"Men are struck and killed more than four times as often as women.... The United States has seen 12 lightning fatalities so far this year."

"The vast majority (90 percent) of lightning-strike victims survive. Most who don’t suffer cardiac arrest or stop breathing. Most victims can be revived by immediate CPR. Strike victims do not hold a charge and are safe to touch.... In many cases, people are struck and killed even when it’s not raining. Lightning bolts can leap up to 10 miles from a parent thunderstorm, and often the more errant, farther-venturing bolts carry more charge. If you can hear thunder, you are close enough to be struck by lightning."

From "Woman and her 2-year-old daughter killed by lightning in Florida/Four people have now died from lightning in the state this year. Florida averages seven such fatalities annually" (WaPo).

"In 2025, more than 100 dams were dismantled in 30 states, reconnecting around 4,900 miles of waterways...."

"The resulting free-flowing waterways are healthier, cooler and less prone to algal blooms, and serve as vital habitat for migratory fish and other aquatic life. They’re also safer.... While dams that are critical for flood regulation, water storage or irrigation must stay in place, many no longer serve their original purpose and are at risk of collapse.... The National Inventory of Dams, compiled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, lists about 92,000 dams.... But, according to the National Aquatic Barrier Inventory, there are hundreds of thousands of smaller and unregulated structures that block waterways. The majority were built to create swimming and fishing holes or reservoirs for water supplies, or to generate power and irrigate farm fields.... Low-head dams, which are designed to have water flow over them, create a recirculating current downstream that can trap people and debris. They’re known as 'drowning machines'.... 'There’s just so many of these deadbeat dams on the landscape.'..."

I'm reading "America the Undammed/More miles of the country’s rivers were reconnected last year thanks to dam removals than at any other time in history" (NYT).

And I noticed this, from a few years ago: "Dams like the one that killed Anna Last are 'drowning machines'" (Knox News). There's a good diagram at the link, showing the treacherous water flow, and here's part of the explanation:

"After the incident... she abandoned a career as a flight attendant... She moved home... She fears the dark, she said, because it takes her back to the seat of the car in the dark parking lot..."

"... where the rape occurred. She sleeps with the lights on, sometimes in her parents’ bed, she said. Uber’s lawyers said the driver had no criminal history, had received top ratings from passengers, had completed training and had acknowledged that he was aware of Uber’s rule that bans sex between drivers and passengers. They said the company was the industry leader in safety, developing a machine-learning tool to assess the risk of potential rides as well as other safety features and releasing public reports documenting assaults and other safety incidents on the platform. Sachin Kansal, Uber’s chief product officer, pushed back against claims that the company 'dragged its feet' on safety features like dashcams. However, 'I’ll be the first one to say we have not done enough,' he said. 'There’s a lot more that we have to do.'"

From "Uber Found Liable in Rape by Driver, Setting Stage for Thousands of Cases/In a federal bellwether case, the jury ordered the ride-hailing giant to pay $8.5 million to Jaylynn Dean, who said one of its drivers assaulted her in 2023" (NYT).

"On July 10, Mattheis Johnson hopped a bus on a warm summer night to see a pop-up punk rock show at Seattle’s Gas Works Park, a hulking collection of steel towers, tanks and pipes..."

"... that has become one of the world’s most widely emulated examples of postindustrial landscape design. His parents felt nervous every time their 15-year-old son asserted his independence, but they also knew he needed adventures.... [A]s the concert wound down, Mattheis tried climbing the park towers....  He lost his footing, fell 50 feet and died at a nearby hospital...."

From "After Teen’s Death, a Seattle Icon Confronts a New Label, Nuisance/For years, architects and design experts have resisted safety changes at Seattle’s Gas Works Park, but after a teenager died there this summer, his parents want it declared a public nuisance" (NYT).

"Too many people moving at too many different speeds in too many directions."

"There are spandex-clad cyclists on road bikes who treat the loop like the Tour de France. There are fun-seeking teens testing how fast they can go on electric Citi Bikes. There are delivery workers pressing to fill orders. Some cyclists go the wrong direction. Some weave recklessly through the chaos. It is hardly the scene Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux could have envisioned when they designed the drives for leisurely rides in horse-drawn carriages, incorporating sharp curves to encourage low speeds...."

