building tables is back
for real this time
By popular demand*, this newsletter is back from the dead and it’s back for good.
When I set my mind to do something, I tend to start out quite ambitious. Such is the tale of this here newsletter. I thought I could do this weekly. I was sure it could be done. Reader, as you already know, I could not do it. And thanks to my anxiety, I stopped altogether. I regret that deeply and I’m here to try to make that right.
So here it is: the new building tables is back and it will be a monthly endeavor. The posts will straddle the line between the two mediums like I did when it first started but will also also try to do things we’d never done before.
Alongside the monthly posts will be newsletters from folks who can speak on data journalism or woodworking with clarity and bring you perspective that I cannot. I’ll also use this to post tutorials on how I did specific things in both in my data journalism work and in my woodshop. Those will come as they’re finished and won’t be on the monthly schedule.
The restart of the newsletter will come on the morning of Monday April 17th. I hope you’ll get the joy out of reading it that I get out of writing it.
And if you have any subjects you’d like me to cover, please let me know! Idea generation is one of the hardest parts and any input is welcome. I want to write want you want to read.
With that, and until Monday, I’ll leave you with some links of some of the data journalism and some of the woodworking I have done during the two years this newsletter has been on hiatus. Thankfully my anxiety didn’t stop me from doing everything.
datawork
The hidden billion-dollar cost of repeated police misconduct — “Moore is among the more than 7,600 officers — from Portland, Ore., to Milwaukee to Baltimore — whose alleged misconduct has more than once led to payouts to resolve lawsuits and claims of wrongdoing, according to a Washington Post investigation. The Post collected data on nearly 40,000 payments at 25 of the nation’s largest police and sheriff’s departments within the past decade, documenting more than $3.2 billion spent to settle claims.” [03-09-2022]
Cause of death: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America — “Presidents from both parties failed to take effective action in the face of one of the most urgent threats to the nation’s security, one that claims more lives each year than car accidents, suicides or gun violence. Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49, according to a Post analysis. The Drug Enforcement Administration, the country’s premier anti-narcotics agency, stumbled through a series of missteps as it confronted the biggest challenge in its 50-year history. The agency was slow to respond as Mexican cartels supplanted Chinese producers, creating a massive illicit pharmaceutical industry that is now producing more fentanyl than ever.” [12-12-2022]
The dark side of Bob Baffert’s reign — “But the star trainer’s sudden support belied the fact that Baffert has for years been entangled with the very problems he blamed for his sport’s potential demise: drugs, dead horses and a feckless regulatory system. At least 74 horses have died in Baffert’s care in his home state of California since 2000, more than all but two of hundreds of trainers in the state, according to a Post analysis of data and public records. But when factoring in the number of races run, Baffert’s horses have died at the highest rate of the 10 trainers who have had the most horse deaths.” [06-18-2021]
After Parkland: What we’ve learned tracking school shootings for 5 years — “Neither of us anticipated that we would still be doing this work in 2023 — on Parkland’s fifth anniversary — but it’s never been more urgent. The subject of school shootings often makes people feel hopeless, especially at a time when America is experiencing its worst stretch in history. But we have now studied 366 separate incidents of campus gun violence, and the data, along with dozens of stories on the damaged children it represents, has taught us that there are reasons to remain hopeful, none more so than this one: Most school shootings are preventable. That’s just one of the lessons we’ve learned about a singularly American epidemic.” [02-14-2023]
The unseen toll of nonfatal police shootings — “Analysis of data obtained from 156 departments found that in addition to the 2,137 people killed in fatal shootings, officers in those departments shot and wounded 1,609 more. In other words, for every five people shot and killed by police in these departments, four others were shot and survived. This is the unseen reality of police use of deadly force in the United States: a hidden population whose circumstances largely echo those in fatal shootings but who survive to grapple with a lifetime of debilitating wounds, emotional trauma and legal fallout.” [10-21-2022]
woodwork
