by admin | Jan 23, 2019 | Books, Crime, Government, History, Journalism, Public safety, Uncategorized, Writing
Cover photo provided by Random House It is hard to know where to start in describing why the privatization of prisons is a terrible idea. The effective abandonment of public responsibility for the fate and welfare of people sentenced to incarceration after being...
by admin | Jan 12, 2019 | Activism, Careers, Disaster, Disaster policy, Education, Government, Gratitude, History, Natural Hazards, Personal history, Uncategorized, Urban Planning, Volunteerism
GRATITUDE ON PARADE #gratitudeonparade Today’s late-night entry has no photo because I have none from so long ago, certainly not digitized, anyway–or easily found. That makes Lynn Saunders’s contribution to my career no less seminal or memorable. An...
by admin | Dec 3, 2018 | Disaster, Disaster policy, Earthquake, Government, History, Infrastructure, Natural Hazards, Public safety, Resilience, Transportation
Ask Anchorage after last Friday’s 7.0 earthquake. Admittedly, this is not the biggest earthquake the area could have suffered. The famous 1964 earthquake registered at 9.2, triggered a tsunami, and killed an estimated 130 people. Still, by and large, things seemed to...
by admin | Oct 12, 2018 | Agriculture, Business, Disaster, Disaster policy, Floodplain management, Floodplain management, Government, History, Industry, Natural Hazards, Politics, Public health, Public policy, Public safety
It has been a few weeks of drought on this blog, but just the opposite in North Carolina, where Hurricane Florence dropped up to 30 inches of rain in some locations, and floods migrated downstream via numerous rivers to swamp cities both inland and near the coast....
by admin | Aug 25, 2018 | Activism, Blogging, Books, Careers, Government, History, National security, Politics, Public policy, Writing
Like John McCain’s assuredly final book, The Restless Wave, I read Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence, by James R. Clapper, in large part because my wife bought it for me. The usual pathway to my desk for books I discuss in this blog is that they...
by admin | Jul 31, 2018 | Activism, Books, Climate, Disaster, Floodplain management, Geography, History, Housing, Journalism, Natural Hazards, Racism, Water, Weather, Writing
It has always amazed me how much time and energy has been wasted, particularly in the U.S., on the denial of climate change in the face of so much scientific evidence. Sea level rise is a directly measurable phenomenon. So are changes in precipitation patterns over...
