#maciej ceglowski – @protoslacker on Tumblr

Nature has had fun with the project design flood. Everyone still remembers the five-hundred-year flood in 1993, which was the biggest flood since the one in 1827. Then there was five-hundred-year flood in 2008, followed by the five-hundred-year flood in 2011. Given the frequency of these five-hundred-year floods, you can hardly fault the model for failing to keep up. For all our high-tech visibility into the Mississippi watershed, we find ourselves constantly filling sandbags.

Maciej Ceglowski in Idle Words. Confronting New Madrid

Part 2

KickStarter: Send Idle Words to Antarctica

#maciej ceglowski #nature writing #earthquake #future #mississippi

protoslacker

If I go on about this stuff, it's because the flaw at the heart of our country is not just geological. There's some connection between our inability to confront our past and the refusal to think rationally about the future. These pockets of poverty and despair, so often black poverty, are not an accident of history. They form a vast, second-tier America that we've simply written off for good. In places like Cairo, Fresno, Flint, Gary, Camden, Detroit, Baltimore, the cities of upstate New York, the Indian reservations of South Dakota, Appalachia, a slow-motion disaster has been taking place for decades. There's no need to wait for an earthquake.

Maciej Ceglowski in Idle Words. Confronting New Madrid (Part 2)

Part 1

#earthquake #geology #natural history writing #travel writing #maciej ceglowski

protoslacker

Writing popular online essays is like being the prettiest girl in Scotland - satisfying on its own terms, but you can’t let it go to your head.

Maciej Ceglowski interviewed by Aaron Swartz at Raw Thought. Behind the Rant: Maciej Ceglowski

#maciej ceglowski #writing #blog