From "In Central Park, Pedestrians, Horses and E-Bikes Battle for Space/Critics say the park’s drives have become increasingly chaotic as e-bike riders move through at high speeds" (NYT).

I like how the wearing of spandex is treated as part of the problem. So much intolerance for self-expression. But obviously, bike riders are a hazard among the pedestrians, especially when the bikes have motors, and the twisty turns that might have slowed down horse-drawn carriages are enticing to take with speed when you're on a bike.

From the comments at the NYT:

Does Tylenol cause autism? There's an obvious and now unavoidable experiment that will answer the question.

Now, absolutely no one should take acetaminophen during pregnancy. Who would?

Later, take note of whether the rate of autism declines.

I'm seeing: "Scientists have reacted with dismay at the announcement [linking acetaminophen to autism], warning that the 'fearmongering' will prevent women from accessing pain relief during pregnancy" (in "Taking Tylenol in pregnancy linked to autism, Trump to claim/The president promises ‘one of the biggest medical announcements in US history’, claiming a discovery as to why the disorder developed and treatment" (London Times)).

What's the opposite of "fearmongering"? False reassurance? I don't think this is fearmongering but a wise balance of factors. Who would take acetaminophen while pregnant if it might cause autism? I suspect that what these "scientists" are "dismayed" about is not about the future but the past. It's not that women are going to be afraid. Going forward, they'll just refrain from using acetaminophen. It's easy to use an abundance of caution with respect to something so specific. What's dismaying is the burden of guilt to be laid on women who have already used acetaminophen during pregnancy.

"Should such an old man as James Taylor, who can afford to hire a handyman, be climbing on a ladder, especially in those shoes?"

I ask Grok, at Taylor's post on X:

Doorbell repair, James style.#JT #JamesTaylor #Handyman #RepairMan pic.twitter.com/Szi0kFtQVQ

— James Taylor (@JamesTaylor_com) August 11, 2025

Grok's answer isn't really the correct answer:

"Many of the counselors and campers didn’t have phones on them: Campers were not allowed access to technology..."

"... while counselors could have them only during select nights and moments during the day, and Ms. Clement said she had always thought of that as a benefit, part of the atmosphere that went with being along the river. 'You don’t know how much of a joy it was to be unplugged,' she said."

From "As Texas Flood Raged, Camp Mystic Was Left to Fend for Itself/Flash floods surged through in the middle of the night, but many local officials appeared unaware of the unfolding catastrophe, initially leaving people near the river on their own" (NYT)

Ms. Clement = Nancy Clement, an 18-year-old counselor, who escaped the flood.

Also: "The county does have access to a private system known as CodeRED that sends out alerts to residents’ phones, but it is not clear to what extent it was used. At 4:22 a.m., a firefighter asked on an emergency channel if there was 'any way we can send a CodeRED out' to residents in the town of Hunt, where Camp Mystic and the Presbyterian camp are located, 'asking them to find higher ground or stay home,' according to a report by Texas Public Radio. But it appears that the first CodeRED did not go out for about an hour. Louis Kocurek, a resident of the town of Center Point, told The Times that the CodeRED text message he received had come in at 10:07 a.m. Sheriff Leitha said he could not say why the alerts had not been issued earlier."

ADDED: There is a second front-page NYT article today, and it's about what I think is an even more shocking problem: "Camp Mystic Cabins Stood in an ‘Extremely Hazardous’ Floodway":

"She is desperate for the book to not be a downer, to be a jolt instead. 'The pity fucking kills me,' she said. 'It kills my strength.'"

"She wanted the perception to be 'the opposite: She’s alive. She’s enjoying her life. This is great.' She went on: 'The book is highly comedic. And then it slides down into horrible tragedy and then comes back up to the punch line.' I’d finished the whole thing, but I had to ask what the punch line was. There were a handful, she said. But the most important one was that you’re never too old to get even."

From "E. Jean Carroll’s Uneasy Peace/In the year and a half since defeating Trump for the second time, she’s written a secret book — and learned to shoot" (NY Magazine).

