Why Kunstler called his book "The Geography of Nowhere."

Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.

In defense of at least some of your attacks on my hometown (at least where I grew up, I have moved away since).

Can't get vegetables in the South?  Jesus man, you seriously cannot have been looking hard.  Not only is almost everyone with a backyard growing their own vegetables, but there are plenty of farmer's markets around.  You were in Atlanta for Pete's sake, you'd have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to not be able to eat vegetarian there!  Aside from the many dedicated veggie restaurants, almost every restaurant serves vegetarian options.

Hmm, you call a bunch of little kids running around wildly in an indoor playplace rude?  Do you seriously expect kids to slow down and watch out for everything?  They're kids!

Everywhere I've been people are bad parents - letting them be raised by gameboys and tv.  That's not just a Southern thing.  But seriously, to be annoyed by a kid who wants to be friendly and talk to you is pretty lame man.  Again, they're kids!  

...will decline again when peak oil hits, everyone will freak out because they'll be stuck in little towns without air-conditioning again, that of all the regions of the country, the South is the most car-dependent...is that true?

I was not "looking hard," no. I was hanging out with extremely square, mainstream people who don't look hard for vegetables, don't grow them in their back yard, and couldn't name a vegetarian restaurant. I'm sure a delightfully sustainable and healthy lifestyle is available in Atlanta for the community of people that chooses to seek it out, but most people, almost by definition, do not seek out a lifestyle that is an alternative to the mainstream. My impression, in fact, is that most of the traditionalists in the South feel the mainstream crumbling, and are quite prone to a) blaming liberals and foreigners for it, and b) clinging to what markers of the mainstream are left, and that means suburban life among strip malls. Anyway, I was mostly talking about the increasingly interchangeable small towns down there.

Oh, also, yes, room fulls of kids are always somewhat heedless, but there's a near sociopathic quality these days that strikes me as different, and no, I wasn't annoyed by the kids approaching me and saying "hey, watch this," while they show off their special spider-man swim goggles. I love that stuff -- I was the sole adult playing with kids in most of those contexts. It just made me sad. They watch TV all day and spend very little time learning basic socialization from adults.

grist.org

It is sadly not surprising that DR should return from his swing through the Southeast in an OT-Prophetic mood.

Nor is there much surprise in learning that he scolds other people's children.

Recall the old Irish story:

A woman is on a bus, breast-feeding her child.  A man on the bus has been observing her, obviously displeased.  At last he confronts her, and says:

- Madam, do you not think that that child is a wee bit too old to be still suckin' at the breast?

She turns and says,

- Well, you can just kiss my arse!

And the child looks up and says,

- Yeah!  And you can kiss mine too!

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

If you want real energy-efficiency, Dave, you're going to have to give up the automotive "pep" you've grown accustomed to in the era of cheap fuel. Accelerating rapidly isn't energy-efficient. Gas-electric hybrid cars and all-electric vehicles can be made with lots of "pep," but they can't be made peppy without squandering energy in the process.

The world is sacred, and I am part of it.

One child was repeatedly splashing water in my 3yo's face. My 3yo is not exactly the assertive type, especially in the face of a truculent 6yo, so he was just cringing. I said -- kindly I might add -- "hey, kiddo, can you stop splashing him?" He ignored me. I repeated it. He said, "I'm not kiddo!" and proceeded to redouble his efforts. So I positioned myself between him and my kid, bent down to look him in the eye, and said, "stop splashing him." He squealed, "I don't care!" and scurried off.

And that was pretty typical. When I was growing up, we were terrified of adults, and on some level when we screwed around we knew we were getting away with something, hoping they wouldn't notice. But this kid -- you could just see it in his eyes -- has grown up with no restraints, explicit or implied, on his little id. His world consists of Things He Wants and Things In the Way. There is no such thing as social disincentives, much less internal disincentives.

