Word: grits
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...Although iRobot's Roomba, the robotic vacuum cleaner, was a hip innovation, it had its share of problems. It was better at capturing the imaginations of robot lovers than it was at capturing the grit and grime that collect in carpet. It occasionally choked on wires, tassels and other stringy things that might be lying in its path, and could easily be shown up by the vacuum cleaner you already own. Since most people don't own floor buffers or other electric mopping equipment, the Scooba isn't following a hard act. The alternative to robot floor washing is pulling...
...MOVIE IS BETTER: There's a lot more of the grit of everyday life in 18th century rural Britain that was commonplace to Austen but is new to us. Animals wander through the house. There's mud everywhere. Also, it ends with a kiss...
...anger at the slow response, then cleanup. But Katrina cut a historic deadly swath across the South, and rebuilding can't start until the cleanup is done. In much of New Orleans, the leafy coverage of live oaks is gone. Lingering in the sky instead is a fine grit that tastes metallic to the tongue. Everyone's life story is out on the curb, soaked and stinky--furniture and clothing, dishes and rotting drywall, even formerly fabulous antiques. Dump trucks come periodically to remove the piles, taking some to a former city park, now a heap of rubbish several football...
...once flashy city has become drab. The grass and trees, marinated for weeks in saltwater, are a dreary gray-brown. Parking lots look like drought-starved lake beds, with cracks in the mud. Within a few hours, anyone working outside is covered in a fine layer of grit. The trees that gave New Orleans such character--the centuries-old live oaks with their grand canopies and graceful lines--are toppled, exposing huge root balls 10 ft. or more in diameter. It's all the more surreal because the Garden District, which survived the flood, is lush and beautiful once again...
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strode into Camp Courage, the heavily fortified U.S. military compound in the Sunni-dominated city of Mosul, pulled off her helmet and bullet-proof vest, smoothed her navy pantsuit and disappeared behind closed doors with Nineveh governor Duraid Kashmoula, a Sunni leader of legendary grit. Dozens of American soldiers billeted in what was once Saddam Hussein's garish palace on the Tigris milled about the marble halls, vying for a good camera angle to snap the rare American VIP visiting Iraq's second city, which has been plagued by insurgent and jihadist violence since...