At the end of this long article, there's some discussion of the security around her home. Asked if she worried about the danger of turning off her security lights so that the frogs that once mated in her swimming pool would sing again, as they had in the past:

Every man for himself.

In the comments to the previous post, about the Cuauhtémoc disaster, Old and slow said: "They could see the collision coming. I don't understand why the sailors stayed up on the yardarms."

I asked Grok, "Were they courageously holding their formation? Were they waiting for a command?" and guessed that no such command was given because the men could not have scampered down all at once. Grok observed: "Staying in place, secured by harnesses, may have been safer than attempting to climb down without clear instructions.... Naval operations prioritize collective action over individual initiative in emergencies.... The sailors likely held their positions to avoid creating additional hazards, trusting their officers to issue appropriate commands."

My inclination was to credit the sailors with courage, but Grok thought it was more likely a matter of "duty and discipline." If adhering to duty and discipline doesn't count as courage, are we systematically lying to ourselves and others and engaging in sentimentalism and propaganda when we speak of courage in the military? And why would it be less courageous to unclip the harness and attempt to descend?

In writing my question for Grok, I thought of the expression "Every man for himself." Is that a command ever given in the navy? Grok said — full Grok answers here — that's not a formal command in the naval tradition. But then why do I know that phrase? Where does it come from?

You don't have to canoe where there are alligators, but...

... you do have to get to your house when there are bears in the way:

"[I]n about 2.5 feet of water '... their canoe passed over a large alligator.' The alligator then 'thrashed and tipped the canoe over'..."

"... throwing the couple into the water. 'She ended up on top of the alligator in the water and was bitten'.... The gator, which the authorities said was 11 feet 4 inches long, pulled her underwater. Ms. Diekema’s body was later recovered from the water.... [A]lligator trappers... captured two alligators on Tuesday evening. One was more than 11 feet long.... The second gator was approximately 10 to 11 feet long...."

More information about that alligator attack we were talking about yesterday, in "Alligator Kills Woman After Flipping Her Canoe in Florida, Officials Say/The woman was paddling with her husband in shallow water on Tuesday when they passed over a large alligator that thrashed and tipped over their boat, the authorities said" (NYT).

We're told that the husband "attempted to intervene."

I can't imagine canoeing in such shallow water and passing over an animal that size, dipping the oar into that. I presume the water was murky. Perhaps the alligator looked like rocks or a log, but it seems inadvisable to pass that closely even over inanimate objects. 

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: Is it advisable to canoe in water that is only 2.5 feet deep? Answer: No. I don't think the alligator was the aggressor — sad though it is that the woman died.

"If people are willing to get a dumpster and do it themselves and clean it out.... It'll look perfect within 24 hours and that's what he wants to do."

"He doesn't want to wait around for 7 months till the city hires some demolition contract... $25,000 to do his lot.... You have emergency powers just like I do, and I'm exercising my emergency powers. You have to exercise them.... You have a very powerful emergency power and you can do everything within 24 hours. Yes. And if individuals want to clear out their property, they can."

Said President Trump to L.A. Mayor Karen Bass:

 

Bass, struggling to keep up with Trump's time pressure, ventured: "Well, yes, but you know that you will be able to go back soon.... we think within a week."

7 months wasn't good enough for Trump and neither was a week. He said: "That's a long time away — I'll be honest — to me..... And — the most important thing — a week is a long [time to people who want to go in and clean out their own house]."

Bass interrupted to say that she wanted people to be safe, and Trump cut her off and overpowered her: "They're safe. They're safe. You know what? They're not safe. They're not safe now. They're going to be much safer. A week is actually a long time.... I watched hundreds of people. standing in front of their lots and they're not allowed to go in. It's all burned. It's gone. It's done.... It's not going to burn any more. There's nothing to burn. There's almost nothing to burn. And they want to go in there...."

