Cowboy Who?

Over the last few months we’ve been covering this bizarre story of how Republican politicians, pushed by their preferred spamming provider (which misrepresented a study on how email providers treat political spam), have been falsely claiming that Google is “censoring” their political emails. They’ve also been pushing a law that would require email providers not to label politician emails as spam. In response, Google caved a bit and proposed a new offering that would whitelist political campaigns, keeping them out of the spam filter (but including a button at the top asking the recipient if they want to unsubscribe from that mailing). Google asked the Federal Election Commission (FEC), to bless this idea (and specifically to note it wouldn’t be deemed to violate any campaign finance laws).

As we just noted, the public absolutely hates this idea, and their comments to the FEC reflect a visceral hatred towards (1) spam, and (2) politicians who seek to write laws that exempt themselves from laws against spamming.

In other words, this is a deeply unpopular idea that Republicans are pushing because their own digital marketing agency is so bad at crafting emails that don’t look like spam that they have to resort to special laws to keep spamming you.

Indeed, as we noted in some of our coverage, Republican politicians have a long history of especially spam-like emails, which seem designed specifically to dupe gullible people — often older people — out of money.

And now there’s a new story suggesting that this appears to be getting even worse. A Republican candidate for Congress in Florida, Erick Aguilar, has raised a tremendous amount of money by sending email spams pretending to be campaign emails from more popular politicians: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.

Seriously.

In his pursuit of Florida’s 4th Congressional District, Aguilar has used WinRed, a popular platform Republicans employ to process campaign contributions, to send a flurry of fundraising emails. But the solicitations did not mention Aguilar’s campaign or his leading competitor in the Aug. 23 primary, state Sen. Aaron Bean, who has the support of much of the state’s GOP establishment.

Instead, the messages were written in a way that suggested donations would actually go toward more prominent GOP politicians, including the former president, the governor or Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.

“Governor DeSantis is always fighting back against Corrupt Left,” read one email that came under a logo using DeSantis’ name. “No matter how bad this country is the Fake News media and Biden Admin are OBSESSED with that [sic] Florida is doing.”

It added: “It is time to help America’s #1 Governor. Can we count on you to support DeSantis?”

It appears that these tactics have worked, with gullible Trump/DeSantis supporters filling Aguilar’s campaign coffers… without even realizing it.

The move appeared to have worked — particularly among retired older donors from across the country. Some of Aguilar’s WinRed emails, such as the one about DeSantis, went out in November, just before the Jacksonville-based candidate’s campaign saw nearly 16 times as much cash come in in December, campaign finance records show. Yet some of the people who sent contributions had no idea they were giving to Aguilar.

“I don’t know that name,” Pat Medford, an 88-year-old from Minnesota, said in an interview when asked about her donations to Aguilar. “I, of course, give to President Trump and DeSantis, but that’s really it. I don’t give to many others, and that name [Aguilar] is not familiar to me.”

Despite not knowing him, records show Medford gave 30 separate contributions to Aguilar’s campaign through WinRed, totaling more than $1,000.

So, let’s be clear here. Under the GOP bill proposed by John Thune and Google’s proposed pilot program, it appears these emails could not be filtered as spam. They are coming from a legitimate candidate for federal office. That they are misleading and extraordinarily spammy doesn’t much matter to these Republicans, it seems. That these Republicans have to resort to such scammy techniques to dupe gullible voters out of so much money doesn’t matter.

All that seems to matter is that they want more cash from their base, and they consider this the best way to keep Google from actually protecting people.

Until last year, Lubbock residents didn’t get electricity from the main power grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Now, many residents are getting used to requests to limit electricity consumption.

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

Earlier this week, Unity announced they were merging with mobile ads company ironSource, who are arguably best known for developing a malware installer in 2015. Unsurprisingly, game developers were not pleased. If that wasn't enough, however, Unity CEO John Riccitiello was interviewed by PocketGamer.biz on Wednesday, wherein he called developers who failed to plan monetisation strategies when creating their games were “some of the biggest fucking idiots”. Oh dear.

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That said, eff that guy.

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#ObservationDuty5 #FinishUs #ep4

She was a competitive skier, fashion model, socialite, hard-driving businesswoman and author.

This post, boss asked me to to read a Christian leadership book, emotional affair, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…

1. My boss asked me to to read a Christian leadership book

My boss has recently decided that I have “leadership potential” and should have more leadership/professional development opportunities. In theory, that sounds great, but the first thing she asked me to do was read a leadership book that was written by a minister, published by a major Christian publishing house, and whose advertising blurb includes phrases like “drawing on biblical principles” and “in your ministry.” My boss described this book as one she has read multiple times and whose ideas have shaped her career. I am not Christian and feel uncomfortable being asked to read a book that seems very Church-focused for my job. For context, my boss isn’t Christian either. That doesn’t make me feel better about being asked to read this book (rather than one of the many non-religious business leadership books currently filling airport bookshops across the country), but it does make me more nervous about my concern being heard. She has a history of defensiveness in response to perceived criticism, and I’m worried she’ll respond by saying if she doesn’t mind the religious slant, I shouldn’t either.

