Texas built a slate of new prisons in the 1990s. They were intentionally constructed WITHOUT air conditioning. I looked back at the archives for why. Here's then-senator (now Houston mayor) John Whitmire: "The people of Texas don't want air conditioned prisons." #txlege

Hi this may be old news for some but want to announce that I'm moving away from HISD coverage Houston Chronicle to start a demographics beat covering issues of race, class, migration and more in our constantly evolving city. It's a fascinating subject and I'm excited to dive in!

New = Inside ‘The Pond’ – CenterPoint's private Houston-area retreat used for lobbying Texas politicians Free link past the paywall: houstonchronicle.com/news/investiga……w/ Amanda Drane 🦋 Neena Satija Caroline E Ghisolfi Matt Zdun Leila Darwiche @dexinvestigates Houston Chronicle

I had a wildly stodgy Latin prof at Dartmouth who’d wave away grammarian stuff like this. “Pedantry. Bullshit. This is English, the shower drain of languages. Entrepreneur and schadenfreude are words. ‘Set’ has 35 definitions. Intelligibility is the only rule. Do as you please.”

Husband, turning to me as the Astros win their eighth in a row: “They really have been in the best team in the league since our wedding.” Reader, he will never leave me.

Alternately: if they nose dive, our marriage may as well

man it sucks so much being like 7 to 10 years into a career where the idea was that eventually you would be compensated fairly once you have experience right as the entire industry decides it hates its employees so much

Small update in this ongoing saga: Dickinson City Council has voted to axe the mayor's (literal) office. There will still be a mayor. The mayor will just ... not have an office. galvnews.com/news/dickinson…

The official death toll of Israel's siege on Gaza has surpassed 40,000. Among the dead are 2 sisters, a brother, a niece, and a newborn nephew of Layan Albaz, a 14-year-old girl who also lost both her legs in an air strike. This is her story. magazine.atavist.com/coming-to-amer…

Former President Donald Trump’s disowning of Project 2025 sounds an awful lot like what he did with an eroding, privately built border fence funded in part by the pro-Trump nonprofit We Build The Wall during the 2020 campaign. A 🧵:

In some ~professional news~: I cleaned my desk for the first time in about 13 months

What he doesn’t understand is that journalists will happily eat anything as long as it’s free

Great news for journalism

SHRIEKING

A few months ago, The Nation published an unforgettable piece by Lujayn, a 14-year-old girl in Gaza. Today, Lujayn has another extraordinary dispatch—this time about a bloody night she endured with her mother. Please, please read it. thenation.com/article/world/…

Going to start writing my Slack bio like an AIM profile. Unhinged capITaLizaTI0n. Angsty lyrics hinting at deep inner turmoil. My colleagues' initials in order of how much I like them.

Judging by the number of times I’ve recommended lists of books to people recently, perhaps my true calling is working in a bookstore

Somehow an even less lucrative career path than my current one