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For a moment after the Edcouch-Elsa High School mariachi ensemble plays the final notes of “La Petenera,” no one moves. The music seems to linger in the air of the brightly painted cinder block practice room. Then the seven violin players, who’ve all raised their bows with a flourish, slowly lower them to their sides. Everyone takes a breath and looks expectantly toward their head director, Marcos Garcia, who’s checking his watch.

“Nine fifty-seven,” Garcia announces, looking up. Too close. The University Interscholastic League (UIL) State Mariachi Festival, where the ensemble will perform tomorrow, has a strict 10-minute time limit. Edcouch-Elsa’s Mariachi Juvenil Azteca is one of the best in the state. The group can’t risk disqualification for going over the time limit, which would dash the students’ hopes of attaining a coveted Division 1 rating for the fifth year in a row.

Garcia claps his hands. “Let’s pick it up and make faster transitions between songs. You’ve got to give it more energy. Remember: musicality. Expression. Interpretation. Feeling. Let’s get it down to 9:45.”

The 17 students who will perform in the festival take their places. They’re the most dedicated and musically accomplished among the 24 members of the varsity class, for which hopefuls—even upperclassmen who’ve been in the group before—must audition. Senior Nathania Flores, the violin section leader, turns to face her colleagues, making eye contact with each one. She takes a quick, audible breath and then, tapping her foot, slices the bow of her violin through the air: 1, 2. On the next beat, the group begins to play.

The festival kicks off later this morning at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) in Edinburg, about 20 minutes away. Over the next two days, 82 high school mariachi ensembles will don their trajes de charro and play their best material before a panel of judges from the academic and professional worlds. It’s only the festival’s second year as a fully sanctioned event organized by the UIL, the statewide organization that governs public school sports as well as academic, music, and theater contests. The UIL’s decision to make the event official was a reflection—and an endorsement—of mariachi’s growing popularity and influence in Texas high schools.

“Mariachi is really starting to come into its own and become more mainstream,” says judge Lauryn Salazar, an ethnomusicologist who directs Texas Tech University’s mariachi groups and plays with the Grammy Award-winning Mariachi Divas. “There’s a lot more interest in these events and creating avenues to showcase Latino culture in a positive light. Essentially what it’s done is put mariachi on the same level as band, orchestra, and choir, and that’s huge.”

Mariachi originated in Jalisco and the surrounding states of western central Mexico. Around 1910, a few groups brought the rural folk music to Mexico City, where it caught on. Over time, the groups swelled from small ensembles, comprising two to six members, to the more than a dozen instruments in today’s concert mariachi groups: six or more violins; two or three trumpets; a harp; one or two regular guitars; the vihuela, a soprano guitar; and a guitarron, the bass instrument that sets the tempo. The orchestral, cinematic quality of the violins is punctuated by festive trumpets and layered over the strumming of the rhythm section, or armonía. Vocalists infuse their words with hyperbolic emotion, evoking longing, bravado, or loss regardless of the listener’s Spanish fluency.

Most Texans are familiar with the small mariachi groups that play al talon (“at the heel”), roaming table to table at restaurants and playing for tips. The currency of such groups—and those who play at weddings and quinceañeras—is a catalog of frequently requested, familiar songs like “Cielito Lindo.” Concert mariachi is a world away, with more instruments, complex arrangements, and a much greater degree of musical difficulty and showmanship.

Edcouch-Elsa’s repertoire includes traditional Mexican folk songs and mariachi hits, like the songs of midcentury stars Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete, as well as more experimental numbers. For a back-to-school teacher appreciation event, Juvenil Azteca performed an arrangement of the 1987 Guns N’ Roses hit “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” with the opening electric guitar riff played as a harp duet.

While Guns N’ Roses could technically make it into a state festival set, the UIL requires groups to perform one son jalisciense, the indigenous song form of the tradition. The style, whose name is a nod to its origins in Jalisco, is known for its challenging alternation between 3/4 and 6/8 time signatures. The son jalisciense in Edcouch-Elsa’s set, “Toro Coquito,” is preceded by a tema, a one-minute theme song recognized as the group’s signature. A growing number of high school groups have adopted temas, borrowing the practice from professional show groups like Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán.