Any ideas on how to push back (gently) without sounding like I’m criticizing a book that seems to mean a lot to her, or criticizing her for liking a book I’d rather not have to read (or for not considering that her Jewish colleague might not be comfortable with the choice)?

Since you want to push back gently, you can start with a relatively light approach and see if that solves it — “I’m excited to be delving into this area. This book has a religious focus that I’m not comfortable with, but I was thinking of reading X or Y or seeing if there’s something else you’d recommend?” In other words, flag the issue but move on in a positive way to alternatives you’d be comfortable with.

If she tells you she didn’t mind the religious slant herself: “It’s not something I’d be comfortable with, but I’ll try (alternate book) and see how that is! And if there are others you think of, let me know.”

But if she continues to push it or you get the sense she’s penalizing you for not reading her choice, then you’ll have to be more direct: “I really appreciate your interest in helping me develop in this area. I am not comfortable reading a church-focused book for work, and think we could get in trouble for pushing it because of the laws around religion and employment.” If you want, you could add, “I know you mean well and got a lot out of the book, but the religious aspect is prohibitive for me. I’d love to find other books we could discuss.” If that doesn’t put it completely to rest, your next step is HR — but hopefully calmly asserting yourself will resolve it.

2. Emotional affair with a colleague

I joined a company three years ago as a junior engineer. A year after that, my senior colleague, let’s call him M, joined the company as a principal engineer, which is technically my boss. I am 33 and he is 42. At first our relationship was extremely professional. But then we started staying late for work and I started asking him about his health issues and his family (he has a wife and three kids while I’m single). It was casual conversation but over the past two years it became deeper.

His interest in me became apparent when he started texting me and talking to me every day at work for an hour at my table. Due to some issues regarding my promotion (which I wasn’t getting) and this weird relationship with M, I decided to join another company and put in my resignation. M didn’t take it too well and went above and beyond to talk to the company heads to retain me and give me my promotion. Although flattered, I still went ahead with my resignation.

After I left, M started calling me to meet him for coffee “as a friend.” I’m not going to lie, I went to meet him a couple of times for coffee or just drives and realized I liked talking to him. When I asked him if his wife would mind this, he said he has an open dialogue with his wife and she knows about him meeting me. He said he isn’t unhappy in his marriage. He admires his wife but he finds our conversations fascinating. He also said he finds me to be a very genuine person because I speak my mind and I want to help people. I found it weird about his wife knowing, but made it clear that we would just talk and nothing more.

I know in this situation I am “the other woman” but he’s the only person I know who actually listens to me. My problems, my issues, my stories. Is that wrong that I like meeting him for this purpose only?

He recently confessed that he loves me but won’t pursue anything. Whenever I tell him I go on dates with other guys, he gets jealous but then says he can’t do anything because he has no rights on me. I’m just confused and lost! I like talking to him because he listens whereas nobody else gives a damn about me since they are preoccupied with their lives! But am I being too naive and falling for the age old trick of older man seducing younger woman? Please help.

Yes, it’s wrong, and yes, you’re being naive about his intentions. He will make a more aggressive move at some point (and telling you that he loves you but won’t pursue anything is already him pursuing something — and it’s deceptive that he’s pretending he’s not).

This isn’t really about an older man and younger woman (33/42 isn’t a huge age gap), and it’s not about you getting passively seduced. You have agency here. See this guy’s poor character and intentions for what they are, cut him off, and look elsewhere for someone to connect with. Liking the attention doesn’t justify being part of what he’s doing.

3. Employees are resisting coming in for necessary on-site days a few times a month

I manage an administrative team of a healthcare clinic. My client case managers work a hybrid model that is primarily remote-based, but we do require them to come into the office periodically for necessary projects and to assist with our front desk when our receptionist is out. I would estimate this means they need to come into the office a maximum of 2-3 days per month.

The issue is that some have moved a bit further out of the city where our office is located and into the suburbs during the pandemic, which makes their commute a bit longer, and now I frequently receive attitude and pushback from these team members when assigning them to on-site days due to their commuting. They think employees that live closer to the office should have to cover these items, which is not fair to those other team members’ workloads, as we purposely spread on-site duties out among all team members to minimize impact on any one person’s workload and for our administrative team to maintain relationships with our clinical staff. This is frustrating to manage because it has always been an expectation and is clearly outlined in their job descriptions. I feel moving further from their workplace is a decision they made and is not something the company agreed to accommodating via remote-only work options when they made that choice. Am I wrong for that? How do I address this situation without allowing any resentments to fester?

