Another low-productivity weekend

I spent most of this weekend reading Five Past Midnight in Bhopal, a fascinating account of events leading up to the massive 1984 industrial disaster in Bhopal, India that most likely killed tens of thousands of people in an instant. (The exact death toll has never been established, since most victims were poor and image-concious government officials stopped counting after about 1700.) This book has been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years because I expected it to be a dry account of the disaster with a lot of finger pointing. But the book goes far beyond the accident itself, providing deep insights into Indian culture and the corporate culture of multinational corporations. If there was ever an argument for the importance of strong and impartial environmental watchdogs, this is it.

Other than that, not much was accomplished this weekend. Cleaned up the kitchen a bit, did a load of laundry, went to Bongo Java and did my Spanish homework, sent a few e-mails, watched part of the very rainy Iriquois Steeplechase on TV, and went to the gym. Not necessarily in that order.