Edcouch-Elsa’s tema, which the violinists sing while the rest of the group plays, proclaims: “Juvenil, ya llegamos a cantar (we’re here to sing); Juvenil, melodías sin igual (our melodies are unmatched); Juvenil, música para alegrar (music to make you happy); su mariachi, Juvenil Azteca (your mariachi, Juvenil Azteca)!”

Some high school mariachis are bilingual; others never spoke Spanish until they started singing it. Although all the students interviewed for this story were born in the United States, many of their grandparents grew up in Mexico, listening to radio versions of the songs their grandchildren now perform. The older generation’s nostalgia seems to seep into the young musicians, who grasp the music’s cultural significance even when they didn’t grow up listening to it.

Garcia and his co-directors always translate and explain the songs for their students, although the context can elude the younger musicians. It’s hard for teenage singers to fully relate to songs about lost love or pride in Jalisco when many have never had a romantic relationship or visited Mexico.

“They’re just young kids,” Garcia says. “So it’s a little more difficult to connect to the lyrics, because a lot of the lyrics of traditional mariachi music talk about either heritage of Mexico or [are] a love ballad that’s heartbreaking, or a drinking song that’s talking about the heartbreak.”

Still, freshman violinist Angelina Rodriguez says mariachi music is more dramatic and intense than the American pop she listens to. Those Top-40 songs are “always about someone not liking you back—like Taylor Swift, ‘Teardrops on my Guitar.’” The stakes are higher in the mariachi tradition, she says. Take Chavela Vargas, a Mexican singer who in the 1950s and ’60s performed traditional rancheras—all written to women—without changing the gender pronouns. Her cover of “Paloma Negra” drips with despair as she laments her romantic interest staying out all night with someone else.

“She was a lesbian woman in this era of Mexico where homosexuals were so oppressed, and she sings ‘Paloma Negra’ about this lady that she’s in love with,” Rodriguez explains. “It’s so much more agony than ‘Oh, my boyfriend broke up with me,’ like Taylor Swift. It’s different. It will make you cry. Of course Taylor Swift can make you cry, too, but this is a different kind. It’s like—”

Freshman violinist H. Matthew Cavazos jumps in. “It’s from the heart.”

“Ojos Tapatios,” a Negrete song that’s part of Edcouch-Elsa’s show, is a flowery ode to a romantic interest’s eyes. “It’s a whole novela in a song,” says trumpet player Daniel Estrada, who transferred to Edcouch-Elsa from a nearby district specifically to play with the top-caliber mariachi ensemble.

Has he, a senior in high school, fallen in love?

“I’ve had it where I see somebody’s eyes and I’m just like—” he rests his chin on his hand and sighs wistfully. He channels those feelings into making his trumpet sing. “If everything’s at the right tempo, you’re going to feel chills all over your body. That’s why I love mariachi music: Because it makes you feel everything in one song.”

A steady stream of buses pulls up to the UTRGV Performing Arts Center, and students wearing trajes de charro in their school colors disembark, carrying their sombreros in matching bags. Inside, the lobby is crowded with clusters of students in crimson, cream, forest green, royal blue, and black. Parents in mariachi booster club polo shirts keep watch over piles of instruments as the girls touch up their makeup in the restroom. As they lean toward the mirror to slick back an errant curl, the costume jewels dripping from their ears catch the light.

Onstage, the groups assemble in a half-moon: violins at stage right, trumpets in the back, and the armonía—the rhythm section comprising harp, guitarron, vihuela, and guitars—stage left. The larger ensembles have multiple vocalists who take turns setting aside their instruments, singing for a few measures, and passing the microphone to the next person in a carefully choreographed sequence. The more upbeat songs are punctuated with cheers and gritos—high-pitched calls halfway between a laugh and a cry—from musicians and, sometimes, the audience. When the tempo slows for a romantic bolero, the vocalists clutch their chests before sending a note soaring into the air for an improbably long time. I start to understand what Estrada meant when he told me some songs make him feel both “happy and heartbroken.” My initial apprehension about listening to high school performers for two consecutive 11-hour days is replaced by awe at the near-professional quality. What’s more, I realize that, while the UIL has embraced mariachi relatively recently, these student musicians have a broader skill set than many who compete in more-established music contests: They both play an instrument and sing, learn some Spanish, memorize their music, and perform without a conductor.