If it’s a necessary part of the job and they’ve known that along, then no, you’re not wrong for that! I’m a fan of just laying out what you’re seeing and calling the question: “You’ve seemed resistant to coming in your 2-3 on-site days a month. It’s an essential part of the job and not something that will change. Knowing that, does the job still make sense for you?”

Of course, before you do that, factor in how willing you’d be to lose people over it, because this conversation could nudge things in that direction if someone feels strongly they don’t want to do it — but you might as well get that out in the open if so.

4. Greeting a team spread across the world

How should I greet my team that is across the world during online meetings? I usually start with “Good morning” (it’s my morning), but is that right if it’s one person’s evening?

“Good morning — or afternoon or evening, depending on where you are.”

Or just, “Hello, all!”

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Science: Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library and a massive repository of online artifacts, has been collecting mementos of the ever-expanding World Wide Web for over two decades, allowing users to revisit sites that have since been changed or deleted. But like the web, it too has evolved since its genesis, and in the aughts, it also began to offer a selection of ebooks that any internet user can check out with the creation of a free account. That latter feature has gotten the organization in some trouble. Internet Archive was sued by a suite of four corporate publishers in 2020 over copyright controversies -- with one side saying that what Internet Archive does is preservation, and the other saying that it's piracy, since it freely distributes books as image files without compensating the author. Last week, the ongoing case entered a new chapter as the nonprofit organization filed a motion for summary judgment, asking a federal judge to put a stop to the lawsuit, arguing that their Controlled Digital Lending program "is a lawful fair use that preserves traditional library lending in the digital world" since "each book loaned via CDL has already been bought and paid for." On Friday, Creative Commons issued a statement supporting Internet Archive's motion. In 2006, Internet Archive started a program for digitizing books both under copyright and in the public domain. It works with a range of global partners, including other libraries, to scan materials onto its site (Cornell University made a handy guide on what works fall under copyright vs. the public domain). For copyrighted books, Internet Archive owns the physical books that they created the digital copies from and limits their circulation by allowing only one person to borrow a title at a time. Book publishers, namely Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley Sons, and Penguin Random House, were not keen on this practice, and they have been seeking financial damages for the 127 books (PDF) shared under copyright. Vox estimated that if the publishers win, Internet Archive would have to pay $19 million, which is about "one year of operating revenue." In the most recent filings, the publishers accused Internet Archive of amassing "a collection of more than three million unauthorized in-copyright ebooks -- including more than 33,000 of the Publishers' commercially available titles -- without obtaining licenses to do so or paying the rightsholders a cent for exploiting their works. Anybody in the world with an internet connection can instantaneously access these stolen works via IA's interrelated archive.org and openlibrary.org websites." In its defense, Internet Archive, which is being represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that "libraries have been practicing CDL in one form or another for more than a decade," and that Internet Archive lends its digitized books on an "owned-to-loaned basis, backstopped by strong technical protections to enforce lending limits."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Former model and businesswoman Ivana Trump has died at the age of 73. Her ex-husband, former U.S. president Donald Trump, announced her death on social media.

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It's actually just conventional porn inside Calabi-Yau manifolds.

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The core GOP belief in “small government” and “free markets” and “no taxpayer waste” doesn’t hold up quite as well as it used to to scrutiny, assuming it ever did at all.

Case in point: in North Carolina, Trump GOP lawmaker Ben Moss has pushed forward a ridiculous bill (HB 1049) that would require towns and cities use up to $50,000 in taxpayer funds to destroy free electric vehicle stations on public land, if local authorities don’t build free gas and diesel pumps alongside them. There’s, of course, no provision included in the bill that works in the opposite direction.

The bill is extremely likely the direct result of some local oil industry lobbyist throwing a terrible, ghost written bill in the lap of a corrupt lawmaker who didn’t even bother to read it (how most bills are born these days). Or, it’s an unprompted attention seeking bill by Moss letting his sponsors in the oil industry know he’s ready and excited to play ball as a new lawmaker. Either one is, of course, bad.

Moss, of course, frames the unnecessary law as a benefit to taxpayers:

Taxpayers should not be footing the bill for ‘free’ electric vehicle charging stations on state and local government property unless the same locations offer gasoline or diesel fuel at no charge. We need to do more to increase American energy production.https://t.co/LV0ldsZufy

— Rep. Ben Moss (@BenMossNC) July 2, 2022

The bill even goes so far as to include a bizarre little measure requiring that any person or company that puts a free electric charging station on their property, itemize “the percentage of the amount of the customer’s total purchase price that is a result of the business providing electric vehicle charging stations at no charge” on every receipt for every purchase.

