settings menu is for a 2.4 inch display that was previously discussed in 2019. A few people have since built custom Floppy Emu enclosures using this OLED, but the standard firmware doesn’t work quite right with it: text and images appear shifted two pixels out of position. Beginning today, the jumbo OLED is graduating from a fun experiment into an officially-supported option, and changing the display type to jumbo adjusts the image position as need.
Update Now
Download the latest Floppy Emu firmware from the project page, or buy a new Floppy Emu Model C at the BMOW Store.
I’ve also prepared this video demo of the new one-step process for firmware updates, which was introduced last week.
What do libraries have to do with building a better internet? How would securing certain digital rights for these traditional public interest institutions help make the internet work better for everyone?
Join Public Knowledge President CHRIS LEWIS as he facilitates a conversation on these issues and the emerging Movement for a Better Internet with library and internet policy experts LILA BAILEY (Internet Archive), KATHERINE KLOSEK (Association of Research Libraries) and BRIGITTE VÉZINA (Creative Commons).
Policies for a Better Internet: Securing Digital Rights for Libraries Thursday, December 8 @ 10am PT / 1pm ET Register now for the virtual event
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
CHRIS LEWIS is President and CEO at Public Knowledge. Prior to being elevated to President and CEO, Chris served for as PK’s Vice President from 2012 to 2019 where he led the organization’s day-to-day advocacy and political strategy on Capitol Hill and at government agencies. During that time he also served as a local elected official, serving two terms on the Alexandria City Public School Board. Chris serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute for Local Self Reliance and represents Public Knowledge on the Board of the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG).
LILA BAILEY is Senior Policy Counsel for the Internet Archive. She leads the team responsible for the legal and policy strategies supporting the non-profit library’s mission to enable Universal Access to All Knowledge. Lila has spent her career as a passionate advocate of democratizing access to information, culture, and educational resources. In 2020, Public Knowledge recognized Lila’s contributions to public interest technology policy as the 17th annual winner of the IP3 award in the category of Intellectual Property. Fortune Magazine named her a “copyright champion” for her work leading the Archive’s fair use defense against four major commercial publishers in the Hachette v. Internet Archive case about digital book lending. Lila holds a JD from Berkeley Law and a BA in Philosophy from Brown University.
KATHERINE KLOSEK is the Director of Information Policy at the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).As a member of the ARL Scholarship and Policy team, Katherine formulates Association positions on key information policy debates, and develops and implements advocacy strategies to advance the Association’s legal and public policy agenda in legislative, administrative, and judicial forums. Building strong partnerships with stakeholders in libraries, higher education, scholarship, and civil society, she represents the Association in outreach to policy makers on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch. Serving as the staff lead to ARL’s Advocacy and Public Policy Committee, Katherine helps mobilize ARL’s membership to influence government policy–making in key moments, and in responding and adapting to major legal and policy developments.
BRIGITTE VÉZINA is the Director of Policy, Open Culture, and GLAM at Creative Commons. Brigitte is passionate about all things spanning culture, arts, handicraft, traditions, fashion and, of course, copyright law and policy. She gets a kick out of tackling the fuzzy legal and policy issues that stand in the way of access, use, re-use and remix of culture, information and knowledge.
All this week I’ve been sharing holiday stories from years past. Here are 10 more.
1. The stench
“Years ago I worked at a cookware company. Every year the owners gave us a week off with pay, an amazing Xmas party at a restaurant, and a fresh turkey. One coworker who wished mightily to be a ladies man (it is possible that his corduroy pants with little fox heads on them worked against him) received a turkey. Most of us cooked them quickly, he popped his into the trunk of his car and forgot about it. Months later a vile miasma floated out of his car and no one would accept a ride with him. The stench began to attach onto him no matter how many little pine deodorizers he hung up. Finally he took the car to a mechanic who popped the trunk and discovered a large, pale green, wet mass. The car was never the same.”
2. The statue
“I was invited to my boss’s house for an employee holiday party. This small business was owned by a married couple who were also landlords, so they were pretty wealthy and had a huge house. I was walking around admiring their art when I came across a statue.
A nude statue.
A nude statue of my boss.”