The UIL started offering regional mariachi events in 2008 before piloting the state festival in 2016 and making it permanent last year. In 2016, 55 schools qualified to participate. This year, 82 have made the trip to Edinburg, from as far away as Lubbock, El Paso, and Fort Worth. Bradley Kent, the UIL’s director of music, estimates that about 8 percent of the roughly 1,500 schools the UIL serves have mariachi ensembles. “It’s low in the scheme of things,” he says, “but one reason we started this event was to help grow and develop mariachi programs in the schools.” Rather than pitting schools against one another in a contest that crowns a winner, the festival awards ratings between 1 and 5 to each team, on the theory that this system encourages programs to improve. The judges also recognize a select group of outstanding individual musicians.

When the UIL organizes a new state contest, it’s the secondary-school equivalent of adding an event to the Olympics.

“The mariachi movement in Texas has been going on for a while, but behind the scenes,” says judge John Lopez, a music professor at Texas State University and the director of its mariachi ensembles. “When UIL finally recognized it by starting the mariachi competition, it really took it to a whole other level.”

Two-thirds of the schools at the state festival come from South Texas, where top mariachi programs start in sixth grade and are led by directors who focus on mariachi, not band or orchestra, full time. Garcia and his two co-directors play in the thrice-Grammy-nominated Mariachi los Arrieros del Valle, along with high school directors from nearby towns. “We compete against each other and then we play together on the weekends,” Garcia says with a chuckle. In small Valley towns like Edcouch, Elsa, Roma, Rio Grande City, and Los Fresnos, mariachi receives the community support typically associated with football teams in other parts of the state. Mariachi Nuevo Santander, from Roma, has released two albums and appeared on NBC’s America’s Got Talent. After schools were closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, a video of the team’s remote practice, assembled from footage of each student playing at home, garnered more than a million views on Facebook.

Salazar says the growth of high school mariachi has ripple effects beyond affirming students’ pride in their culture. Because the student groups attract boys and girls in roughly equal numbers, she speculates that the historically male-dominated mariachi genre may soon be reshaped. And, as more students look for colleges where they can keep playing mariachi, universities have a greater incentive to invest in student musical ensembles and academic programs. In a virtuous circle, some of those students will return to the classroom as mariachi directors. A case in point: Daniel Estrada, the trumpet player, plans to study music education at UTRGV next year.

Teaching is only one way to pursue a mariachi career, Salazar says. Baptisms, quinceañeras, weddings, parties, and funerals all create ongoing demand for live mariachi music. The Disney resorts hire mariachis to play full time, and some restaurants have resident mariachi groups. “In the American Southwest, it is possible to make a decent living as a mariachi musician,” she says.

Estrada has glimpsed that prospect. He usually dedicates evenings and weekends to practicing the trumpet and the guitar, or studying YouTube videos that explain musical techniques. At first his father, a diesel mechanic, thought Estrada’s time would be better spent learning how to troubleshoot a transmission. “He was like, ‘Why are you wasting your time on music? You’re never going to get anything from it,’” Estrada remembers. He smiles. “And now I prove him wrong, because I go to gigs and I get paid 50 bucks an hour.”

Forty minutes before their performance time, the Edcouch-Elsa musicians are ushered into a warmup room near the UTRGV stage. Garcia leads them in vocal exercises and has the group run through the transitions between songs. Then he calls the group to attention. “We have to focus, communicate, and be consistent,” he reminds them. “Just smile and take deep breaths.” A volunteer knocks on the door, signaling for the group to go backstage. Garcia nods. “Grab your hats, please. It’s time.”

As the group takes the stage, parents and friends erupt in cheers and applause. When the sound dies down, Flores turns, scans the attentive faces, and gives the cue to begin.

The tema starts with an explosion of sound from every instrument. “Juvenil…” Flores sings, her arms outstretched, as the violin players come in with the other lines. As the arrangement shifts into “Toro Coquito,” Flores cries out in a jubilant grito, to the crowd’s delight.