It’s a dumb little way to generate ire among customers who don’t use the charging station that they’re paying for through their purchases. And the bill itself is a desperate quest to stall the progress of organic electric market growth on behest of an industry not keen on disruption. All dressed up, as Trump Republicans love to do, as some kind of exciting, big win for the little guy.

The bill (which can be tracked here) hasn’t been passed and isn’t likely to now that it has received nationwide attention for being monumentally stupid. But I’ve seen countless, very similar bills (especially related to telecom and community broadband) that often see no such attention or challenge on their way from dumb, corruption-fueled brain fart to dumb, corruption-fueled law.

by Stefanie Dodt, ARD German TV

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

This story was co-published with ARD German TV.

In the year since the United States blocked Mexicans from entering the country to sell their blood, the two global pharmaceutical companies that operate the largest number of plasma clinics along the border say they have seen a sharp drop in supply.

In a suit challenging the ban, the companies acknowledged for the first time the extent to which Mexicans visiting the U.S. on short-term visas contribute to the world’s supply of blood plasma. In court filings, the companies revealed that up to 10% of the blood plasma collected in the U.S. — millions of liters a year — came from Mexicans who crossed the border with visas that allow brief visits for business and tourism.

The legal challenge by Spain-based Grifols and CSL of Australia relates to an announcement last June that U.S. Customs and Border Protection doesn’t permit Mexican citizens to cross into the U.S. on temporary visas to sell their blood plasma. The suit was initially dismissed by a federal judge but reinstated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The drug companies’ lawyers have said in court filings that the sharp reduction in Mexicans selling blood to the border clinics is contributing to a worldwide shortage of plasma and is “precipitating a worldwide public-health crisis that is costing patients dearly.”

ProPublica, ARD German TV and Searchlight New Mexico reported in 2019 that thousands of Mexicans were crossing the border to donate blood as often as twice a week, earning as much as $400 per month. Selling blood has been illegal in Mexico since 1987.

Many countries place strict limits on blood donations — Germany, for example, allows a maximum of 60 donations per year with intensive checkups before every fifth donation. But the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t require comparable donor checkups and allows people visiting American clinics to sell their blood twice a week, or up to 104 times a year.

The limits that other countries set on blood donations have made the U.S. one of the world’s leading exporters of blood. In 2020, U.S. facilities collected 38.2 million liters of plasma for the production of medicine, accounting for approximately 60% of such blood plasma collected worldwide.

Until now, it has been unclear how much of the U.S. blood plasma supply came from Mexican citizens, and pharmaceutical companies had downplayed border clinics’ role in meeting demand for plasma. Grifols noted in 2019 that “more than 93% of the centers [are] at a far distance from the border between the U.S. and Mexico.”

But in its recent court filings, Grifols stressed the importance of the border clinics. A statement from a company executive disclosed that at the company’s Texas centers alone, there were “approximately 30,000 Mexican nationals donating and supplying over 600,000 liters of plasma [a year].” He describes Mexican donors as “loyal and selfless in their commitment to donating plasma.”

According to a filing by Grifols and CSL, the 24 border centers run by Grifols alone account for an “annual economic impact of well over $150 million” and represent approximately 1,000 jobs.

The trade organization for the pharmaceutical companies, the Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association, has similarly reframed its arguments on the issue. In a 2019 statement, the association urged reporters not to attach any significance to “donation centers that happen to fall within areas states define as border zones.” It said then that it had no estimate of how much blood was being bought at the border or whether the amount was disproportionate when compared to the rest of the country.

But a recent court filing by the association said there are 52 plasma centers in the border zone, and “the average center along the border collects higher than average (31% more) plasma than the average center nationwide.”

Some of those donation centers were set up just steps away from the U.S.-Mexico border. Their location, court papers make clear, was part of a strategic effort to bring in Mexican donors: A memorandum written by the companies’ lawyers acknowledged that the centers were located to “facilitate” donations made by Mexican nationals, and that Grifols and CSL “have also spent ‘several million dollars in the last several years’ on advertising to encourage Mexican citizens to donate plasma in exchange for payment at the centers located along the border.” The memorandum did not specify if the ads were published in Mexico, but advertising for paid plasma donations is illegal in Mexico.

The Mexican nationals selling their blood previously entered the U.S. on what are known as B-1 or B-2 visas, documents that allow visitors to shop, do business or visit tourist sites. U.S. Customs and Border Protection had long viewed the practice of selling blood as a “gray area,” with some officials allowing short-term visitors to go to the centers while others did not. In 2021, about a year and a half after we published our 2019 story, the Border Patrol issued internal guidance that barred short-term visa holders from selling blood.

CSL and Grifols challenged that action, asserting that for 30 years, CBP had “largely allowed B-1/B-2 visa holders from Mexico to enter this country for the purpose of donating their plasma at collection centers that provide a payment to donors.” The CPB disagreed. Matthew Davies, a supervisory border security officer, told the court that selling plasma for compensation had never been a permissible activity.