3. Not a pickle
“One year, I was The Pickle Lady. I was obsessed with pickling, especially lacto-fermented pickles. I pickled anything I could get my hands on and, since my pickling was so prolific, I often shared the fruits of my labours with people in the office. I also talked a lot about pickling and would happily offer guidance to anyone seeking the way of the pickle. This also expanded into talking about making vinegars and kombuchas, and I freely offered bits of my SCOBYs to anyone who would ask. I often joked that I was the Queen of Controlled Rotting. In retrospect, I was probably a little obnoxious, but it was all in good fun.
One sweet, lovely coworker watched all of this happen without engaging with me about it much, so she must have misunderstood how fermentation works. She picked me for Secret Santa that year and when the office got together to open gifts, I ended up opening mine near last. It was this beautiful gift bag, just to my taste, and I pulled out my gift to find … a jar of mold. Just grey-green fuzziness throughout the entire jar. I was deeply confused and not originally sure what it was, so I tentatively opened the jar. The smell was eye-watering to say the least, and it quickly spread to those around me. They reacted with a mix of polite confusion, low-key revulsion, and concealed amusement. After a few jokes and confused noises, we all made nice, set the jar of life aside, and moved on with the party.
Later the coworker came to me, red in the face and with tears in her eyes, asking why everyone had hated her gift. I asked her to clarify what it was supposed to be. She said she knew that I loved all this ‘controlled rotting’ business, so she had put some of her favourite foods in a jar and let them go bad in the hopes that I could use the mold to make my own treats. That way it would be like we were making them together. It was so adorable, so endearing, so loving, and so misguided. I thanked her for her intentions and we were eventually able to laugh about the misunderstanding.
Now I love to tell the story of the time I was gifted a jar of mold.”
4. The cake
“Our company ordered in lunch – turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, cranberry sauce, and rolls. People brought in desserts. Someone made Paula Deen’s Pumpkin Butter Cake (which, oh.my.GOD if you need a good dessert, make this. Just put a disclaimer about the butter/sugar content because it must be through the roof). I had a little sliver of the pumpkin cake, and thought I would go back later this afternoon to get another taste, because it’s just that good.
A coworker TOOK THE WHOLE DANG THING y’all. As soon as people got through eating, she took the ENTIRE cake. She said, ‘Well, I asked Jane if it was okay’ and then proceeded to take it and the ENTIRE box of leftover rolls back to her desk, stuff them in a bag, and act all put out when someone said, ‘You know, I wanted a little of that.’ Several of us took the opportunity to grab a piece, and she acted as though we were asking for vital organs.”
5. The air fresheners
“We are a retail chain. We sell many, many things, including air fresheners. One particular company, that we have dealt with for many, many years, sells especially well.
As is typical in retail, vendors like to show some appreciation for the business come the holiday season (especially to companies that sell a *lot* of product, and, more importantly, pay their bills on time). This is usually in the form of cards, boxes of chocolate, or those big tin cans of popcorn, all of which are appreciated. There are exceptions. Some like to be … creative.
The air freshener company, one year, sent us a miniature Christmas tree (a pine branch stuck in a pot), that they had sprayed with a new scent called Wintergreen. Very Christmasy. There were two problems. First, they’d used about 1,000,000 times too much. And second, it smelled like armpit. And I mean it *really* smelled like armpit, in the worst ‘been to the gym every day for a week without a shower’ sort of way. Within a couple of minutes, the entire office smelled like armpit. Within a couple more, it was removed (and the company told if they ever sent us one of those again, there would be … consequences).
It should have gone in the trash, of course, but one of my coworkers asked if she could put it in my storage room until the holiday party, where she wrapped it up (well enough to hide the smell, even) and put it in the gift exchange.
It was a very popular idea. It was not a very popular gift.
My store room never really recovered.”
6. The dance
“Our CEO loved hosting the annual Christmas party as he felt it was his personal thank you to all of the employees. He would spend weeks planning out the decorations, tasting food for catering, hand selecting the gifts, and always made sure there was a huge open bar with premium drinks for everyone to enjoy. The party started at 7 pm, ended at 12 am, and then he would do an extended “after hours” party until 2 am. Needless to say, people wound up pretty wasted at these parties and the CEO was the most wasted every year. Luckily, he was a happy go lucky type of drunk who usually just ended up thanking everyone profusely for their work.
One year the dance floor was pumping and everyone was having a grand old time when the DJ decided to play ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life’ (you know, the song from Dirty Dancing). Suddenly the dance floor parted. The CEO stood at one end of the dance floor, zoned into the music. The VP of Sales locked eyes with the CEO and they began to fully run toward each other, each clearly assuming the other would catch him. They leapt into the air with drunken grace and enthusiasm. ::smack:: They landed on the concrete with a smack you could hear over the music and crowd. All we could see was some blood and two bodies trying to untangle.
They had both cracked their heads on the ground and gotten concussions. Neither gentleman wanted an ambulance called so someone’s sober wife packed them into her SUV (each of them with a roadie in-hand) and drove them off to the ER.
The next day we got an email from the CEO with the subject ‘Each Year Gets More Epic’ and a picture of him and the VP of Sales posing together at the ER with stitches on the side of their heads.”
7. The bald spot cake attack
“At the company party at the job before last, one of the senior VPs was clearly fighting with his wife. They mostly mingled with different groups, but their time together was marked by a series of tense, whispered conversations… which must have been a lot tenser than I thought, because the last one culminated in her mashing a slice of cake into his bald spot and storming out the door.”
8. The poop
“Someone pooped in an attorney’s trash can one year during the office party.”
9. The missing egg
“At the last work holiday party I went to, I realized after getting home that somehow the hardboiled egg that I had brought home from work to throw away had slipped out of the silicone ziplock in my bag and was rolling around somewhere, likely under a chair, in the home of the Very Fancy and Accomplished Consultant in My Field who held the party. He is well-known enough that his name comes up pretty frequently at my current job, and I still wonder whether he ever found the egg (did it start to smell??) or a dog ate it. Luckily, I don’t think it was traceable to me (the perfect crime). Just imagine the feeling of horror that dawned on me, a drunk intern, when I got home and opened my bag and realized that the EGG WAS MISSING.”
10. The fist fight
“We had an office fist fight over some particularly smelly cheese.
Not so much a holiday story so much as the aftermath. During my first year as a PhD student, we had a little office party just before we all left for Christmas and someone brought in some very nice cheese and crackers. Unfortunately, it was a pretty ripe cheese to start with and it got left in the office fridge over the break. Come the new year and the day we’re all due back, Bob is the first to arrive in the morning. He opens the fridge to find the festering (and presumably by now sentient) remains of the cheese and takes it out intending to dispose of it. Before he can remove it to a safe location, the phone rings. Bob answers the phone, leaving the cheese on Jim’s desk which is next to the phone. Jim is the next to arrive and is greeted by a horrific smell, and the sight of the cheese from the black lagoon sitting on his desk. Chaos erupts and the accusations start to fly.
By the time I arrived, I could both smell the cheese and hear the shouting from the end of the corridor. I entered just in time to see Jim punch Bob on the arm and then storm out of the office. Bob stormed out not long after and after I finally disposed of the cheese in the park (it was the nearest accessible outdoor bin), I spent the rest of the morning working alone in the office with all of the windows open. I don’t miss academia.”
CHESAPEAKE, VA—In the hours following a violent rampage in Virginia in which a lone attacker killed at least six individuals and injured at least four others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Wednesday that there was no way to prevent the…
"Power Rangers" was one of the biggest franchises of the '90s — it brought tokusatsu to the West, it was a franchise with some of the coolest theme songs, and it also introduced superheroes to a whole generation. Despite its cheap look and extremely corny dialogue and storylines, "Power Rangers" always offered big excitement, lots of cool costumes and robots, and a (sadly) rare superhero team with diversity. There is at least one ranger that looks like you in the show.
Because of the neverending nature of "Power Rangers," and its revolving door of cast members and characters, we rarely see a ranger evolve beyond your typical "shy person gets confident, gains power, then disappears by season's end." There have been over 500 rangers and over 900 episodes across three decades' worth of seasons, but there's no denying that "Power Rangers" has been defined by a single face, the one that got the most character development over the years: Tommy Oliver, as played by the late Jason David Frank.
