Voir Diary

How the U.S. Patent System Fails Small Businesses

When I practiced patent prosecution, I felt conflicted about doing work for smaller clients, such as small businesses and individual inventors.¹ On one hand, I was grateful for their business. But on the other, I felt that I was not providing a service that would benefit them.

The dirty irony of environmental law: How interest groups use regulation to blockade sustainable development.

My coworker’s wife recently revealed to me that she used to practice environmental law in Los Angeles. “Used to?” I responded with eyebrows raised. To me, environmental law has always seemed a truly benevolent practice area - thus, a coveted field.

Excerpts from The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr

Intro

• In 2018, Americans spent $701 billion at supermarket-style grocery stores, still our largest food expenditure by a wide margin; there are 38,000 of these stores across this land, and the average adult will spend 2 percent of their life inside one.

Washington’s plastic bag ban is well-intentioned. In reality, it’s been a huge waste.

I know that I’m not the only one that relies on old shopping bags to fulfill a second life as garbage bags. In fact, grocery stores and restaurants have long been a primary source of trash can liners for many of my friends and family.

To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret by Jedidiah Jenkins: Select Quotes