I had not heard the word microburst growing up and now it's every day.

Just-world hypothesis

The just world fallacy explains so much about what’s going on today.

On July 29, 1967, an accidental rocket launch on the deck of the supercarrier USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin resulted in a fire and explosions that killed 134 servicemen. (Among the survivors was future Arizona senator John McCain, a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who narrowly escaped with his life.)
In July 1967, a fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. An electrical anomaly had caused the discharge of a Zuni rocket on the flight deck, triggering a chain-reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. At the time, Forrestal was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam War. The ship survived, but with damage exceeding US$72 million (equivalent to $511 million today), not including the damage to aircraft.

hovanti youtube comment

I read a great book about this called "Sailors To The End"; another problem here was that many of the bombs were WWII era ordnance, the explosive in them unstable and more prone to heat and shock, considered much more sensitive than the modern '60s bombs. As for McCain, he did nothing to cause this -it was his plane that was HIT by the Zuni rocket, NOT the one that accidentally fired it.

A ZUNI rocket was fired accidentally from an aircraft being readied for a mission on July 29, 1967. The rocket screamed across the flight deck, struck another aircraft and ignited a fuel fire. The initial fire could have been contained, but 90 seconds after the fire started a bomb detonated, killing or seriously wounding most of the fire fighters. The detonation ruptured the flight deck, and burning fuel spilled into the lower levels of the ship. Bombs, warheads, and rocket motors exploded with varying egress of intensity in the fire, killing 134 and wounding 161 men. Twenty-one aircraft were destroyed.
After this incident, the Navy established a flag level committee to pursue improvements to the systems used to control flight deck fuel fires. An ordinance safety program was also initiated to characterize flight deck fuel fires and study ways to delay the "cook-off" times of munitions. As a result; insulation is now applied to some bomb casings, delaying "cook-off" times 5 to 10 minutes in a fuel fire, but does not diminish the violence of its explosive reaction.

Black Bear Brawl

Caught On Camera: Bears Brawl In NJ Backyard https://t.co/KlsmBefVxk
— Trace kalala Hentz (@StonePony33) July 27, 2019

PSA: Run and Scream #grasshopperinvasion

This #GrasshopperInvasion is no joke.@danibeckstrom has been wondering the Doppler radar makes it look like it's pouring outside in #LasVegas when there's no rain.

It turns out, #grasshoppers are likely the cause. https://t.co/O1rexX8GiZ
— KTNV Action News (@KTNV) July 27, 2019

Our crisis support volunteers response to multiple incidents in our valley each day. At this time, we have not been requested for any events involving the #grasshopperinvasion but thought it would be prudent to share some tips with you. pic.twitter.com/sY5TOqUHFg
— Trauma Intervention Program (TIP) (@tipoflasvegas) July 27, 2019

WHOA?

Just when you think you're floating through life, Sara Wong's illustration reminds us to watch out for falls ahead...

READ TO GO DEEPER:
Burnout became a seriously hot topic a few months back, thanks to this Buzzfeed article.
I wrote a piece about how to resist Amazon Prime.
Facebook was fined $5b. And Mark Z is now personally responsible for privacy.
The utopian portrayal of moms who surf. This article made Jen cringe.
Please tell me you read about this professor talking to white men about privilege?

Whoa!
Two years ago, our fabulous Radiotopia colleague Helen Zaltzman and her husband, Martin Austwick, gave up their London apartment to travel the world. They paid their bills by continuing to produce her two podcasts, The Allusionist and Answer Me This, from the road.

Things were going well until a visit to Tasmania, when Helen got a serious infection in her neck and had to be hospitalized. After nearly a month in intensive care, she was finally released and was, of course, relieved to be alive. But Helen soon discovered that her brain no longer functioned the same way…and her work habits needed to change.... listen

Vibrio

Donnie Humfress loved wade fishing in Hancock County. But he doesn’t do it anymore.
An uptick in the number of reported Vibrio cases in recent years has kept him and his family out of the water.
“I’m just not willing to risk that, and I’m not willing to risk family members and friends becoming infected with it,” he told the Sun Herald. “Until officials can confirm that the threat is no longer present, neither myself or my family will be in the waters of the (Mississippi Sound.)"

Read more here: https://www.sunherald.com/news/local/article233017462.html#storylink=cpy

https://www.sunherald.com/news/local/article130772944.html

Has it hit you yet?

Algerian Woman Links Tattoo Tradition and Song

Middle Eastern Tattoos: Then and Now

Traditional Middle Eastern tattoos were done via a rudimentary method of pricking the skin and then rubbing in a mixture of smoke black or indigo. Mother's milk was used in the mixture, oftentimes, to give an esoteric benefit.

Designs were a combination of tribal identification and amulets to ward off evil or incur blessings. Similar motifs may be found in carpet designs. A vertical line marked along the chin signifies an engagement. When there was a mark on the tip of the nose, it may have signified either marriage or that a child had died and this was their way of protecting the spirit of that child.

Facial tattooing, especially, has gone out of favor in modern times. Usually only older women are seen with tattoos on their chin and forehead.

The reason? One source says, "body art markings, called lousham in Arabic or ahetjam in Tamazight, are no longer considered to be a pious Muslim practice and as a result very few younger women will carry these tattoos.

At one point, these tattoos were tribal markings of status and beauty, symbols that were borrowed from the complicated designs in the rugs; now most Amazigh women consider their tattoos to be a shameful reminder of a pagan practice." In past times in Iran, the upper class women would be tattooed with a beard-like pattern. This practice has passed away as well, but it is reported that "the demand for tattoos among Iranian and other middle eastern women has exploded.

Iranians who are tattooed, however, must keep them under wraps due to the authorities.

Despite the traditions of tattoos for certain tribal groups of Middle Eastern women, their religion, Islam, forbids tattooing. Non-permanent skin decoration in the Arab world in the form of henna decorations is very popular. Not all stories of the tattooed women are benign.

The sad history of the decimation and captivity of Armenians under their Muslim captors holds the story of stolen Armenian girls tattooed by their captors a story told in history and photos in the Genocide Museum.via

everyone could use a good editor

I'm reading

Ta-Nehisi Coates's testimony on reparations. Svetlana Alexievich's oral histories of children who survived World War II. One experience of menopause as an "ungendering." Ask Polly on differences of expectation and perception in friendship. "I liken the natural hair movement of the 2000s to a religious revival." The invention of the beach read.

All I Do - Kirk Whalum

99% Invisible | Gimlet | jessica hopper#podcasts

What I Listened To

I’ve been playing catch-up with one of my favorite podcasts, 99% Invisible. A recent episode was about the effects of Operation National Sword, China’s initiative to essentially stop being the world’s trash dump, which has left nations scratching their heads while clutching their single-use plastic water bottles. What I loved most was listening to a replay of an older episode in the second half that touched on the strides of Taipei, Taiwan, which is literally cleaning up the city with musical refuse and recycling/compost trucks, binless systems, and the ownership citizens feel over their trash—almost no public garbage cans, people! They pocket that candy wrapper and take it home with them! The episode presents some great lessons we Americans can learn about our own attitude toward consumption.
—via

Sandra

A world where artificial intelligence isn’t so artificial.

Helen thought her new job would help her forget her dreary hometown, but working behind the curtain on everyone’s favorite A.I. isn’t quite the escape she expected. via

jessica hopper
Jessica Hopper is editor-in-chief of the Pitchfork Review and the author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic.