Cowboy Who?

There was recently a video circulating on Twitter that can only be described as shockingly cute.  Made viral by the Austin-based science communicator Joe Hanson, the clip shows two black bear cubs wrestling on the patio of the Chisos Mountains Lodge at Big Bend National Park, teetering like toddlers covered in fur. The camera pans to reveal their mother, staring into the distance with what looks like an apathetic glare. And as if that wasn’t enough, the camera captures a third cub sitting in a bucket.  It’s the exact formula of stupid-cuteness that’s ripe for internet virality at any time. People in the video’s comments were quick to graft human qualities onto the family of wild bears: “Parent definitely has that ‘what time is too…View Original Post

The post Why Black Bears Are Returning to Texas appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Houston has about two more months to go, in terms of prime time, for the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season. As long time readers of this site will know, the odds of Texas being hit by a hurricane after September 24th, are quite low. By all appearances, the next two months in the tropics will be quite busy, with the Atlantic’s Main Development Region already starting to heat up. So we are going to have plenty of systems to monitor. To survive this period of anxiety, therefore, we should prioritize which tropical systems are worth worrying about.

And we’re here to tell you, Houston, Tropical Depression Eight does not have the look of something we think the greater Houston area should worry too much about. The usual disclaimers apply, of course. This is the tropics. Things change. But at this point we’re trending toward moderate to minimal effects.

To that end we’re lowering the entire metro area to a Stage 1 flood alert on our flood scale, bringing the coastal areas (previously Stage 2) into alignment with the rest of the area. Generally, we think most of the Houston area will see 1 to 4 inches of rainfall this weekend. The coast may see some blips above 5 inches, but over the course of a couple of days this should be manageable.

The biggest area of concern, in terms of rainfall, now appears to be an area from Matagorda Bay south to Corpus Christi, or Port Mansfield. We think there may be some bullseyes of 10+ inches in these areas. The depression, which may be on the verge of becoming Tropical Storm Hanna, is simply moving westward fast enough that it will hopefully limit long periods of heavy rainfall. We anticipate a landfall on Saturday morning, somewhere between Corpus Christi and Brownsville. Most of the strongest winds will be to the north of the landfalling location.

We will of course continue to track this depression, and if our forecast thinking changes we will update post haste. For now, however, you can expect a gray and wet weekend, but likely one without widespread street flooding, or worse.

For years, refugees seeking asylum at the official ports of entry on the Canadian border have been turned back. But now a judge rules U.S. treatment of the returned refugees violates human rights.

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The airlines will require all customers over the age of 2 to wear face coverings on board and at airports, with no exceptions. They say people who don't comply won't be allowed to fly as next week.

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Inspector General Michael Horowitz announces the inquiry the day after Portland, Ore., Mayor Ted Wheeler was tear-gassed by federal agents.

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New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

Mary drives in her 2007 Toyota Camry from her studio apartment to John’s studio apartment, at an average rate of 34 miles per hour. The trip takes her 13 minutes. Mary has been dating John for 8 months, and he still pronounces her last name wrong. How far away is John’s house?

If Mary stays silent about her needs (emotional, physical, etc.) and anything that is bothering her, John will think she is “super chill,” “low-maintenance,” “independent,” and that their relationship is going well. “X” is the cost of Mary’s silence. Solve for X.

Mary is upset. She tries to tell John about the older male coworker who talked over her during the meeting at work, then stared at her and licked his lips. John replies that maybe she should just speak louder and demand respect if she wants her coworkers to take her seriously. What is the distance between Mary and John?

REVIEW: Gravity. The pull of gravity is proportional to the mass of an object. The force of an object is equal to its mass multiplied by its gravity. Force = Mass * Gravity.

Mary and John are in orbit. John is polite to her friends, has financial stability from his full-time corporate job, and still has his original hair. Mary has two liberal arts degrees, goes to Pilates twice a week, and fits within one standard deviation of society’s attractiveness standards for women. Who has the greater gravity? Who will end up orbiting the other?

