Posts tagged ‘news’
Chile’s earthquake
February 27th, 2010 at 9:59 pm by Dr. Drang
I’m not surprised that—so far, at least—the death toll from Chile’s earthquake is so low compared to Haiti’s, despite the much stronger quake. I was trained as a structural engineer, and my department was loaded with graduate students from South America. Latin American countries tend to take earthquakes very seriously, and their engineers are highly…
Afghanistan and Iraq, November 2009
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:20 am by Dr. Drang
November was a relatively good month. Military deaths underwent a big drop in Afghanistan and stayed low in Iraq. November was also the month in which the right wing pushed hard on its talking point that “Obama’s dithering is endangering the troops.” You can always count on the right to be out of step with…
A little background on the Bay Bridge failure
October 29th, 2009 at 6:17 pm by Dr. Drang
You probably heard about the structural failure on the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge earlier this week. When I went looking for information on the nature of the failure, the news articles I found were disappointing. It’s not that the reporters did a poor job, its just that their focus—which was, quite rightly, on how the…
Good riddance
August 18th, 2009 at 9:18 am by Dr. Drang
When newspaper and network reporters are feeling full of themselves, they like to talk about their importance to a functioning democracy, how it’s their work that informs the public and allows it to make decisions on the important issues of the day.1 With the ongoing collapse of the newspaper business and the movement of viewers…
Naperville biking
August 4th, 2009 at 8:00 am by Dr. Drang
An unusual bike accident occurred in Naperville last week. According to news reports, two high school-aged boys were riding their bikes on the sidewalk in the downtown business district. A cop told them they had to ride in the street. One of the boys was then hit by a car driven by an older woman.…
Iraq, July 2009
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:54 pm by Dr. Drang
July—the first month after the redeployment to bases—had the fewest US and coalition military fatalities of any month since the Iraq war started. In contrast, coalition fatalities in Afghanistan were an order of magnitude higher. Tags: politics iraq war
Graphic criticism
May 6th, 2009 at 9:57 pm by Dr. Drang
Today the Chicago Tribune published this graph comparing the media coverage of swine flu to confirmed cases of infection. (I had to take a photo of the damned graph because I couldn’t find it anywhere on the Tribune’s web site.) The point of the graph, I guess, is to show that in the early days…
Drive My Car
August 6th, 2008 at 10:37 pm by Dr. Drang
Can you imagine pulling into a gas station in central Illinois and seeing Paul McCartney at the next pump? Or going to a dull roadside museum in Joliet (a half-hour at the most from my house!) and having a Beatle in your tour group? My favorite part of Mary Schmich’s column is this quote from…
AP writes good
July 12th, 2008 at 3:33 pm by Dr. Drang
Here’s the lead paragraph from this AP story: Doctors and family members say a 7-year-old boy who fractured his skull when he was struck by a foul ball at Wrigley Field was recovering and expected to live. The boy “fractured his skull”? Really? I know we’re all supposed to avoid passive voice in our writing,…
Energy conservation prediction
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:28 pm by Dr. Drang
Later this summer, newspaper editors across the country will dust off those “women will love Sex and the City, but their boyfriends/husbands will refuse to go” feature articles we’ve been seeing lately. They’ll strike out the discussion of shoes, change all the title references to Mamma Mia, and head out for a drink to congratulate…