The group’s second song is a popurrí, or medley, of Jorge Negrete songs, which oscillates between upbeat and melancholy. In the final song of the medley, “Ojos Tapatios,” a trio of women weave their voices into harmony. Then Flores sings alone, “Los aires suspiran (the air sighs)…” Angelina Rodriguez turns and gazes upward: “El cielo se apaga (heaven goes dark).” She lets the wistful note hang in the air for a moment before the three finish: “Y en el alma vaga, la queja de amor (and in the soul wanders, the complaint of love).”

As the women lift their violins to end the song, the two harpists bring their instruments forward for the final number, “La Petenera.” They plink out a mysterious tune, then sweep their fingers across the strings in a glissando as the rest of the musicians begin playing with increasing urgency. At last, with Flores and her colleagues’ voices filling the room, the violinists sweep their bows upward, punching them triumphantly in the air. The hometown crowd erupts in applause as the 17 musicians raise their sombreros, bow, and exit the stage.

Each team’s performance is immediately followed by a half-hour clinic with one of the judges. A volunteer leads the students from Edcouch-Elsa into a nearby practice room for their session with Joe Baca of Orlando’s Mariachi Cobre, the resident mariachi band at Disney World’s Epcot Center. Baca first tutors the violin players on the bow techniques that will coax more emotion from their instruments. Then he borrows a guitar and plays a sequence two ways, urging the students to listen for the difference.

“Can you hear it?” he asks, looking around. The students nod. “Those upstrums will be better if you’re relaxed. You don’t have to force a son; you have to feel a son. When you force it, you lose the context.”

After the last group performs, emcee Ruben Adame beckons a representative from each school to the stage, which is soon a rainbow of trajes. Before the expectant crowd, he announces the five schools that have received a Division 1 rating in this morning’s session. When Edcouch-Elsa is called, the team cheers with joy and relief. Adame then recognizes the individual students who have won outstanding performer medals: a vocalist from one school, a trumpet section from another. Then he makes another announcement: “The next outstanding performers are—the entire mariachi group from Edcouch-Elsa High School.” This is the honor they’ve really been aiming for, one that students in most programs can only dream about. The musicians file onto the stage, where medals are draped around their necks before they return to their seats, flushed and beaming.

Over the weekend, the judges will award only a dozen first-division ratings. Only one other group will collect outstanding performer medals for every musician.

Outside, the students throw their arms around their friends and family. Estrada is grinning. His father came to watch him perform and gave him a thumbs-up as he received his medal. This evening, Estrada will drive to Brownsville with two other members of Juvenil Azteca for a mariachi gig at a quinceañera. Next year he may perform here again, if he’s successful in his audition for the highly respected UTRGV Mariachi Aztlán. For now, he’s enjoying the moment and the weight of the medal around his neck. As he walks back to the bus, it clanks against the buttons of his jacket in a rhythm that matches his steps.

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WHO: The Non-Stop Riderz. WHAT: The local black trail-riding club joined Black Lives Matter protests in Houston. WHY IT’S SO GREAT: When Cassandra Johnson heard about George Floyd’s killing, it hit close to home. Floyd, known as a “gentle giant,” was a fixture of his Third Ward community. Though Johnson lives in the Fifth Ward, her family members in the Third Ward grew up with him and he had once dated her cousin. “He was like family,” she says. “He’d talk to kids about gun violence and encourage them to stick together. He really was someone who tried to motivate people and asked them to love one another.” She knew immediately that she wanted to act.  As protesters demonstrating against Floyd’s killing and police brutality…View Original Post

The post The Best Thing in Texas: A Black Trail-Riding Club Joined a Houston Protest on Horseback appeared first on Texas Monthly.

A rainy Sunday or two ago, soon after Governor Abbott allowed restaurants to reopen at 25 percent capacity, my husband, John, and I knew just where we needed to go. I am sure there are plenty of folks who, celebrating their semi-freedom from COVID-19 lockdown, rushed out to their favorite Mexican or barbecue joint, but we had a craving for something even more predictable and closer to our hearts: Luby’s cafeteria. We tried our neighborhood Luby’s first, but it was still closed, the parking lot forlornly damp and vacant. Some quick googling found us next driving about twenty minutes in the opposite direction, northwest up U.S. 290 to one of the few Luby’s locations that promised an open door. We were almost beside ourselves. Counting…View Original Post

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The Reddit community is once again demanding change. Fed up with what they see as the company’s inability to deal with racist hate on its platform, a group representing hundreds of moderators, who together oversee some of the site’s most popular communities, wrote a scathing open letter to CEO Steve Huffman.