What started as a one-time villain evolved into a fully-fledged member of the team, then a leader, and a legend. Tommy is one of the most endearing characters on the show, its most iconic, and the purest representation of what a Power Ranger is. The MCU had Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark, and the "Power Rangers" had Jason David Frank's Tommy. This is a tribute to the man that was the face of a franchise, the man who turned a tiny 10-episode guest-starring role into a 30-year career.
A Redemption Story
Tommy Oliver was first introduced in the original series's five-part episode "Green with Evil" as a new student at Angel Grove High School. Right from the get-go, Tommy was the epitome of the show's idea of "teenagers with attitude" who are meant to be the best candidates to be Power Rangers. He exudes coolness, is better at martial arts than even the Red Ranger, flirts with the Pink Ranger, and is a bit of an overconfident rebel.
This made him a perfect candidate to be the very first evil Ranger when he gets kidnapped by Rita Repulsa and enchanted to become her servant. As the show's first big villain who wasn't a goofy, alien-looking creature, but a teenager, Tommy was threatening, he was charismatic, he was dangerous.
And even when he got freed from Rita's magic, and despite not really being in control of himself while acting as the Green Ranger, Tommy fought and worked to atone for his sins by helping the Rangers. Even as he found out his powers could disappear at any minute, he still fought alongside the Rangers. Years before Zuko in "Avatar: The Last Airbender," Tommy Oliver had the best redemption story in an American children's show.
As a reward for his actions, Tommy later becomes the White Ranger, the new leader of the team. He would remain the leader for a few years, as some of the original Rangers left and new ones arrived, even as the show turned away from dinosaurs into sci-fi and shortly before it left Earth to go to space. All throughout this time, Jason David Frank played Tommy as a bonafide superhero, a teenager with great bravery who had gone through hell and come back the other side wiser and stronger.
A Leader
While the franchise kept changing and introducing new elements, Tommy remained the only constant. It was only when Tommy was sent to college that he gave up the mantle of Ranger, as "Power Rangers" gave us something extremely rare for a franchise like it: closure. His story was done, he accomplished everything that could have been accomplished, and he was getting a normal life as a reward.
But Jason David Frank wasn't done, because seven years after his departure from the franchise at the start of "Power Rangers: Turbo," he made a surprising and triumphant return in "Power Rangers: Dino Thunder." What could have easily been a desperate attempt at bringing attention to a declining franchise instead became the show's best use of Frank since his stint as a villain, and Tommy's best role: as a mentor.
You see, after earning a Ph.D. in paleontology at MIT, Tommy becomes a sort of new Zordon, creating a new set of zords and waiting to recruit the next generation of Power Rangers. He still fights as a member of the team — not losing any of his martial arts skills — while providing knowledge, wisdom, and tech to the new Rangers.
A Mentor
This was pretty significant, both to the franchise and to its young audience. While "Power Rangers" had a revolving door of actors that seemed to leave just before they turned old or dull, having Jason David Frank return as an older but still badass Ranger was significant. It showed kids that being a hero isn't like being an athlete, and it doesn't stop in your 30s. Jason David Frank could have been just another guest star, a cool villain to be defeated by the Power Rangers, never to be seen again. Instead, he became the best Ranger ever, a leader, a team player, a mentor, and a legend. Jason David Frank wasn't there when "Power Rangers" first began, but he became an intrinsic part of the franchise, and the epitome of what a Power Ranger can be.
When it first began airing in 1993, "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" was instantly considered a notable oddball in the broader "Star Trek" canon. For one, it was the first Trek project that was made completely outside of the auspices of Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Also, being set on a space station, there was going to be considerably less trekking on "Deep Space Nine" than had been previously seen in the franchise. Additionally, the show was to follow the politics and social intricacies of worlds that did not belong to Trek's famed United Federation of Planets. That meant the franchise's notable and vaunted post-war, post-religion, post-capitalist utopia was going to be challenged by those who believed in war (the Cardassians), in theocracy (the Bajorans), and in capitalism (the Ferengi). "Deep Space Nine" stood as a deliberate challenge to the Treks that preceded it. Can Roddenberry's ideals stand when those who abide by them are outnumbered?