Mary texts John at 9:15 AM to confirm their dinner plans at 8 PM that evening. John doesn’t text back until 7:34 PM to reply that he is on his way. In the intervening period, Mary received 13 unrelated notifications and checked her phone 57 more times throughout the day. Assuming that anxiety increases linearly, plot Mary’s anxiety as a function over time.

REVIEW: Density is defined as mass divided by volume. Density = Mass/Volume

Mary and John now share a one-bedroom apartment. Mary considers the future of their relationship. Her furniture (knockoff Eames lounge chair, secondhand solid oak dresser, matching IKEA bookshelves) weighs a combined total of 162 pounds. The apartment is a 10-minute commute to her office, has large south-facing windows, and John paid for the overpriced mattress that did not come in a box. Calculate the total density. How dense would Mary have to be to leave John? How dense would she have to be to stay?

REVIEW: Work is calculated by multiplying the force by the amount of movement of an object. Work = Force * Distance

Mary tidies up after John, listens to him complain about his coworkers, and provides the emotional support he says he never got growing up. John made dinner reservations for her birthday once, completes the exact household chores only when she asks him, and picked up her cat from the vet when she (Mary, not the cat) got food poisoning. Mary says she is happy to pick up the slack when John is “going through something.” John is constantly going through something. Who is doing more work?

EXTRA CREDIT: Name Mary’s mother (John still can’t.)

Mary considers breaking up with John. Right now she spends 21% of her time tracking John’s overall emotional state (he has an important work meeting on Wednesday so he’ll be extra stressed on Tuesday), 7% reminding John to buy more dish soap for the apartment again because he keeps on “forgetting, so sorry babe, you’ll remind me right?” and 13% calculating if she should just buy the dish soap herself because this is what happened last time when they ran out of paper towels, and she had to use napkins stashed in her purse. How much free time would Mary have if she left John? How much of this free time would be filled by crying about dying alone and possibly getting eaten by her cat?

Take the function of Mary. Take the function of John. Does Mary remember who she was before John?

Mary drives in her 2007 Toyota Camry, away from John’s one-bedroom apartment, at a rate of 45 miles per hour. It is 10:25 AM on a Saturday morning, and she is driving northwest. Her 4 suitcases are packed in the trunk and her cat is secure in a carrier in the passenger seat. She left the furniture behind. How far away will Mary be before John notices she’s gone? How long before John misses Mary?

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And pure math is about the stamps that can't exist!

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Health officials say they're not ready to determine if the data are statistically significant yet, but there's a positive trend. They say people should still practice social distance and wear masks.

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Trump won suburban voters narrowly in 2016, but now he's getting swamped in the polls with them against Democrat Joe Biden. Trump's trying to turn it around with a heavy dose of fear.

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Democrats say they want to remember history, but not honor Confederates. Their bill also calls for removing a bust of Justice Taney, author of landmark case barring citizenship for an enslaved man.

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State and local leaders have repeatedly called for federal agents to leave the city. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown says the officers are not about public safety but "political theater."

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Citing anti-racism protests, the group said it was re-examining the legacy of its founder and the racist views he espoused. The Sierra Club also noted early members included prominent eugenicists.

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Investigators reportedly say they have evidence that Roy Den Hollander, the FBI's primary subject in the New Jersey killing, was involved in the killing of a rival attorney earlier this month.

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How can communities stop coronavirus case surges without crushing the economy? Some scientists say widespread mask wearing may be more than a helpful precaution — it may be the solution.

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No, media circuses do not count. Not until someone is juggling on top of a bear.

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Firefighters responded to reports of papers being burned on the consulate grounds Tuesday night but were barred entry, according to Houston news media reports.

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Brian Mays, the friendly owner of Sam’s BBQ, is used to people showing up at his legendary East Austin restaurant to snap photos. Inside, the restaurant is an Austin time capsule: the walls are plastered with yellowing photographs of long-gone locals, Texas politicians, and famous musicians, many of them looking decidedly well fed. The building’s exterior, with a Martin Luther King Jr. mural and trademark motto—“you don’t need no teeth to eat my beef”—is a common sight on local Instagram accounts. So it wasn’t surprising, Mays said, when a group of musicians, the Grammy-nominated country music band Midland, asked to use the front of his BBQ joint for a photo shoot last year. But he did not expect to find an image from the shoot…View Original Post

The post “This Is Exactly What’s Wrong With Austin”: A White Band’s Digitally Altered Photo of an Iconic Black-Owned BBQ Joint Infuriates Locals appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Texas-based artist  Liss LaFleur has been named a Citizen Artist Fellow for 2020-2021 by The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Humble, Texas (Houston area) native, along with a cohort of poets, activists, writers, and visual artists, including Damon Davis, Ana Masacote, Anthony Torres, Beatrice Thomas, Marvin K. White, Yancy Villa-Calvo, have been honored. Since its inception in 2016, the program has tapped artists nationally whose works have a positive impact in their communities.

“I’m extremely honored to be recognized with this fellowship and excited to become a part of the Kennedy Center’s socially-minded arts community,” LaFleur writes in an email to Glasstire. “In the year ahead, I hope to use this time of mentorship and camaraderie to pause, reassess, collaborate and build new community based work in Texas and abroad — whether through my artistic practicing, my teaching, or through activism/organizing.”

LaFleur is the first Fellow from the state of Texas. She is an Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of New Media Art in the College of Visual Art & Design at the University of North Texas, and her studio is located in Denton. Among other projects, LaFleur will continue work on Coded Glass, a series of digital stained glass which she developed in 2018 as an Immersive Scholar at North Caroline State University. Coded Glass “explores the urgency of the #MeToo movement, and the role of social technology.”

“I began thinking about other manifestations that could combine art and technology, community activism, glass and digital fabrication,” Lafleur states about her upcoming fellowship. “It’s my goal to create a set of anachronistic and speculative works that investigate digital forms of protest.”

Fellows will participate in the Kennedy Center’s annual Arts Summit of thought leaders from related fields, as well as collaborate and receive mentorship at the Center’s Retreat. Center Staff will be available via conference calls to honorees and all fellows will receive opportunities and information about grants and other resources through Kennedy Center partners. The list of partners sharing information and opportunities include Aspen Institute, National Endowment for the Arts, ArtChangeUS, and Citizen University.

For more on the Kennedy Center and its 2020-2021 Fellows, please go here.

****

Liss LaFleur (b. 1987, Humble, TX) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with video, new media, and performance. Through the merging of digital and physical space, she explores queer identity, the future of feminism, and historical narratives. She is a 20-21 Kennedy Citizen Artist Fellow, and in 2018 she was named an Immersive Scholar by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including presentations at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; TATE Modern, UK; Cannes Court Métrage, FR; PBS/ POV Digital; the Reykjavik Art Museum, IS; the Museum of Glass, US; Sister Gallery, AU; and the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, South Korea. LaFleur received an MFA in Media Art from Emerson College, and is an Assistant Professor of New Media Art in the College of Visual Art & Design at the University of North Texas.

 

The post Humble, TX Native Liss LaFleur Recognized as a 2020-2021 Kennedy Citizen Artist Fellow appeared first on Glasstire.

Good morning. For some areas south of town it has been a wild and woolly night, with near-constant thunder and lightning. Some parts of League City and Dickinson received 4 or more inches of rainfall since around 2 a.m., while areas north and west of Houston have received nary a sprinkle. This fairly wet pattern should remain in effect through Saturday, or possibly even Sunday as another tropical wave approaches the coast on Friday. This wave has a pretty decent chance of becoming a tropical depression.

Tuesday

Showers along the coast should move inland and westward later today before fading out this afternoon or early evening. Most of the area probably will receive 0.5 to 1.5 inch of rain, but as we’ve seen in southern parts of the region overnight, some locations may sit under slow-moving storms and receive more. So far rainfall rates have generally been under 1 inch per hour, which has prevented any significant flooding. Cloudy skies and rains should help limit high temperatures today to about 90 degrees. Any storms that develop Tuesday night should be of a more scattered, and less concentrated nature.

