The River

Texas Flood, Miller Time

The same question probably passed the lips of everyone who heard about the catastrophic flooding in central Texas that killed at least 88 people, including 27 children and counselors at a single camp. How could this have happened? How could a summer storm cause the Guadalupe River to surge 27 feet in an hour? In the era of supposedly all-powerful technology and AI, how could our warning systems fail so dramatically? How could we be cutting jobs related to weather prediction, warnings, and emergencies when we know that climate change is making things more dangerous? Even after you watch the timelapse videos and read the expert analyses on a perfect storm of natural disasters and human shortcomings, the question persists. So we dig into these evaluations and try to figure out what went wrong, in part to get some answers before the story moves off the front pages and people stop asking questions, and in part because the science and the politics are easier to consider than the human tragedy, which, like the raging waters of the Guadalupe, is almost impossible to absorb.

+ "He put his foot down on the floor of his cabin—and felt about 4 inches of water. RJ turned to his wife, who was lying in bed beside him, also awake. He told her, 'Annie, the cabin’s flooding.' RJ could see water rushing in through the front door. He tried to open the door, but couldn’t. He looked out the window and saw the water level was about two feet below the window. 'We need to get out right now,' RJ told Annie. They grabbed a few items—their cellphones and a bag they hadn’t unpacked. By the time they jumped out the window about two minutes later, the water had reached up to Annie’s neck.'" WSJ (Gift Article): A Texas Dad Tried to Kayak to His Daughters. The Girls Texted, ‘I Love You.’

+ "Eight years ago, in the aftermath of yet another river flood in the Texas Hill Country, officials in Kerr County debated whether more needed to be done to build a warning system along the banks of the Guadalupe River." NYT (Gift Article): Officials Feared Flood Risk to Youth Camps but Rejected Warning System. And from The Texas Tribune: Texas lawmakers failed to pass a bill to improve local disaster warning systems this year.

+ NYT (Gift Article): As Floods Hit, Key Roles Were Vacant at Weather Service Offices in Texas.

+ "While the National Weather Service issued flash flood warnings and the city of Kerrville’s Facebook paged warned to 'move to higher ground immediately,' the young campers at Camp Mystic likely wouldn’t have seen that since" no devices were allowed at camp.

+ Because of the scope of the human cost, I'm sure the losses are being felt in communities across the country. Here in Marin County, people gathered at a vigil for a family who was staying at their house in western Kerr County while their daughter, Ellie, attended a local camp. Ellie was safe. Her parents and brother haven't been heard from for days.

2

Friend (of) Mine

"It would be an understatement to say that I had not expected this. In fact, I was in the midst of preparing for a potential move to Washington, D.C. to take on a new position at FBI headquarters. But, it turned out, I had made a terrible mistake: I had remained friends with someone who had appeared on Kash Patel’s enemies list. How did Bongino find out about this private friendship? I honestly don’t know. What business was it of his? None at all. Was I accused of any sort of misconduct? No. It didn’t matter." Michael Feinberg on his resignation from the FBI. Goodbye to All That.

+ As we lose the decent people, the least decent rise to positions of extreme power. NYT (Gift Article): The Ruthless Ambition of Stephen Miller. "Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who reportedly accompanied Mr. Miller on his visit to ICE headquarters, seems to defer to him. 'It’s really Stephen running D.H.S.,' a Trump adviser said. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, is so focused on preparing for and appearing on Fox News that she has essentially ceded control of the Department of Justice to Mr. Miller, making him, according to the conservative legal scholar Edward Whelan, 'the de facto attorney general.' And in a White House where the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is not well versed or terribly interested in policy — 'She’s producing a reality TV show every day,' another Trump adviser said, 'and it’s pretty amazing, right?' — Mr. Miller is typically the final word."