The lessons from "Deep Space Nine" were more forthrightly multicultural than the relatively mannered "Star Trek: The Next Generation." While NextGen was populated by diplomats and open-minded explorers of cultural differences, it was rare that any of them were pushed too far outside of their comfort zones; how strange, Counselor Troi might find, that a new species enjoys chocolate so much. On "Deep Space Nine," the Starfleet characters had to face the notion that people bearing opposite values to their own were going to remain deeply and strictly adherent to them. A soft version of easily-acquired arbitrage would have to be abandoned for the notion of having to live with someone you fundamentally disagree with ... and do not necessarily hate.
No character on DS9 was more deeply principled than Quark (Armin Shimerman), the Ferengi bar owner on the station's high-traffic Promenade.
Quark
For the uninitiated, the Ferengi are a species that has devoted every aspect of their society to commerce. Money is deeply involved in every aspect of their lives. When friends come to visit a Ferengi, they have to drop money into coin boxes in every room in the house. When a Ferengi dies, their ashes are sold inside miniature collectible discs. Even their central religion is based on profit, as a Ferengi will not be able to buy their way into the afterlife unless they have acquired enough wealth in this one. Their most widely read holy book is simply a list of 285 Rules of Acquisition. Needless to say, devotion to wealth also carries with it a tendency toward both labyrinthine accounting and a propensity toward confidence schemes. Cutting corners, buying cheap materials, and underpaying employees is a great virtue in Ferengi society. The most grievous sin is charity.
Additionally, Ferengi society is staggeringly sexist. Only men are allowed to earn wealth, whereas women are not allowed to speak to any men other than their immediate family. They are also not allowed to wear clothing. Over the course of "Deep Space Nine," Ferengi sexism will be challenged time and time again, with Quark having to face the fact that his mother Ishka (Andrea Martin, then Cecily Adams) has been secretly leading the charge toward a women's liberation movement back on their home planet.
Quark, throughout the series, is deeply devoted to these Ferengi principles. They may seem backward and even gross to a human viewer, but Quark never once winks at the camera, nor does Shimerman plays the character as wicked. Devious, perhaps. Criminal, to be sure. But not sadistic or cruel. Indeed, Quark is typically either upbeat (when business is booming) or annoyed (when it isn't).
Criminal, But Not Evil
Quark is perpetually annoyed, incredibly shrewd, and often called out on his bad behavior. But — and here's what makes his character so appealing — he never abandons the fundamental things that make him who he is. His personal beliefs are dearly held, and he will not — will not — abandon them. In a true science fiction sense, Quark provides an outsider perspective on humanity, looking to their habits of charity and their baffling abandonment of capitalism as strange and offputting.
Something magical happens on "Star Trek" when two nonhuman characters interact. Humans, in subsequent discussions, become ineffable and confusing. Our culture is just as strange to them as theirs is to us. Starfleet may be making a perpetual effort to include and understand others, but Ferengi have no such compunction, choosing to criticize and deconstruct some of our own fineries. In one of the best scenes of the entire series, Quark has a conversation with Garak (Andrew Robinson) a Cardassian tailor who once served the war effort. Neither character has spent much time with humans, and each bemoans the fact that so many of them have just moved onto the station. As an example of how bad humans reflect on his business, Quark serves Garak a glass of root beer. Garak hisses that it's vile. "I know," Quark says, disgusted. "It's so bubbly, and cloying, and happy."
"Just like the Federation," Garak says.
"But you know what's really frightening? If you drink enough of it, you begin to like it," Quark says. "Just like the Federation."
Being bubbly and eager to please, the two aliens note, shows a grievous lack of character. The Federation, Quark says out loud, has a lot to be wary of.
Quark's Moment
Quark and the other Ferengi characters on "Deep Space Nine" were often treated like comic relief, and one can bet that a "comedy" episode was likely about Quark and his family (his brother Rom, played by Max Grodénchik, often had "dim bulb" scenes). It took "Deep Space Nine" a while to decide just how intelligent Quark was meant to be (a frustration for Shimerman), often seeing him vacillate between crafty and clueless. It took "Deep Space Nine" several years to allow the Ferengi characters to grow. Rom was revealed to be a decent, kind man with sharp engineering skills, and Rom's son Nog (Aron Eisenberg) wanted to become a Starfleet officer.