On June 14, 2021, CBP sent out “clarifying guidance” that selling plasma on a visitor visa was not allowed. The announcement created chaos at the border centers. Two days later, Grifols wrote — and later deleted — a post on its Spanish-language Facebook page that said, “We are replying to the hundreds of messages asking when people with a visa can come back to donate. For the moment, the response is, you can’t.” An angry reply stated “Now, we’re no longer heroes who are saving lives. They just used us.”

Since then, donations at border centers have dropped dramatically. The pharmaceutical companies told the court that a survey of 12 centers in Texas found a 20% to 90% decline. “One particularly large center, which normally collects 5000+ donations per week, has decreased to a level closer to 200,” said the plasma association president, Amy Efantis.

Some previous donors interviewed by ProPublica said they would welcome a court ruling that set clear rules for people crossing the border to sell their blood. Genesis, a 23-year-old student from Ciudad Juárez, said she had worried about losing her visa when she entered the United States for her regular visits to the border clinics.

A current manager of a plasma collection center at the border, who asked not to be named because of the ongoing court case, said that he had to lay off about two-thirds of his employees and cut the center’s hours. “It would be good if they allowed [Mexicans] to donate again,” he said. “People are depending on this, on both sides.”

Do You Have a Tip for ProPublica? Help Us Do Journalism.

Correction

July 14, 2022: This story originally misidentified one of the news organizations involved in the 2019 investigation. It was Searchlight New Mexico, not Searchlight Mexico.

I’m the person in charge of printing out the entire internet. Like in case of a solar flare taking out global communications. Or an EMP attack. Any sort of disaster that would send us back to the dark ages. They say it’s part of Continuity of Government and all that. They have me set up in a big warehouse, like the one at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Just stacks and stacks and rows and rows of shelves. I’ve only filled up one part of one shelf in the five months I’ve been here. I have my work cut out for me.

Near the front of the warehouse is my office. Just me and a computer and an HP Officejet Pro 8600. It’s pretty nice. Wi-Fi-enabled, so like, no cords or anything. There’s also a red phone, like THE red phone. Like the one the president has in the movies. I’m too scared to touch it. I assume it’s there because they’ll call if whatever might happen starts happening. And then I guess I’m supposed to print stuff faster or something? Maybe finish it out on something really important? Not really sure. I brought in a tea towel to drape over it so I don’t have to think about it.

It’s a good job. Got it off Craigslist. You’d think a Department of Homeland Security gig would be harder to get. I even said that in the interview. The interviewer said all the important people are already working on more important stuff. I said that was a little rude. She asked if I wanted the job or not.

There’s not much oversight. It’s sort of a self-directed position. I’m starting with printing Wikipedia. That feels safe, right? Lots of knowledge going on there. At first, I would click random articles and just print out whatever it was. A few months in, I realized I’d accidentally printed out the article for BAREFOOT CONTESSA three times. Fair is fair, random doesn’t mean no repeats. After that, I started going alphabetically. There isn’t an alphabetical list of the articles, so I have to guess and double back a lot. I began at ACCUTANE but pretty quickly remembered ABRAHAM LINCOLN. As long as the printer keeps going I guess I’m doing all right. I hope I remember not to print BAREFOOT CONTESSA again when I get to B.

Do I have to print out porn? They said the whole internet. I guess I probably have a good decade before I have to start thinking about that. But how would that work? Or even be helpful to anyone?

Near constant printing uses a lot of paper. I have to go to Staples a couple times a day. I was hoping I could strike up a good rapport with the employees there. They’re the closest thing I have to coworkers. They don’t seem to like me, though. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. I thought we could do a little joke where when I’m at checkout with a ream of Hammermill they would say, “The usual?” and we’d laugh. They’re not outwardly mean or anything. They just really don’t seem to want to chat.

YouTube comments? I can’t see the merit in it. It wouldn’t even have the context of the video. But it is part of the internet, so gotta print it.

I don’t know what toner is. Do printers still use toner? I’d look it up but that would take time away from the printing. I guess I could print out something really long and look it up while that’s going on. I did that once to take a nap. I was tired because I stayed up late watching The Good Fight. Usually, I only allow myself one episode but it ended on a cliffhanger and I just needed to know. I printed out The Kite Runner because I knew it would take a while. Though, I am realizing now that The Kite Runner already has been printed out. Like, a bunch of times. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to do that.

I guess I should start thinking about alphabetizing too. Right now everything is filed in the order I printed it. That’s not gonna help when the President of Whatever Is Left wants to learn about what kinds of birds there used to be. But that’s not even alphabetizing; that’s categorization. And then I guess I’ll need subcategories too. Is BIRDS enough to be its own thing? Does the movie The Birds go under BIRDS or MOVIES? Or both?

