The Center for Investigative Reporting has a podcast called Reveal. If you aren’t listening to it you should change that, beginning with the recent episode Hunting the Ghost Fleet. At times it feels like a spy thriller, and it comes with some beautiful pictures too. If you listen now, the post will still be here […]
Continue readingMore TagAuthor: Orion
Mapping Atlanta’s Flights
My last post was about changes in flight patterns from Atlanta to the rest of the United States. As these things can be a bit abstract, I took a break from my other projects (more on that at a later date) and made a map. It shows all of the direct flight routes between ATL […]
Continue readingMore TagAs Atlanta flies, so flies the nation
The following was written for an exercise I did as an application for a job at the Brookings Institute. I thought the data was interesting and worth posting. I also mapped the change. Something is happening in Georgia. The Atlanta Metropolitan Area is the 9th largest in the United States and has grown at a […]
Continue readingMore TagGentrification and Defending a Word
Growing up in Portland, OR, I watched America’s largest town turn into America’s smallest city and in the process I have seen neighborhood after neighborhood radically change. These changes have not just been a decrease in people of color and increase in neighborhood income (though that is certainly part of it); rather they have involved […]
Continue readingMore TagExpected Value: why the Singapore Summit was a good thing
This has been a whirlwind week for followers of US and world politics. Out of all these stories, the biggest was probably the Singapore summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump (although the Czech President did call an impromptu press conference to burn a giant pair of underwear). The summit has highlighted the hypocrisy […]
Continue readingMore TagThe Rise of the SWAT Team
This is a partial review of one the major parts of Radley Balko’s book Rise of the Warrior Cop; the militarization of America’s police forces. You can read my first review, on the Symbolic Third Amendment, no-knock raids, and the castle doctrine here. Training and deploying military hardware, the masked black armored SWAT uniform stands in […]
Continue readingMore TagMaking Gardens Visible: some maps
Oftentimes when (community) gardens are appreciated it is for fulfilling a temporary need. They replace vacant lots, turning illegal trash pits into something pretty that increases property values. They green otherwise dull, industrialized, cities and create a sense of community where there is none. Victory gardens help socialize children into a nationalistic project of civic engagement […]
Continue readingMore TagThe Symbolic Third and the Warrior Cop
“Are cops constitutional?” This is the question Radley Balko poses to start his book, Rise of the Warrior Cop; the militarization of America’s police forces. Beginning with Ancient Rome and quickly moving forward through the American Revolution and 19th century, Balko provides an historical and philosophical foundation for a detailed discussion of American police since […]
Continue readingMore TagMay 2018 Election Endorsements: Round 2
In Portland, Oregon, it is election time! Ballots are due by May 15th, so be sure to vote. Ideally in a way that agrees with my opinions….In my last post I went overboard researching the three competitive races for judge on the ballot. Here I am going to touch on the rest of the races […]
Continue readingMore TagMay 2018 Election Endorsements: Judges
It’s election time! In Oregon that means voting for judges almost none of us have heard of, and who don’t have endorsements from any of the local papers. In the words of an attorney I spoke to on the topic: “for the vast majority of voters, I don’t know what you would do.” I’ve decided to […]
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