Quark, meanwhile, was eventually allowed to be intelligent and deeply righteous. Even honorable. The character's best moment probably came in the penultimate episode of the show, "The Dogs of War" (May 24, 1999) wherein Shimerman gets to express the deep, glorious beliefs of the character. "As far as I'm concerned," he says, "the Ferenginar that I knew doesn't exist anymore." He says "This establishment will be the last outpost of what made Ferenginar great: the unrelenting lust for profit."
What he is standing for might look petty to the human audience, but after seven seasons with Quark, they have most assuredly come to sympathize with him. So when Quark says he won't preside over the demise of Ferengi civilization, we see a man standing up for himself. We see a man eager to keep his ideals. "The line has to be drawn here!" he shouts. "This far and no further!"
Quark is willing to exploit, but he is also willing to play by his own rules. And what is "Star Trek" if not strong-willed adults articulately standing up for what they believe in?
Qatar announced it is banning all beer sales at and around its eight World Cup stadiums, the 11th-hour policy change angering fans and longtime World Cup sponsor, Budweiser. What do you think?
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied Mariah Carey’s application to trademark the moniker “Queen of Christmas,” which the singer hoped to use as branding for various products, after other artists who also claimed the title opposed it. What do you think?
by Natalia Contreras, Votebeat and The Texas Tribune, and Roxanna Asgarian, The Texas Tribune
After a last-minute challenge from the attorney general, county commissioners agreed to certify those provisional votes in time for the canvassing deadline.
As you prepare your holiday plans, be sure to schedule time in your morning to gather with friends and family at (or around the TV for) your local parade. While Houston and El Paso have long-running Thanksgiving Day parades, other cities across Texas have scheduled holiday parades in the coming weeks. Learn more about some of these upcoming events below.
Houston Thanksgiving Parade 2022 – the 73rd Annual H-E-B Thanksgiving Day Parade. Image Credit: newsroom.heb.com
2022 Houston Thanksgiving Parade Route. Image courtesy of the City of Houston
One of the oldest Thanksgiving Day parades in the country, this annual event expects several hundred thousand Houstonians to show up. As Grand Marshal, Houston transplant Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson will lead the celebration along with Mayor Sylvester Turner, the 2021 Grand Marshal Dr. Peter Hotez, and representatives of H-E-B.
The Glasheen, Valles & Inderman Injury Lawyers Sun Bowl Parade took place Thursday, Nov. 25, 2021, in El Paso. Photo credit: El Paso Times, Briana Sanchez
Filled with purple, green, gold, and other metallic colors, this year’s Sun Bowl Parade in El Paso will be Mardi Gras, El Paso Style themed. The 18-float parade will feature a 21-foot-wide American bald eagle float honoring U.S. veterans. Nearly 100 other groups will also join the parade, including equestrian units, clowns, marching bands, dignitaries, dancers, and more.
River float at the Arneson River Theatre, San Antonio
This year, San Antonio’s one-hour parade along the iconic River Walk will be themed Tastes and Traditions Around the World. Featuring 28 illuminated boat floats and over 100,000 lights along the River Walk, the parade and lighting ceremony will be led by the Grinch.
The Dallas Holiday Parade is the city’s largest one-day outdoor event. Though the event is free, bleacher seating is available for purchase. This year, parade organizers are asking the audience to wear red and festive attire.
Good morning, Houston. I can’t say that I expected to wake up early this morning to the pitter patter of rainfall, but here we are. After a dry summer and early fall November has proven to be far wetter than anticipated. It has rained more than half of the days this month in Houston, although this has mostly been lighter rain. This wet pattern will persist through Thanksgiving, which I am afraid put a damper on outdoor activities—unless your family’s holiday rituals involve cyclocross or rugby.
With that said, it is difficult to complain too much about the rain. This month’s soaking rains are helping lift the upper Texas coast out of a drought that began this summer. Since we will experience another La Niña winter—which tends to bring drier and warmer conditions here—I was concerned about this drought persisting into next spring, or summer. A wet month won’t completely extinguish the region’s drought, but it is certainly very helpful.