“The problem of Reddit’s leadership supporting and providing a platform for racist users and hateful communities has long been an issue,” they wrote in the letter which was posted in r/AgainstHateSubreddits. “It has been five years since your return as CEO and this still remains Reddit’s most glaring problem… For too many years, Steve Huffman and the other Admins have stood by and allowed this site to fester with hate in the name of ‘free speech.’ It is time to enact a specific and detailed policy that protects the disadvantaged members of our communities from hate based on their sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity, country of origin, religion, or disability.”

The letter also calls for the company to be “proactive” in banning moderators and active users of subreddits that promote hate and to hire additional community managers and more people from diverse backgrounds. And the company, they say, should make good on its promise to fill founder Alexis Ohanian’s board seat with a black candidate within the next three months. 

This is far from the first time Reddit has struggled to respond to calls to ban hateful communities on its platform. The company has for years grappled with how much to police its communities. It took until 2015 for the company to ban some of its most abhorrent subreddits, and it took another four years before the company cracked down on r/the_donald, despite repeated harassment and threats of violence from its members. 

Despite all that messy history, this moment could be different. 

I've resigned as a member of the reddit board, I have urged them to fill my seat with a black candidate, + I will use future gains on my Reddit stock to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate, and I’m starting with a pledge of $1M to @kaepernick7’s @yourrightscamp

— Alexis Ohanian Sr. 🚀 (@alexisohanian) June 5, 2020

Ohanian, the company’s founder, has stepped down from its board, and promised to use future profits from his Reddit stock to “ to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate.” Maybe more importantly, the company’s own users and moderators are calling for systemic change. The letter to Huffman was endorsed by moderators of more than 650 subreddits, which together represent more than 200 million users.

But if Reddit’s leadership sees this as the moment for substantive policy change, they have yet to convince their critics that this time will be different.

Huffman previously responded to Ohanian’s resignation and call for his seat to be filled by a black candidate. He said Reddit would honor the “meaningful gesture,” and pledged to “use this opportunity for change.” 

I am obligated to call you out: You should have shut down the_donald instead of amplifying it and its hate, racism, and violence. So much of what is happening now lies at your feet. You don't get to say BLM when reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all day long https://t.co/VN5XCiYp5g

— Ellen K. Pao (@ekp) June 2, 2020

He promised to revisit Reddit’s content policy to address hate and racism, but stopped short of offering specifics. “We will update our content policy to include a vision for Reddit and its communities to aspire to, a statement on hate, the context for the rules, and a principle that Reddit isn’t to be used as a weapon,” he wrote. He did not indicate if the company would actually ban hate speech outright. 

The vagueness of those promises did not go unnoticed. Ellen Pao, who served as Reddit’s interim CEO in 2015, also responded with sharp criticism for Huffman. “I am obligated to call you out: You should have shut down the_donald instead of amplifying it and its hate, racism, and violence,” she wrote. “So much of what is happening now lies at your feet. You don't get to say BLM when reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all day long.”

A spokesperson for Reddit declined to comment on the letter from moderators directly, or on the writers’ claim that their subreddit had been delisted from r/popular “in retaliation.” Ohanian appeared to endorse their message, though. In a comment on the letter, Huffman pointed to his earlier post, which promised changes to the company’s content policy. “We’d like to show progress with what we do in the coming weeks rather than what we say,” he wrote.

For now, though, all this leaves Reddit in pretty much the same position it's been in. Its policy, in Huffman’s words, “does not explicitly take a stance on hate or racism.” And until it details specifics of its promised new rules, it’s not clear how much will actually change.

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The demand in Houston echoes calls around the country to defund police. Already, Minneapolis and Portland schools have decided to sever ties with their city police departments.

A reader writes:

My boss, who is a lawyer, is of the opinion that everything on my desk and in my office is his and completely fair game. It doesn’t matter if I bought it, brought it from home, or that I don’t want germs spread around the office — he thinks he can touch and use EVERYTHING.