I went on a date last week. His name is Tony. He’s on the team in charge of capturing and storing all the smells. We first met at the interview at DHS. He was nice and the dinner was fun but he smelled like a hot garden hose the whole time. It wasn’t a bad smell but surely there would be more smells. Some of them good, some of them bad. He was telling me last week they were working on Crest White Strips mixed with saliva. I don’t think I could handle someone bringing their work home like that. He really is a sweet guy, though.

Oh, APARTHEID just finished printing. Time to print APOLLO 13. That should be fun.

The tourist and relatives were cited by local police because they went off the authorized path to get closer to the crater, apparently to take a selfie, according to news reports.

(Image credit: Gregorio Borgia/AP)

Birth control pills are available in the U.S. only with a prescription. Now a drugmaker is asking the FDA to approve a progestin-only contraceptive that would be available without one at pharmacies.

(Image credit: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

A neighborhood in South Dallas is undergoing a beautification project that transcends time by celebrating the communities of the past, present, and future.

In the Bonton neighborhood in South Dallas, what once was a vacant lot has been transformed in a matter of weeks into a neighborhood art park. The installation, titled RE:Imagine Vacancy, Bonton, features many sculptural artworks by artist Art Garcia. Funded by the City of Dallas’ Office of Arts and Culture (OAC) and the Department of Code Compliance (Code), this project is part of a pilot program called RE:Imagine Vacancy, that focuses on revitalizing empty lots in neighborhoods across the city.

Though beautification projects are typically centered around visually improving an area, Garcia’s installation takes the project a step further by highlighting the history of Bonton while engaging with the present-day community that continues to thrive and rebuild itself. As a historically Black and segregated neighborhood in the Jim Crow South, Bonton was underserved and considered undesirable due to its location along the rail tracks and the Trinity River’s floodplain. Additionally, it became increasingly difficult for residents to find adequate housing in the area, and attempts to relocate were met with violent backlash in the 1940s and 1950s.

The concept behind the installation stems from the various stories told by Bonton residents nearly a century ago: memories of streets flooding when it rained, homes without water and electricity, new highways that isolated the community from its neighbors, and revitalization projects spearheaded by the Bonton community itself over the past few decades. RE:Imagine Vacancy, Bonton consists of five evocative sets of objects: a small gate, a footbridge, three free-standing houses, a raft, and a series of large sunflower displays.

Deriving from the once-existing fences that outlined Bonton residential homes, Front Yard serves as an entry point into the installation. The small human-shaped hole, reminiscent of a child, is a reference to stories told by some of the earliest residents of Bonton in the early twentieth century. The residents recall their parents’ warnings to stay within the confines of their front yard and not to wander beyond, for obvious safety reasons. The depiction of a gateway traditionally symbolizes an entryway into a place of great importance, but in this installation the gate also functions as an exit for the children to elude the boundaries of their yard and venture into the world beyond. 

A small, two-step footbridge embellished with multicolored footprints recreates the stairway entrance that existed in a majority of the original Bonton homes. Bridges typically operate as passageways from one distinct space to another: outside to inside, past to future, old to new. Whether Steps is being used to enter or exit, visitors are certain to experience a new appreciation and understanding of those who inhabited the space before them. 

The primary focal points of the installation are the three large-scale, house-like structures titled Home. These objects represent both the original homes of Bonton — many of which were ultimately demolished for being too costly to repair — and the newly built homes which are the product of revitalization efforts. The structures are complete with a roof and seating area, functioning as an ideal spot to enjoy a picnic, stop to rest, or simply escape the sweltering Texas sun. Home serves as a homecoming, inviting the public to connect with the Bonton’s rich history and continue to grow with the community of the present.

Developed in the Trinity River’s floodplain with no storm drains, the neighborhood was subject to immense flooding during the rainy season. With no playgrounds or pools, the local Bonton children took advantage of their flooded streets and created their own playscape. Cleverly titled Water Park, this sculpture depicting a raft speaks to the children’s ingenuity and resilient spirit to create their own adventure no matter the circumstances. 

Standing at over ten feet tall, thirty-two vibrant sunflower sculptures adorn the area. The sunflowers not only add color and uplifting imagery to the space, but also function as individual canvases for the youth of the Bonton Community Center to add their own narrative into the installation. When asked “What will your community look like when you grow up?” the youth responded with drawings of their vision for the near future. Informed and inspired by the stories of Bonton’s past — including personal accounts of the sunflower fields neighboring the residential homes — and imbued with hopeful images of the youth’s imagined future — Sunflower Field celebrates the community of the past, present, and future.

An additional group of Bonton teens assisted in the installation of the project, which was built almost entirely using recycled and donated materials. The teens were also taught how to develop conceptual art practices and various fabrication methodologies along the way.