Recent rains have helped cut into the drought at Houston Hobby Airport, a little bit. (National Weather Service)
Tuesday
An atmospheric disturbance just offshore has hung around longer than expected this morning, somewhat like an unwanted house guest. This system is helping to produce ongoing light showers across much of the region south of Interstate 10. These showers may persist through the morning hours before finally dissipating. Inland areas may see a bit of sunshine this afternoon, but the coast is likely to remain mostly cloudy. Highs will range from the upper 50s to lower 60s. Winds will be light, out of the northeast. With mostly cloudy skies, low temperatures tonight probably will drop to around 50 degrees.
Wednesday
This should be a fairly nice day, as November days go. We’ll see partly sunny skies and highs generally in the upper 60s. Winds will veer to become more easterly, and this will start to increase atmospheric moisture levels, setting the stage for increasing rain chances Wednesday night and Thursday.
Thursday
It looks like I’ll be able to eat turkey for Thanksgiving, rather than crow. That’s because, in our initial Thanksgiving outlook eight days ago, I wrote, “So my early forecast for Turkey Day calls for somewhat warmer, and possibly wetter weather.” This forecast is going to verify. Thanksgiving is going to feel fairly muggy for November, with highs in the low 70s and dewpoints to match. The timing for rainfall on Thanksgiving remains a bit uncertain, but there looks to be a healthy chance of light to moderate showers throughout much of the morning, afternoon, and evening. We can’t exclude some heavier rain showers, and these are most likely north of Interstate 10. All told, most of the area will likely see 1 to 2 inches of rainfall, with higher isolated totals.
NOAA rain accumulation forecast for now through Friday. (Weather Bell)
Friday
The rains will end at some point on Friday, but it’s difficult to say whether that will be midnight, mid-morning, or early afternoon—something to consider if Black Friday shopping is in your plans. As a front moves through, we will see some clearing skies, eventually. Expect Friday morning to start out in the 50s, with a high somehwere in the 60s.
Saturday and Sunday
This looks like a fine, late fall weekend with mostly sunny skies and highs in the 60s. Lows on Saturday and Sunday mornings will drop to around 50 degrees in Houston, with colder conditions inland, and slightly warmer ones along the coast. Rain chances are near zero.
Next week
We should see a warming trend for the first half of next week, with highs getting back up to around 70 degrees, with moderate nights. After Thanksgiving, the rest of November looks fairly dry.
Fundraiser
We’re in the final week of our fundraiser, the one time each year you have the opportunity to support what we do. Matt and I have lots of plans for 2023, so your help now allows us to put those plans into action. To support our efforts, you can buy Space City Weather merchandise here, or donate by clicking “I’d like to make a donantion” only. Thank you!
I like to take vacation during the popular times that everyone likes to — spring break, 4th of July, and Christmas. The problem is that the small team I manage also likes to take that time off.
We have a specialized skill set. My boss has no experience in this space — he’s in his job because he manages well, not because of expertise — so he cannot cover for my absence. Only my team can do that.
I get five weeks of vacation that doesn’t roll over and I haven’t even used two weeks of it. I intended to take the week between Christmas and New Years off, but a second member of my team requested that time off today. Giving up my vacation makes me want to cry. But I don’t see how I can deny letting my employee travel cross country to visit her family for the holiday just because I want to hang at home with my kids and watch TikToks. (And yes, I know I could take other times off for vacation but the popular times are when my kids have school/sports breaks. I struggle with taking vacation time just to sit at home alone, do laundry, and let work pile up at the office.)
My team is stretched incredibly thin due to budget constraints and there’s no line of sight for me to hire them help. Giving them time off to recharge is the one thing I can do for them but I really need that recharge time too. How do I enjoy time off with my family without being a selfish and crappy manager?