Because of COVID-19 (and, really, even before that), I have asked him repeatedly to not use my desk and the things on it. He says he’ll stop but he doesn’t. I’ve found chewed pens, chewed food, and spilled drinks on my desk. It happens daily. This is a man whose wife covers all the furniture in their house because he is such a slob. It’s just gross.

He told me yesterday that because his hands are dry and “because of arthritis,” he actually licks his fingers so he can keep a grip on his pen (!!). He also puts work papers in his mouth, and they have bite marks on them. Ewww!

I have certain types of pens on my desk that I bought and can tell the writing apart from his ink pen, and I have noticed he uses them (I sanitized them and everything else).

He has his own office and supplies, so I’m not sure why he does this, other than my desk is exponentially cleaner than his. I have taken all my supplies off my desk and kept them in my car before so he won’t touch them, have left huge notes on legal size file folders asking that my desk not be used, covered my desk, shut my door — nothing works!

Most of these bad habits are just that — habits. I’m not sure he can even stop doing any of these things. He’s the owner so there is no one above him or an HR to go to. Short of setting mouse traps, I’m not sure how to get the point across that these behaviors are just gross and show a great lack of respect for anyone else in the office. Any advice?

Ewww, your boss is gross.

You’re understandably looking for a way to get through to him, but I don’t think you’re going to find one. This man is disgusting, you’ve talked to him and directly asked him to stop multiple times, and it’s not making any difference. You can continue to speak up about it, but it sounds like it’s going to be a lot of wasted breath.

It’s not that you haven’t landed on the one argument or the one amazing script that will convince him. It’s that he doesn’t care. And yes, it’s especially unacceptable while there’s a highly contagious virus around, but he still doesn’t care.

With no one there with any power over him, there’s no way to force him to comply with basic hygiene or common courtesy, no OSHA regulation you can cite, etc.

So, since you can’t rely on him for a solution, I’d focus on what you can control on your side to block his access to your stuff. Specifically, I would try to leave nothing on your desk. Things you could try:

* Keep your pens somewhere he can’t access, like your purse.

* Get a desk with a locking drawer and keep your supplies in there.

* Put your stuff somewhere he’s not likely to look for it. Can you bring in a hollowed out book or a decorative box and store your things in there, figuring he won’t think to open it? (Make it a boring book. Better yet, use a tampon box.)

* Purchase a small lockbox or a locking file box. Get it reimbursed as an office expense. Don’t give him the key or code.

Obviously, these are all ridiculous measures that will make things less convenient for you. But they might be the only approach that works.

Once you’ve cleared off your desk, you could also try leaving out something that’s specifically for him — like a holder of pens that you don’t care if he touches/chews/licks. If those are the only ones he sees, he’ll probably use those (and be less likely to go looking in your desk), and you can just consider them Bob’s Gross Pens.

That doesn’t address the chewed food (wtf?) or the spilled drinks. You might need to keep a massive supply of disinfectant around (again, the office should pay) and routinely wipe down your desk.

To be clear, it’s not okay or reasonable that you have to do this, but since you’re essentially working for an infant, this might be the only practical response. (But perhaps you can also tell him that you’ll need a raise to make all these inconvenient measures worthwhile.)

And be glad you’re not sharing a bathroom with him.

my disgusting boss touches and chews on everything on my desk was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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Are people *really* worse than ever?

“Vidor, Texas,” boomed the Reverend Michael Cooper, thin and tall in his cowboy hat, “will now be known for love!” The crowd, assembled at a dilapidated pavilion on the grounds of Vidor’s Raymond Gould Community Center, cheered. Vidor has been known for many things—among them the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in the nineties; its status as a “sundown town,” in which blacks were not allowed in city limits after dark; and an ugly fight in the early nineties over a federal effort to desegregate public housing in the city, which caused Texas Monthly, in a cover story that year, to describe Vidor as Texas’s “most hate-filled town.” The census estimates it to be 91 percent white.  So when word started to circulate that…View Original Post

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NASA has ordered another piece of the Lunar Gateway, which will serve as a space station for astronauts and equipment heading to the Moon and Mars under the Artemis Program. The space agency has awarded Northrup Grumman a $187 million contract to design the Gateway’s habitation and logistics outpost (HALO). That’s the pressurized living quarters where astronauts can stay while preparing for deep space missions.

