tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442300152457345027.post8760650875796089558..comments2023-03-12T05:30:33.240-05:00Comments on little house in the ghetto: What Our Cities Could Besharqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10946168340402981902noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442300152457345027.post-76298123248346194342008-08-18T10:03:00.000-05:002008-08-18T10:03:00.000-05:00Nifty!Nifty!D. Lollardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02897835138834032200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2442300152457345027.post-58633684904132968392008-08-13T21:43:00.000-05:002008-08-13T21:43:00.000-05:00I just finished reading a fictional book by James ...I just finished reading a fictional book by James Howard Kunstler, set in the petro-maimed future, just floating around ideas of what things could be like. I think we've spent the last 70 years building up this weird religion of crude ooze devotees. I don't know, I guess I can see how they made sense of it all, their ways of changing the world (then known as progress), and the awful repercussions we've known about for decades, and still seem unable or unwilling to change our culture of maximum harm. Ah, but cars, pavement, suburbs, strip malls--what?!<BR/><BR/>We spent all that time constructing not-nature, and we'll spend the next big amount of time deconstructing it, recovering once again our birthright of the gardens and paradise--or at the very least, you hope, some semblance of thinking and providing for one's self. The garbage dumps will be the gold mines of the next age. Can you imagine future archaeologists digging around through all of our massive junk & trying to figure it all out, especially all the plastic junk? I wish I were around to hear what they might say about us.<BR/><BR/>It seems like Springfield specifically is once again, decades behind "the next big thing". Our city government still thinks sprawl is progress, that more roads built equals a higher standard of living (because they never see the condition of the roads in the ghetto, I guess). Imaginary status has some meaning. Big mega-stores are quite desired, corporate chains, hooray. We done got us a Starbucks, boys, seven of them asamatterafack. ...and yes, on marches the bermuda grass, changing non-nature into its natural status, the chaos that is orderly if only we could recognize it as such. <BR/><BR/>It's weird that methods of reclaiming deserts have been known for decades, and still, we have big deserts. The deserts of the middle east were the fertile crescent. Lebanon was known for its cedars. Forget building this weird dream for 70 years, or 150 years, more like 10,000 years of undoing what works well. <BR/><BR/>I realized the other day that the boomer generation were the peak of the peak (America) of the peak (civilization). At some point it was known that we were pissing all over our habitat, and if we didn't stop, it would be pretty shitty for us shortly. Well, it's now shortly. It pisses me off, as I feel I got screwed along the way, but also gives me this utter sense of responsibility to my own child not to pass this bullshit off onto her & her descendants. I'll do whatever I can to hand off a world where you can breathe the air, drink the water, and eat the food, and not get cancer. She told me the other day she'd rather not have a telephone if she could have forests of pine trees. Hell yes! She gets it!<BR/><BR/>Enough ranting.<BR/><BR/>careysharqihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10946168340402981902noreply@blogger.com