Wednesday

The atmosphere on Wednesday should allow for another healthy chance of showers, but we don’t anticipate them being as intense or widespread as storms on Tuesday. Highs will again be limited to about 90 degrees with mostly cloudy skies and rain to help cool surface temperatures.

Thursday

Thursday may provide a bit of a reprieve from rain showers, with only scattered storms developing, and partly to mostly sunny skies. This may allow high temperatures to rise into the low 90s.

Friday and Saturday

As the weekend comes upon us, another tropical system will approach Texas. An increasing number of ensemble members of the European model show this system developing into a tropical depression as it moves westward across the Gulf of Mexico toward Texas, with most ensemble members presently bringing the storm to the Central Texas coast on Saturday. The National Hurricane Center has increased the odds of a depression or tropical storm forming to 40 percent, and I’d say the odds are probably a little better than that.

However, right now none of the forecast models are particularly bullish on rainfall totals, with most bringing an additional 1 to 3 inches of rain to the Houston region on Friday and Saturday. One reason for the lower amounts is that the storm will likely move westward at a fairly high clip, and then keep moving. Even so, this is less rain than one would generally anticipate from being on the wet side of a tropical system.

In any case, you never really want to see a low pressure system moving across the open Gulf of Mexico in late July, and we’ll be watching this one for signs of strengthening and potential for making significantly more rainfall. But at this time our overall concerns remain fairly low.

Sunday and beyond

As we get deeper into the weekend and next week highs probably will climb back into the low 90s, with rain chances backing off to normal chances of 20 or 30 percent daily. Overall confidence in this forecast is fairly low, however.

Today’s update will talk briefly about that Gulf disturbance coming to Texas this weekend, but more about what is behind that system as it appears the tropics are waking up, and they may not shut back down for a while.

Tropical outlook in a sentence

We expect a low-end system to form in the Gulf this week, another system will make an attempt to develop in the Atlantic, east of the Lesser Antilles, and with more waves emerging off Africa, more development will be possible heading into early August.

Gulf system

Eric has done a good job each morning discussing what we know and expect from the potential late week system in the Gulf. As of this afternoon, the system is a disorganized “blob” of thunderstorms over and around Cuba.

However, as that moves into the Gulf, it will find decreasing wind shear and fairly warm water to work with. It seems there are two things that will hinder this system’s development into anything worse than a depression or moderate tropical storm: 1.) It will enter the Gulf disorganized. And 2.) It will move at a steady clip, so it’s going to run out of time over water fairly quickly to develop. So the ceiling is constrained by time. Still, a strengthening tropical storm in the Gulf on approach to land is nothing to sneeze at or write off completely, so we’ll monitor this closely. Of note, the morning model data so far is not any further bullish on this system’s development prospects, and the National Hurricane Center maintains a 40 percent chance of development over the coming days. Regardless, we will see some locally heavy rainfall associated with this, be it as a disturbance or organized depression or storm. Thankfully, it is expected to keep moving at a steady pace. We will continue to monitor it for you, and Eric will have the latest in the morning.

Invest 99L

The NHC has given the disturbance classified as Invest 99L about a 90 percent chance of development out in the open Atlantic Ocean, just east of the Lesser Antilles.

This system is very, very close to being a tropical depression already (as of this writing at 1 PM Tuesday). Invest 99L is going to be interesting. It’s rather far south and small, which will help shield it from a rather significant plume of Saharan dust off to its northeast. It is moving into an area of warm water temperatures and pretty low wind shear. Theoretically, this is a good candidate for development over the next 3 to 4 days as it approaches the islands. The various intensity models are very split on what happens here. I wouldn’t take the ultra high-end ones literally, but you can clearly see two camps: One that keeps the system middling over the next few days and another that says this thing will strengthen as it approaches the islands.

