Eric dP:

As inspiration for running in the upcoming Mercer Island Half Marathon, I read Haruki Murakami’s “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running,” in which he describes his decades-long discipline of long distance running.

Literary types will recognize that the title is a nod to Raymond Carver, whose work Murakami has translated into Japanese. That Murakami is a student …  read more »

istock

Big Coal and Big Oil know that, in their business, political friends are worth their weight in gold. An academic study of one case of corporate lobbying estimated the return on investment at 22,000 percent: a dollar spent earned $220. Jack Abramoff, the convicted, influence-peddling super-lobbyist, pegged the return on investment of one project at 100,000 percent: $4 million dollars in lobbying cash purchased a $4 billion tax break for Tyco International.

Inspired by paybacks like those, the …  read more »

Bosela, Morguefile.com

Starting today, people across the globe will give up something for Lent. (For example, Newt Gingrich won’t have any dessert. A colleague of mine is giving up meat.)

My family is fasting from consumerism. Not just for Lent, but all year long. And what better time than the day after Mardi Gras to write about how we’re faring.

Maybe we’ll inspire someone to join us—if not for a whole year, then at least …  read more »

Section of Kane Road paved in pervious asphalt; photo from City of Gresham.

Municipal engineers don’t exactly have reputations for being devil-may-care, live-on-the-edge risk takers. Speaking generally, they work hard, take their jobs seriously, and really really want their projects to work. Collapsed bridges and over-flowing sewers don’t look so hot on the resume.

But stormwater engineers in Gresham, a neighbor to Portland, and Issaquah, located in the foothills of the Cascades outside Seattle, have built some interesting — even a touch experimental — roads and parking lots using permeable pavement.

The …  read more »