Articles by David Roberts

Jury duty

Greetings from jury duty in miserable and blighted lovely Kent, Washington. I'm writing this on a dinky little laptop, using glacially slow (but free!) wi-fi here at the Regional Justice Center. I'm cut off from my usual workflow and, most importantly, my RSS feeds. So I have no idea what's going on out in the world.

To boot, at any moment my number could come up and I could be called away to determine some poor schlub's guilt or innocence.

So ... posting will be light today.

Damn interesting

One site I've discovered lately that's damn interesting is Damn Interesting [high hat]. It is, as far as I can tell, exactly as advertised: Short articles on random, but always interesting, stuff.

A few that might be of interest to Gristmillians: A little piece on the Hindenburg disaster, which completely ended what was until then promising and safe development of air ships, and a bit on the latest developments in toilet technology.

And as someone who is highly allergic to cashew nuts, it was gratifying to learn that they are in fact highly toxic.

Coal country

While the Sago tragedy has coal on our minds -- too bad it's only tragedy that moves coal into the spotlight, and only briefly at that -- it's worth reading reporter Lucy Carrigan's short but evocative post about her visit to coal country.

Rebuilding: Compare and contrast

The New York Times:

The city's official blueprint for redevelopment after Hurricane Katrina, to be released on Wednesday, will recommend that residents be allowed to return and rebuild anywhere they like, no matter how damaged or vulnerable the neighborhood, according to several members of the mayor's rebuilding commission.

Mike Tidwell:

To encourage people to return to New Orleans ... without funding the only plan that can save the city from the next Big One, is to commit an act of mass homicide.

(via The Poor Man)