The HALO cabin will be the size of small studio apartment and provide life support for spacefarers in tandem with NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Northrop Grumman based its design on its Cygnus spacecraft, which is being used to deliver supplies to the ISS. It will be assembled here on Earth and will make its way to lunar orbit alongside the outpost's power and propulsion element (PPE).

NASA already awarded space technology company Maxar a $375 million contract to develop the PPE last year. The agency says launching both components at the same time reduces costs and technical risks, since it will eliminate the need to dock two separate elements in the orbit where the Gateway will operate.

The $187 million contract NASA has awarded Northrop Grumman is enough to finalize the design of all systems and subsystems for a preliminary review expected to happen by the end of the year. If everything goes well, the company will sign a second contract to fabricate and assemble the actual HALO module that’s scheduled to blast off to space in 2023.

The Boy Who Drank Too Much
Greene
1980

Today’s theme in teen fiction is alcohol. Buff (yes, that is his name) has been coping with an abusive father, a dead mother, and pressure to become the star athlete. Buff and the unnamed narrator became good friends. They played hockey together and as the pressure on Buff continued, he nearly drank himself into a coma. Not a bad story line but it is dated. I do think this plot and book could translate into something more contemporary. The book’s message is that its okay to ask for help and friends can be there for you.

When I was looking for info about this item, I also found out that there was a movie adapted from this book with the same title. The lead roles were played by none other than Chachi himself, Scott Baio and Lance Kerwin, who was probably just as famous at the time. The things you get to find out when you are a librarian who loves to play with WorldCat.

Mary

The post Friday Fiction: The Boy Who Drank Too Much appeared first on Awful Library Books.

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Dear Faculty and Staff,

I would like to thank all departments for their cooperation during the unprecedented crisis of this past semester. Our adjuncts were euthanized in an orderly fashion, save for a few who ran into the woods and had to be hunted down by campus security. As predicted, a new crop of unemployed PhDs is already applying to take their places. Meanwhile, our faculty have smoothly transitioned to online teaching, and, thanks to the tireless efforts of the Center for Teaching and Learning, most are now capable of determining if the computer is plugged in.

I am also pleased to report that we are progressing with our plans for the fall semester. As you know, the COVID crisis has plunged us into an unexpected budget shortfall, as we have had to issue refunds on housing, meal plans, tuition, activity fees, parking fees, service fees, records fees, and memberships at the student gym and day spa.

We are therefore forced to take some extreme measures to avoid dipping into the endowment. We have let go of all ancillary staff, including librarians, maintenance, cleaning staff, and the school mascot. The college president and even the head football coach have forgone their annual merit raises. As it turns out, though, the lion’s share of the budget is being consumed by our faculty in the form of salaries.

Though we have offered a generous buyout for faculty willing to take early retirement ($5 Amazon gift cards), negotiations with the Faculty Union have failed to bear fruit. It also seems that tenured professors are not willing to have their jobs depend on being evaluated by metrics such as “productivity,” “merit,” or “getting along with other human beings.” However, by a happy coincidence, the population of our highest-paid faculty overlaps with the demographics of those most at risk for COVID-19.

I would therefore like to announce that we will not be enacting any social distancing or contagion-prevention in the fall semester. In fact, we will be providing shuttle busses for students who wish to go “club-hopping” or participate in “protests” in the nearest large metro areas. Further, we will be redesigning our classrooms into “learning communities” that will maximize togetherness and also turning off the HVAC air circulation to classrooms. Professor Fledermaus in Public Health estimates that, given the average rate of transmission in a closed community and the mortality rate of the 65-to-80-year old demographic, we will be well under budget by the end of the fall semester.

Due to an expected increase in premiums, we will also be suspending life insurance as an employee benefit.

Thank you all for all you have done for our school.

Sincerely,
Ronald Felderman
VP, Academic Affairs

See also:
A Note Regarding the Coronavirus Outbreak
From Your University’s Vice President of Academic Affairs

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Also he has way more than the standard 6 ribs per skeleton!

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