The Daily Valet. - 5/25/22, Wednesday

✔️ A Vicious Loop

May 25, 2022

Wednesday, May 25th Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

What can I say?

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s Big Story

Tragic but Not Surprising

19 students, and at least 2 adults, dead in Texas elementary school shooting

By now I’m sure you’ve heard the tragic news that an 18-year-old gunman walked into a rural Texas elementary school and killed at least 19 children and two adults on Tuesday. It’s the deadliest school shooting since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary a decade ago.

“Mass shootings have become America’s copy and paste tragedy,” Politico’s Tyler Weyant wrote Tuesday evening. “We change the place, the town, the number of dead and injured. But the constant is lives lost, people who cannot be brought back, and the nation is left in a numb daze.” At least, until, it happens again.

In a national address on Tuesday night, President Biden called for lawmakers to pass “common sense gun laws.” As vice president, he tried (and ultimately failed) to pass universal background checks, a new assault weapons ban, and a prohibition on high-capacity gun clips.

Despite that plea, several Republicans, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, have already publicly rejected the prospect of passing gun control legislation in response to the shooting. But Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said this was a uniquely American problem that demands a solution. “Spare me the bullshit about mental illness—we’re not an outlier on mental illness. We’re an outlier when it comes to access to firearms and the ability of criminals and very sick people to get their hands on firearms.”

As of last night, it wasn’t clear where the gunman obtained his weapons. There is no age restriction on possessing guns in Texas, but you have to be 21 or older to carry a concealed handgun without a license under the permitless carry law that went into effect last September. Texas governor Gregg Abbott said, “What happened in Uvalde is a horrific tragedy that cannot be tolerated in the state of Texas.” But he has signed 22 pieces of legislation that made it easier to buy, carry and own guns in the state.

Of course, I realize that, at this point, even pointing out the fact that we are stuck in this vicious loop is something of a cliché. This attack came just 10 days after a racist rampage at a supermarket that added to a series of mass killings at churches, schools and stores in 2022. And the prospects for any reform of the nation’s gun regulations seemed as dim, if not dimmer, than in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook deaths.

↦ Dig Deeper: Reuters has put together a grim chronology of mass shootings in the United States.

Hurricane Season Could Get Ugly

NOAA predicts as many as 6 major Atlantic hurricanes for 2022

The upcoming Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be unusually active, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's hurricane season outlook released Tuesday.

That would make it the seventh consecutive hurricane season with “above normal” activity. The agency says there could be 14 to 21 named storms in the Atlantic Ocean this summer and fall, 10 of which could become hurricanes, including six major hurricanes.

According to Axios, the past two hurricane seasons both exhausted the list of 21 storm names, which was unprecedented. And the 2020 season was the most active on record.

Climate change is supercharging hurricanes, according to scientists of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as NOAA and other national monitoring agencies. Heat-trapping greenhouse gases are warming the atmosphere, which in turn heats the ocean. Warmer ocean temperatures fuel more powerful and destructive storms, which bring more storm surge and dump more rain.

↦ FYI: According to the National Hurricane Center, more Category 4/5 hurricanes made landfall in the U.S. between 2017 and 2021 than did so from 1963 to 2016.

Where Are the Rolex Watches?

Supply, demand and the psychology of wanting what you can’t have

We live in weird times but the state of the luxury watch industry is especially surreal: there aren't enough Rolex watches to go around. The result? Waitlists, unscrupulous dealers, empty display cases, ballooning prices and record-breaking auctions.

Some frustrated people online espouse the theory that it's all a diabolical corporate conspiracy, but Gear Patrol dug into the data. And that's not what's happening. But it is complicated—a “perfect storm” of interrelated factors that's driven the watch world into hyperdrive.

Of course, it's never been the easiest process purchasing a Rolex. Waitlists are nothing new. Despite the fact that Rolex has produced hundreds of thousands of watches a year for decades, demand has always outstripped supply.

Pandemic supply chain issues caused trouble too. Despite the fact that Rolex makes nearly every part of its watches, the classic timepieces contain over a hundred tiny parts. And that's to say nothing of the fact that with people staying home and traveling less, sales of the Swiss watches rose 40% this year.

↦ Alternative: Don’t buy new. Do what I did and look for a vintage style. They’re often cheaper and make great conversation starters.

WeWork Guy Pivots to Carbon-Credits

Adam Neumann’s blockchain startup just raised $70 million

Maybe it's because I'm just finishing up WeCrashed, but this story seems very interesting. In a classic “pivot to crypto to reinvent yourself” moment, controversial WeWork founder Adam Neumann recently launched a startup, Flowcarbon, to sell tokenized carbon credits on the blockchain.

And on Tuesday, the company announced that it has raised $70 million in its first round of funding. According to TechCrunch, venture capitalists just can't seem to get enough of Neumann and his spouse/co-founder, Rebekah, who started the company alongside its CEO Dana Gibber and two others.

What does the company do exactly? It's a “blockchain-enabled carbon credit trading platform,” according to a report by Reuters. Say what? The company puts it this way: “Flowcarbon operates at the intersection of the voluntary carbon market and Web3, leveraging blockchain to scale climate change solutions.” Any clearer?

Gizmodo attempts a translation: It's a company that makes carbon offset projects (specifically nature-based ones, like tree planting) into crypto tokens for companies to buy and sell. It sounds good on paper/on screen, but it's important to remember that carbon credits and offsets are frequently bullshit and that blockchain has its own problems with emissions.

In Other News

↦ Fort Bragg to Be Renamed Fort Liberty, Among Army Bases Losing Confederate Names

↦ Hot Weather Could Be Getting in the Way of Good Sleep, a New Study Finds

↦ This Is the Best City and State If You Want to Retire Early

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

‘Seinfeld’ inspired coffee

Bad Bunny

Lookalike books

Give Yourself a Break

Why you should be lighting some incense

Now that we work from home more and workout from home more, it's important to break up the day in various ways. Scents can do that spectacularly.

A good fragrance not only clears the air (literally), but it has the ability to change your mindset. Scents have long been used to create different emotional and psychological environments, says neuroscientist Rachel Herz, author of Scent of Desire, the preeminent study on the importance of smell in our lives.

While there are a myriad of ways to scent your environment, incense is an old school option that suddenly seems to be everywhere. Perhaps because it's so intertwined with ritual. The lighting and snuffing out of a flame, the lingering wisps of smoke curling their way through the air. There's more of a physical presence. And it seems a bit more supernatural, more charged with the ability to change the environment.

Plus, it's aesthetically elevated and while investing in quality incense will run you about the same as a good candle, the incense promises more scent for longer. So, in that way, it's also a smart buy. The Valet. team pulled together some of the favorites we're lighting these days.

↦ Read: The best incense to burn right now.

Kitchen Essentials on Sale

Le Creuset Craft 5-Piece Kitchen Utensil Set with Crock

Perfect for furnishing a kitchen or adding to your Le Creuset collection, this set ($84 / $65) features their most popular silicone utensils in a stoneware crock that keeps tools organized. The utensils are designed for daily use, constructed from hygienic and heat-resistant BPA-free silicone with a wooden handle. The stylish crock is composed of premium stoneware with a charcoal glaze that looks pretty badass.

↦ Want more? 5 kitchen items on sale now

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