The last element in the installation is the subtle yet powerful Ghost House. Ghost House is not a material object at all; it is merely an empty space outlined in chalk, much like the diamond of a baseball field. While remnants of the house that once existed on the plot remain in bits and pieces of its foundation, the space is less than a shell of the original 1909 home. Although Ghost House is primarily immaterial, visitors are invited into the home to observe, connect, or simply imagine the history that the small plot of land holds. As Garcia puts it, “through the entropy, it’ll erase.”

Art Garcia’s work has a unique visual language; the physical objects alone are minimal enough to not overwhelm, but provocative enough to spur interest and empathy. Each piece is a common and recognizable object, but within the context of the juxtaposition between the space and the artwork, new meaning emerges. Garcia gives each object enough space of its own to convey itself while incorporating bright colors as a semiotic mode, invoking hope, peacefulness, vitality, and growth. Additionally, his use of steel, a material with a wide potentiality in sculpture, grounds his installation with a visual weight and balance.

Within the history of art, site-specific installation marks a shift in artwork being purely aesthetic to focusing more on what the artwork communicates and how it resonates with the human experience. Much like the artists Richard Serra, Rachel Whiteread, and Ai Weiwei (to name a few), location and visitor interaction are key elements in Garcia’s work. Similarly, connection to contemporary artists such as Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, who transform demolition spaces and materials into visual works that reflect the history of the space, can be seen in how RE:Imagine Vacancy, Bonton responds to its site, incorporating it into the media itself. Garcia’s work is a part of its locale, centering around the community of Bonton and emphasizing the interdependence between artwork, a place, and its history. 

As a whole, this installation invites visitors to discover what a resilient community can do in the face of injustice and neglect, and to experience a space that facilitates education, expression, exploration, and above all, imagination.

 

The installation is a six-month, temporary project that opened on June 18, 2022. Visit the installation at 2515 Wells Street, Dallas TX 75215.

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Emma S. Ahmad is an art historian and writer based in Dallas, TX. 

The post Reimagining Vacancy in Bonton: Art Garcia’s Public Art Project appeared first on Glasstire.

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

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It's macro time! Today: Keynes vs. Hayek.

Season 3 of summer school is here asking the biggest economic questions about what makes an entire economy grow or contract? Things like, is there a "right" level of unemployment? Who gains from trade? What rhymes with 'paradox of thrift'? Also, inflation, we'll get to inflation.

Episode 1 begins with the rise of macroeconomics as a field, with one of the great economic debates of the 20th century: what causes booms and busts, and what can the government do about it? How free should a free market be?

It's a debate (over beats and with an actual rap battle) between John Maynard Keynes and F.A Hayek.

Watch this Tik Tok to learn more. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here. | Listen to past seasons of Summer School here. | Listen to our econ songs of the summer on Spotify. |

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Guest post by Kay Savetz, professional web publisher and amateur Atari historian

For years I hunted for the answer to the question: who wrote the adverting tagline “Have you played Atari today?” Atari started using it in print advertisements on April 1, 1982. Soon after, the words were sung in a jingle in many Atari TV commercials. As an Atari historian, the question plagued me: who wrote those words?

My computer historian colleagues didn’t know. I asked Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari. He thought it might have come from their ad agency at the time, Doyle Dane Bernbach. But when both a colleague and I separately reached out to DDB, we hit dead ends. I searched Internet Archive, commercial newspaper archives, and library collections, all in vain.

In 2021 I created a script called TIARA — The Internet Archive Research Assistant — which searches Internet Archive every day for newly uploaded items that match my selected words and phrases. (You can get the script free from https://github.com/savetz/tiara). It diligently searched for “Have you played Atari today?” daily, with no hint to the answer to my question.

Until June 2022 — when there was a hit. A book called “Graphis New Talent Annual 2016” had been scanned just the day before by Internet Archive’s scanning center in the Philippines. The book was available for immediate online borrowing. I checked it out for an hour, and had the answer I needed in just a minute. There on page 7 is a bio for Robert Wain Mackall, which says that he wrote the “Have you played Atari today?” tagline while working at Doyle Dane Bernbach.

Finally, there was my answer! Internet Archive’s relentless scanning of books, its lending library, its full-text search capability, and my little TIARA script delivered a fact that I had been seeking for years.

—Kay Savetz

What are some things you’re exploring on the Internet Archive? Tell us in the comments!

The post “Have you played Atari today?” appeared first on Internet Archive Blogs.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Later some other kid with more funding publishes first.

Today's News:

CP/M, the more capable of the two operating systems offered for the popular Amstrad CPC range of home computers, is now unequivocally open-source. Though it has been purportedly open source for some time, the license contained a peculiar specificity whereas the new wording is "equivalent to the well-known BSD or MIT licenses." — Read the rest

Thanks for your interest in becoming a NIMBY. The Not In My Back Yard movement has been a proud supporter of exclusionary zoning, regressive views, and rose-colored nostalgia for decades. We welcome all to become part of our big tent (not very on-brand, we know). Simply fill out this quick multiple-choice form so we can ensure that you’re cranky enough to join our bad-faith organization of cranks.

Question One: Do you live here?
A. Yes.
B. No*
*If choosing No, please skip to the bottom of this page.

Question Two: How did you hear about NIMBYs?
A. An unhinged, oddly capitalized rant from an eighty-five-year-old on NextDoor.
B. Public meltdown from a thirty-year-old liberal arts graduate on Twitter.
C. Your dad’s coworker Craig Schlenker, as told during a rambling story over Sunday dinner.

Question Three: What is your biggest concern about building new homes in your area?
A. Decreasing property values.
B. More people, specifically ones that don’t look like me.
C. Option B but I feel more comfortable publicly choosing option A.

Question Four: Where do you think new housing should be built instead?
A. The town on the other side of the railroad tracks.
B. A brand-new city, that’s a thing we can definitely do, right?
C. Mexico.

Question Five: Should all new housing be affordable to all?
A. Absolutely! Especially because my own house is so expensive.
B. Yes and new residents should be crowned the kings and queens of small, independent island nations in the Pacific. If that entirely reasonable request prevents new housing from being built, so be it.
C. Are we still using affordable housing as a smokescreen? Can I re-check the box about people that don’t look like me?

Question Six: How much did your home cost when you purchased it?
A. I inherited mine from my parents.
B. In 1976, I accidentally dropped a nickel near an open house and they handed me a deed.
C. Which home? I have seven.

Question Seven: What is the most dangerous aspect of YIMBYs (Yes In My Back Yard)?
A. They’re pawns being used for a corporate takeover.
B. If you look them in the eye, you turn to stone.
C. They’re pawns being used for a corporate takeover to sell you anti-stone medication after they look you in the eye.

Thank you for filling out this form, and the NIMBY National Organization will be in touch in six to eight weeks or whenever someone proposes building a duplex within a fifty-mile radius. In that case, you’ll hear our screams.

*If you do not reside here, please contact your local NIMBY chapter for enrollment. We do not currently accept out-of-towners, people who look like out-of-towners, renters, transients, drifters, or people taking a walk through our community.

Good morning. The story of the summer so far remains one of heat, and while we’re going to take a step back in temperatures for a few days, the reprieve may be relatively brief. In case you’re wondering, Houston now has an average temperature of 88.5 degrees for the month of July, which would break the existing record of 87.5 degrees (set in 1980) by a full degree. June, already, was the city’s warmest month on record. I’d like to say this summer sucks, but the opposite is actually true in regard to the pressure pattern driving this heat.

Persistent high pressure over the southern United States has been the predominant meteorological cause of this summer’s heat. This has generally created conditions for sinking air, which has led to clear skies and sunny days. This provides ideal conditions for daytime heating, and outside of one week in late June and early July, we just haven’t had much of a break from this pattern. Unfortunately, we expect the high pressure pattern to mostly persist at least for the next couple of weeks.

Wednesday

Happy 713 day! It’s July 13, the day we celebrate Houston’s OG area code and our city’s unique identity. Hopefully, Mother Nature will get into the festivities and keep highs just below 100 degrees for at least part of the city. Highs will range from the low 90s along the coast to the low 100s for areas well inland, as the region experiences yet another brutally hot day. Like on recent afternoons, we should see some scattered showers and thunderstorms pop up north of Houston, and then move steadily toward the southwest. Some areas west of downtown got lucky yesterday, and I wish you good fortune today. Watching the radar of late has been a mix of hope and dread—hope for rainfall, and dread of the inevitable miss.

Thursday

This still looks like the day with the best chance for more clouds, widespread rain, and somewhat cooler temperatures. This is because the high pressure system retreats a bit further to the west, opening the door to rain chances of perhaps 30 to 50 percent, and keeping highs in the mid-90s for much of the area.

Friday

Another day with highs possibly only in the mid-90s, although rain chances look to be lower than Thursday.

Saturday and Sunday

Alas, high pressure will start to build back over the region by late this week, and both weekend days look very hot, in the upper 90s to 100 degrees with mostly sunny skies. Rain chances, again, look to be quite low, perhaps 10 to 20 percent.

Next week

The outlook for next week still looks a little muddled. Generally I’d expect highs in the upper-90s, but I think there’s a chance we’re a bit cooler than that, with some slightly better rain chances. Put another way, it’s going to be hot, but I don’t think it’s going to be quite as brutal as it has been as we’ve seen so far this month.