3

A Kiss Goodbye

"The Eaton Fire started at the location of my first kiss. We used to park on the shaded lane across from the mountains and sneak past a cliffside house, through a fence, and between some brush to perch on a concrete slab that overlooked the canyon. There, above the narrow watershed, we drank peach schnapps, listening to the Cure, or Prince, or Erik B. & Rakim, and fooled around." The LA fires burned more than just houses. They burned an entire community; schools, synagogues, playgrounds, storefronts, and the sites of so many memories, including a first kiss. In this excellent piece, Josh Bearman captures what was lost when a hometown burned down. NY Mag: Mark’s House Is Gone. Heather’s House Is Gone. Eddie’s House Is Gone. (Here's a web-archive version if you're blocked.) "The symbolic loss of Altadena feels even more acute now, as we see the failed promise of America being channeled into a cynical, populist nightmare. Because Altadena was a place where that promise had been fulfilled. What we lost in the fire wasn’t just a town; it was a historical arrangement — living evidence of the postwar American compact, that brief window between the Great Depression and Reagan, when there was a shared national project, and the story behind it felt true because there was the sense that, someday, that story could include anyone. Altadena embodied that durable civic optimism. A place where middle-class America was not a fantasy, where a teacher’s salary really could get you your own yard and a lemon tree. Our childhood was exploratory, not preparatory. We were not brands-in-progress. We were just kids. The world was porous. Altadena was how things were supposed to be. And suddenly, it was all smoldering debris."

4

Murder Mystery

If my Netflix stream is any indication, people are obsessed with murder mysteries. But unlike the ones featured in episodic dramas, a lot murders remain mysteries forever. Nearly Half of America’s Murderers Get Away With It. "A murderer’s chance of getting caught within a year essentially comes down to a coin flip. For other crimes, clearance rates are even lower. Only 8 percent of car thefts result in an arrest."

5

Extra, Extra

Nose Candy: "Swarms are injected into the sinus cavity via a duct threaded through the nostril and guided to their target by electromagnetism, where they can be made to heat up and catalyse chemical reactions to wipe out bacterial infections. There are hopes the precisely targeted technology could eventually reduce reliance on antibiotics and other generalised medicines." Swarms of tiny nose robots could clear infected sinuses, researchers say. People are going to let tiny robots into their bodies when they won't even take the vaccines that have saved millions? U.S. measles cases reach 33-year record high as outbreaks spread.

+ Pardoner in Crime: "A Tennessee man pardoned by President Trump for taking part in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been sentenced to life in prison for hatching a separate plot to assassinate the law enforcement officers who investigated his role in the riot."

+ There's a New Tariff in Town: "The letters were not the final word from Trump on tariffs, so much as another episode in a global economic drama in which the U.S. president has placed himself at the center." Trump to put 25% tariffs on Japan and South Korea, new import taxes on five other nations. And from WaPo (Gift Article): Trump’s $5 million ‘gold card’ visa might never happen. "The president and his aides have exaggerated the likelihood that such a program can be legally implemented and have made no effort to introduce legislation that would be needed." (One wonders if demand is particularly high at the moment.)

+ A Third in the Punchbowl: Elon Musk wants to start a third political party because he hates the spending bill. (Someone should tell him that there’s already a political party that voted unanimously against it.)

+ Putin Place: "'I feel like I’ve been put on an ark of safety for my family,' 61-year-old Leo Hare said at the time. 'I want to thank President [Vladimir] Putin for allowing Russia to become a good place for families in this world climate." There's crazy, and there's 'I'm moving to Russia because it's less woke' crazy. WaPo: Russia’s ‘anti-woke’ visa lures those fearing a moral decline in the West.

+ A Scarlett Number: "Her lead project career gross of $14.8 billion passes the totals of fellow Marvel alums Robert Downey Jr. and Samuel L. Jackson." Scarlett Johansson Becomes Hollywood’s Highest Grossing Lead Actor With ‘Jurassic World Rebirth.'

+ Dropping Like Flies: "The U.S. government is preparing to breed billions of flies and dump them out of airplanes over Mexico and southern Texas to fight a flesh-eating maggot."

+ Your Kiss is on My List: "French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus was cleared of a doping allegation Monday because the judges accepted she was contaminated by kissing her American partner over a period of nine days." (Nine days? That's a hell of a lot of foreplay...)

6

Bottom of the News

"When you’re handing out £53.5 million in prize money, you wouldn’t have thought there was any incentive for Wimbledon players to steal one of the championship’s £40 towels. You’d be wrong." The net gains of Wimbledon stars — stealing 500 towels a day.

+ "The surgery giving men cartoonish six-packs doesn’t technically provide fake abs, but it can lead to jarring visuals." How Can You Tell If Someone Has ‘Fake’ Abs? (In my experience, they tend not to emerge naturally between love handles...)