Whenever you manage a team where not everyone can be gone at once, you need a clear and transparent system for how time off will work, especially during peak desirable times. Some teams do it by seniority (not terribly fair but at least it’s a system), some rotate from year to year or holiday to holiday, some do first-come first-served (really not fair if you’ve got one person who always requests the most desirable dates really early), some ask everyone to submit their first and second choices of dates and try to make sure everyone gets at least one of their choices, and on and on. It sounds like your problem is that you don’t really have a system, so anything you decide is going to feel unfair to someone (whether to you or to your staff members). That won’t help you this time, but take the current conflict as a sign to get something in place going forward.
As for the current conundrum with your employee … ugh. Can you split the time between you? (That may or may not be realistic with a cross-country trip, of course.) But it’s also not totally unreasonable to decide that her request came in too late if in fact that’s the reality of it and if you’d claimed the time first (in a transparent way, not just in your head). Practically speaking, it wasn’t great on her end to expect she could give only a month of notice to get a week off during a highly desirable vacation period on a team that needs coverage.
Before you decide, though, take a really hard look at whether both of you have to be there that week. Will the workload that week really require it or is it slow enough that full coverage isn’t absolutely essential? Could you make it work if each of you agreed to log in remotely a couple of days, in order to make both vacations possible? (Obviously that’s not ideal and you’d only be doing it with the understanding that going forward you’ll have a better system.) Might someone else be willing to cover for you if you can come up with the right incentive (like a bonus, even if that requires making the case to someone above you)? Do you have the authority or the capital with your boss to say, “We’re all exhausted from unsustainable hours this year and our department is closing that week so we can all get a break”? Maybe none of these solutions will work, but it’s worth getting creative to see if there’s a way to solve it.
But again, you need a clear system so everyone knows how time off requests will be decided, so they can work within that set of rules in the future.
Also! Make a plan to ensure your vacation time won’t pile up like this next year, and make sure your team is doing the same thing too, which will probably require explicit assistance from you. You don’t just need time to recharge at the end of the year; you need it throughout the year too. (One thing to consider since you have a lot of vacation time that you might otherwise lose is to take a bunch of three- or four-day weekends throughout the year. They can be surprisingly beneficial and are short enough that you’re less likely to just be bored at home — and taking all your vacation time is a good thing to model for your team.)
BEVERLY HILLS, CA—Admitting she had never in her life used a product from her Fenty Beauty cosmetics line, Rihanna told reporters Tuesday that she just used whatever makeup was on sale at Walgreens. “Yeah, I just look for the yellow sale tags and throw whatever it is in my basket,” said the billionaire pop star, who…
The Onion is graciously saving the entire world’s economy by giving away $8.3 trillion in NFTs. Get these jpegs while you can, because these one-of-kind cryptographic assets are the most valuable digital items ever known.
Chris Dalla Riva analyzed key changes in songs that made the Billboard Hot 100, between 1958 and 2022. Key changes are near non-existent after 2010. The most interesting part is why:
Thus, if you changed the key of “Juicy,” Biggie wouldn’t necessarily have to change how he raps, but if you changed the key of “Over the Rainbow,” Judy Garland would have to sing different pitches. If you picked the wrong key, those pitches might be outside of her vocal range. In short, key doesn’t matter as much in hip-hop.
As hip-hop grew in popularity, the use of computers in recording also exploded too. Whereas the guitar and piano lend themselves to certain keys, the computer is key-agnostic. If I record a song in the key of C major into digital recording software, like Logic or ProTools, and then decide I don’t like that key, I don’t have to play it again in that new key. I can just use my software to shift it into that different key. I’m no longer constrained by my instrument.
Looking, Working, Living Terrific 24 Hours A Day
Cho and Lueders
1982
This title sounds exhausting. At my age, I think showing up for work with my hair combed is an accomplishment worthy of my next performance review. (Holly take note!) This was published at the time the mantra of working women was “I can do it all!” (See this commercial for Enjoli perfume, and you will get the idea.) Those of you old enough to remember this, get ready to cringe.
This book combines looking good with career/personal success advice. I will cop to buying into this type of dressing for success looks. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the budget to sustain this look and it really didn’t make me powerful in my job. (Naturally, I moved to librarianship so I could have the real money and power!<<sarcasm)
This would have been an appropriate purchase back in the day, but it should have been retired in the 1990s. In 2022, it just seems quaint.
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