Indian Point Blank: How Worried Should We Be About the Nuclear Plant Up the River? (2003)
By now, Indian Point 3 has collected six hundred and twenty-four tons of spent uranium, and Indian Point 2 has amassed eight hundred and eight tons. Although the fuel is of no use in generating electricity, it is still highly radioactive and produces a great deal of heat, which is why it must always be kept submerged. Two years ago, after much prodding from groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists, the N.R.C. released a study looking at the risks of a spent-fuel fire. While the commission concluded that the risk of such a fire was low—the fuel would have to be left out of water for several hours—it acknowledged that the consequences “could be comparable to those for a severe reactor accident.”
By Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker
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NPR Amps Up: Can Vivian Schiller Build a Journalism Juggernaut? (2010)
Schiller has animated the place with the energy of renewed ambition, a rededication to producing serious journalism. Her strategy rests on three pillars: expand original reporting at the national and local levels; provide free access to public media content regardless of platform; and serve audiences of all backgrounds and interests. To do all that, she wants to work in partnership with NPR’s member stations as well as independent producers and some of the new nonprofit journalism units springing up around the country.
By Jill Drew, Columbia Journalism Review
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Recap: ‘America’s Next Great Restaurant’
There’s a problem: THE TIFFIN BOX’s menu will “lean heavily towards vegetarian.” The judges are disgusted with this naked display of idealism. One of them asks, What percentage of Americans are vegetarian? “About 15%.” Then the judges make some weird calculations, like since only 15% Americans are vegetarian, only 15% of Americans would ever eat at The Tiffin Box. This makes no sense: I’m not a vegetarian, but I’ll eat at the Tiffin Box at least twice a week! “Where’s David?” “Oh you know him; he’s down at the ol’ Tiffin Box, eating the shit out of everything.” “I didn’t know David was vegetarian.” “I KNOW, IT’S SO CRAZY THAT SOMEBODY WHO EATS CHEESEBURGERS WOULD EVER NOT WANT TO EAT A CHEESEBURGER.”
By David Rees, NYMag Grub Street
(thanks Dan)
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Moby-Duck: Or, the Synthetic Wilderness of Childhood
Let’s draw a bath. Let’s set a rubber duck afloat. Look at it wobbling there. What misanthrope, what damp, misty November of a sourpuss, upon beholding a rubber duck afloat, does not feel a crayola ray of sunshine brightening his gloomy heart? Graphically, the rubber duck’s closest relative is not a bird or a toy but the yellow happy face of Wal-Mart commercials. A rubber duck is in effect a happy face with a body and lips—which is what the beak of the rubber duck has become: great, lipsticky, bee-stung lips. Both the happy face and the rubber duck reduce facial expressions to a kind of pictogram. They are both emoticons. And they are, of course, the same color—the yellow of an egg yolk or the eye of a daisy, a shade darker than a yellow raincoat, a shade lighter than a taxicab.
By Donovan Hohn, Harper’s (2007)
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A Declaration of Cyber-War
In the end, the most important thing now publicly known about Stuxnet is that Stuxnet is now publicly known. That knowledge is, on the simplest level, a warning: America’s own critical infrastructure is a sitting target for attacks like this. That aside, if Stuxnet really did attack Iran’s nuclear program, it could be called the first unattributable act of war. The implications of that concept are confounding. Because cyber-weapons pose an almost unsolvable problem of sourcing—who pulled the trigger?—war could evolve into something more and more like terror. Cyber-conflict makes military action more like a never-ending game of uncle, where the fingers of weaker nations are perpetually bent back. The wars would often be secret, waged by members of anonymous, elite brain trusts, none of whom would ever have to look an enemy in the eye. For people whose lives are connected to the targets, the results could be as catastrophic as a bombing raid, but would be even more disorienting. People would suffer, but would never be certain whom to blame.
By Michael Joseph Gross, Vanity Fair
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