Who votes and who doesn't vote when it's incredibly hot?

I see it's going to be record-breakingly hot in New York City today — 100 degrees.

And today is the NYC primary: "The contest has narrowed into a two-man sprint between Andrew M. Cuomo, the state’s scandal-plagued former governor, and Zohran Mamdani, an assemblyman and democratic socialist with a short track record, with a crowded field of nine rivals trailing behind. Polls suggest the outcome is a tossup" (NYT).

That's a stark choice — whether to go out at all and, if so, Cuomo or Mamdani. I would think a lot of people would find both men unappealing and, of this group, the it's-too-hot decision is highly attractive. Then there are the people who actually long for Cuomo/Mamdani. Of this group, is it the Mamdani type or the Cuomo type who stand up to the challenge of facing intense physical discomfort for their man. 

I see the Cuomo group as pragmatic and the Mamdani group as passionate. Not sure how that interfaces with heat. The heat is personal, specific — about you, right now. In that light, I'll predict Cuomo prevails. But he needs to prevail with more than 50% or that "ranked-choice" voting could throw the nomination to Mamdani. 

Naked as a clam.

I'm reading "Don’t sleep naked — the nine best tips on how to sleep in the heat/Struggling to drop off then waking at the crack of dawn? Boiling nights can be a challenge. Here’s what to do" (London Times).

9 tips are needed because air conditioning is not one of them. In first place is the one that begins the headline, "Don’t sleep naked." We're told "Wearing loose-fitting cotton PJs is a better option than sleeping in the nude, according to the sleep consultant Alison Jones, a spokeswoman for the sleep technology company Sealy. 'A light fabric helps to wick away moisture so that you are less likely to feel clammy,' Jones says."

I think the phrase "Don't sleep naked" is just click bait. If cotton were good for "wicking away moisture" then those who like the freedom of naked sleeping could just cover ourselves with a cotton sheet. But didn't cotton lose that reputation. Hikers these days are advised to avoid cotton. It may wick moisture, but it stays damp. And isn't that what we mean by feeling "clammy"?

By the way, were clams called "clams" because they were seen as clammy or did the word "clammy" postdate the use of "clam" as the name for the familiar mollusk, so that things were being called "clammy" because they seemed clamlike?

A vogue word, rejected.

You don't need to care about the NYT crossword to be interested in what follows — it discusses a current buzzword — but it does reveal a couple answers. 

From Rex Parker's write-up of today's puzzle:

Among the sunburn cases in Phoenix that have required hospitalization: fentanyl users who have collapsed and spent "minutes or hours splayed on the pavement."

I'm reading "Burning pavement, scalding water hoses: Perils of a Phoenix heat wave/Amid record-breaking temperatures, risks to public health from burns and other exposure soars" (WaPo).

Homeless people are particularly vulnerable. But other cases involve freakish missteps — people burned by their seat belts or mailboxes. Swimmers attempting to walk across not-so-cool cool decks. The hospital has seen truckers who drive barefoot, step down onto a parking lot surface and end up badly blistered. On the hottest days, patients have been scalded by the water coming out of their garden hoses. “That first burst of water out of there, it’s practically boiling,” said Kevin Foster, a physician and the director of the burn center. One current patient was celebrating his day off with a cocktail, fell and burned 20 percent of his body, requiring surgery and skin grafting, Foster said. “He was not a drinker. It was just enough. He went down and couldn’t get up,” he said. “All it took was that one little thing.”

The top-rated comment over there is: 

Jeezuz Christ getting burned from lying on the goddam ground?! From opening your mailbox?! From your garden hose?! And climate change deniers expect us to believe this is "just summer"? 

When will you notice that you made your home in a desert? Why are you living there in the first place?

I'm reading "When Will the Southwest Become Unlivable? Air-conditioning and swimming pools are sustaining my community. I worry about the day when they won’t be enough" by Ruxandra Guidi in The Atlantic.

You're living where it was never livable. You kept yourself alive with artificial means in a place where the animal that is the human being did not evolve. Look around at what naturally lives there. That isn't you. Your arrogance is finally catching up to you.