Which camp is right? Great question, and one we don’t have an answer to at this time. There are good meteorological cases to be made for both a lower-end system, as well as one that perhaps organizes faster than anticipated.

The track & intensity of Invest #99L likely to be closely linked over the next 3-5 days.

Forecast low-level steering is faster & zonal but deeper-layer steering (850-200-hPa) is slower & more poleward. If 99L becomes a vertically deep vortex early (<48h), large impact on future. pic.twitter.com/TIFABN0CWz

— Philippe Papin (@pppapin) July 21, 2020

Either way, interests in the eastern Caribbean should be monitoring the progress of Invest 99L closely. For us in Texas? It would be unlikely that this would survive the trip here. In fact, no storm within 150 nautical miles of where Invest 99L was centered this morning has ever made it to Texas, with the exception of Hurricane Allen in the Rio Grande Valley in 1980. So, if you’re playing odds, you’ll take those odds. We’ll continue to watch it however.

Of note, the next two names, which both could be utilized this week are Gonzalo and Hanna. The earliest “G” storm on record was Gert on July 24, 2005. The earliest “H” storm was 2005’s iteration of Harvey on August 3rd. Both records could fall.

Beyond 99L

Weather models are beginning to perk up with more hints of activity of varying degrees in the basin going into August. It seems we have turned a corner now, and it’s becoming more likely that we’re going to see activity kick up. Historically, during the next few weeks we would expect to see a ramping up of activity heading into mid-August. This is also in addition to very warm water in the Atlantic basin, which has warmed a good bit over the last week or two.

Below, National Hurricane Center forecaster Eric Blake shares a graphic showing waters in the Gulf, Caribbean Sea, and western Atlantic at temperatures well above normal:

Not exactly what you want to see as a property owner as we approach August… yikes. I don’t want any part of this upcoming season pic.twitter.com/OfFCWjxx8A

— Eric Blake (@EricBlake12) July 21, 2020

On top of this, some of the signals we watch in the global tropics are beginning to hint that by mid-August, there could be additional background support to help systems along. The bottom line here is that it appears the heart of hurricane season is coming fast upon us, and we will likely be tracking various systems throughout the Atlantic basin pretty constantly from now until October.

Staying prepared

Even when skies are their darkest, Texans stand strong together. Reliant is ready for storm season 2020 and we can help you get ready, too. Plus, we’ll be with you – and all of our neighbors – before, during and long after whatever the weather may bring. Take the time now to protect your family, home and business, starting with Reliant’s Storm Preparedness Checklist.

Here are some other tips to prepare ahead of time:

• Be informed: Sign up for local alerts by county or city.
• Protect your property: Prepare your home by reviewing insurance policies, sealing windows and doors, and checking your storm shutters.
• Backup critical documents and information: Important files should be backed up digitally to prevent the loss of information.
• Plan for pets and animals: Have plans for your pet in case of extreme weather. You may not be able to take them to a public shelter with you, so you need to prepare for their care. More resources for pets can be found at reliantstormcenter.com.
• Plan for backup power: Stay powered and connected anytime, anywhere, with our range of at-home and portable power options.
• Plan for evacuation: Sit down and review every step of the evacuation plan so that if the time comes, your family is ready to act.

6 years ago, I posted my very first comic "Hair Expectations vs Reality" on Tumblr (first episode of this series). Now, 6 years later, I wanted to re-draw it! This comic will always have a special place in my heart. It reminds me of the beginning of something new and my growth over these past years, not just as an artist but as a person too. Drawing has always been my passion, my comfort, my voice. And this comic is what inspired me to start and to continue sharing that passion with you. If you've been here from the very beginning, or you've just stumbled upon my work, I want to say thank you! I am not very good with words, but I do want to express how thankful I am for your positive comments, your support and giving me the joy of doing what I love for a living. I'm hoping that my comics will continue to make you smile and embrace simply being human. Cheers, everyone!

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Technically, the kids in the comic will outlast everyone who reads it.

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