Bass embodied caution. She articulated the interest in safety, but perhaps she wants to save the work for the contractors who — Trump says — will charge $25,000 for each lot cleared. Trump pictures the homeowners rushing in grabbing armloads of debris and heaving it into dumpsters overnight. But don't you need contractors to deliver and pick up those dumpsters? And won't some of those homeowners — are they the homeowners — injure themselves jumping about in the wreckage? What is the big hurry? But Bass comes across as weak and afraid to take action, while Trump seems commanding and sanguine, ready to unleash the power of the individual citizens who are raring to get in there and transform the landscape overnight. You can do everything within 24 hours. 

"I tried to explain to them how the Taliban has destroyed all the dreams I worked so hard to achieve. They kept saying how happy they are here..."

"... and how safe it is now. These are the things that impact them directly.... But what value does safety have when you lose all your dreams for it?"

Said 24-year-old Afghan woman, speaking about her female cousins, who were visiting from Europe. She is quoted in "Women despair over Taliban rules, but many Afghan returnees don’t see it/Afghans living abroad are flocking back to visit relatives for the first time since the Taliban takeover. Severe restrictions on women are not top of mind" (WaPo)(free-access link).

"Playgrounds aren’t shadeless by accident: Many public playgrounds were designed to be treeless."

"In the 1980s, lawsuits over playground injuries made city planners start to see trees not as shade providers but as temptation for tree climbers who could end up with broken arms. Clearing trees in play areas was encouraged... The kids in her class 'wanted to go outside so badly,' [one teacher] told me. But 'after five minutes, their little faces were just beet red,' and they’d huddle, lethargic, under the one tree on the edge of the schoolyard.... If kids do spend August and September recesses indoors, they’ll probably stay in the classroom.... 'They do things like watch movies' during indoor recess...."

From "How to Save Outdoor Recess/Build more shade" (The Atlantic).

I find it hard to believe trees were cut down out of fear that children would climb them. Why not just cut off the lower limbs so kids can't climb them? 

"Be safe out there!"

Page break for your protection from TikTok:

Take the Althouse personality test: What's your first reaction to this screen shot of the top of the NYT website?

 

My first reaction was...

"The National Guard are our neighbors; these are moms and dads from our communities....They are just there as a deterrent to those who might think..."

".... that they can get away with committing crimes.... This is not heavy-handed.... It is nowhere near what ‘stop and search’ was — a policy I did not support. This is just for a temporary basis to calm things down and let people know they’re safe."

Said Governor Hochul, quoted in "Hochul defends deploying National Guard in NYC subways after 'war zone' backlash" (NY Post).

"So much of our culture today, with young people, is centered around their feelings... Feelings are indicators, they’re not facts...."

"Parents teaching their kids about safe spaces, and 'I feel uncomfortable'... It’s, like, You know what? The world is not a safe space. You have to find the comfort. It’s mostly uncomfortable.... I don’t like kids."

Said RuPaul, quoted by Ronan Farrow, in "RuPaul Doesn’t See How That’s Any of Your Business/The drag star brought the form mainstream, and made an empire out of queer expression. Now he fears 'the absolute worst'" (The New Yorker).

Later, RuPaul seemed to want to revise that "I don't like kids" remark. He's quoted as saying that he'd "be a great parent" and that he "fucking love[s]" the "white noise of joy" of kids playing outside in the schoolyard near his cottage.

Farrow tells us RuPaul is "a proponent of psychedelics": 

"The ability to spot danger in advance and prepare for it is the test of a body’s functioning."

"The Jewish nation has never excelled at foreseeing danger. We were surprised again and again—and the last time was the most awful one. That won’t happen under my leadership. This is what the state of Israel expects from me, and this is what I’ll do."

Netanyahu once said, quoted by Yair Rosenberg in "The End of Netanyahu/He sold Israelis a story about their safety. It turned out not to be true" (The Atlantic).

Israelis do not forgive failures to secure their safety. Golda Meir left politics after the debacle of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Israel lost nearly 3,000 soldiers following a surprise Egyptian and Syrian attack. Her name is reviled by some in the country to this day. But what happened on October 7, 2023, was worse than what happened on October 6, 1973. Meir lost soldiers—people who had purposely put their lives on the line. Netanyahu lost civilians—the people the state and its soldiers were supposed to protect....  In the end, the man known as “Mr. Security” failed by his own standard, and he failed to fulfill the fundamental expectation of his fellow citizens.....