I'm far, far from one of those macho dimwits seeking a return to the halcyon days of tough discipline. The kid doesn't need spankings, he just needs attention. He needs to be involved in the adult world, to see how it operates, to become familiar with its unspoken rules, to see what's too-far and what isn't. The way that's supposed to happen in early life is through interaction with one's parents and, if tangentially, their social circle. Instead, I'll bet dimes to dollars he spends 95% of his time either with peers or sitting in front of some electronic device.

Thanks for the child-rearing observations, though, Canis. Your wisdom knows no boundaries.

grist.org

Yeah, yeah, I know. I know I and everyone else should be willing to give up zippy acceleration for less tangible benefits. And I am. But lots of other people, not so much.

Like, for instance, the guy in the semi-gated suburban community I was staying in who strolled past with golf clubs, squinted my way, and said, "That a Prius? You get, what, 45 mph in that?" That guy's kid might one day sacrifice oomph for fuel efficiency, but he never will.

grist.org

Aw shucks, DR, I wish I had had a Papa like you.

The situation is totally different, seeing as how you were defending your own against a bully.

To say nothing of the reckless and illicit waste of freshwater reserves.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

BioD, be of good cheer.  DR is a tough bird, who can easily take care of himself.  From countless things I have written, it should be amply clear that I have great respect for him, and consider Gristmill fortunate to have him as a principal staff writer.

Anyway, much of what I address to him personally is just teasing.  Could anyone possibly believe that he loses credibility in the eyes of any reader, just because I give him a friendly poke now and again?

In this case, regarding his "scolding other people's children," please note, first, that it was he who brought up the subject; secondly, that my first comment was, as I said, just teasing; and thirdly, that once he explained the situation, quite different from what he had originally implied, I immediately and gladly acknowledged that he had absolute right on his side, to do and say what he did.

DR is a very good writer and journalist, and no doubt a very good father too; and it is unbelievable that anything I might write, however malignantly misinterpreted to his disadvantage, could possibly bother either him or his readers.

As for "unwarranted sniping wearing thin": I have no idea what you mean.  Sure, I have expressed displeasure in the past -- a sense of "this is wearing really thin," in fact, to use your words -- at what I perceive to be DR's sometimes heavy-handed hyper-Virgo way-low-pH cynicism -- and his cranky commentary on his recent trip to the Southeast is quite in character, no?  But it is certainly not true that night and day, day after day, all I do is take mean-spirited potshots at him.  Why ever do you think that?

What matters, or what should matter to a writer, is that I continue to read what he writes, and do so with both attention and enjoyment.  And I expect there are many others who likewise read his words, totally discounting  all my "unwarranted sniping."  And can there be any higher praise for a writer, than to be told that what he writes is being read by someone who does so with pleasure, and who takes him seriously?

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

I agree and disagree slightly with you Dave.  I do agree that the South has homogenized in the developed areas.  Everywhere I go in a 100 mile radius of Atlanta looks exactly the same.  A few towns try to build up their main streets, but the malls and big box stores killed the small town south that was my childhood.

And to follow that vein, air conditioning made the south an attractive place to live (I can remember unbearable heat as a child), but it destroyed our sense of neighborhood and interdependence. Personally I can't live with out A/C, but I walk somewhere every day in my neighborhood or around my work in midtown Atlanta.

Then on the one day we were together, you did have a chance to eat fresh ladypeas, bought at a farmer's market and pressured cooked by your dear aunt.  And there was more fresh fruit and tomatoes brought from a roadside stand by another dear aunt.  The fruits and vegetables took up more table space than the fried chicken and dessert.  An anomoly I admit, but it did happen.

You are right about the obesity, and I can vouch that a few of our older relatives are pleasantly plump, but you have an incredibly skinny grandma of 87 who can still kick butt.  You should also mention some slim and attractive aunts, uncles and your parents.

I did share your irritation that most of the adults did a lot of sitting around (although they were talking to each other) instead of interacting with that bunch of glorious kids. You are so right that adults just ignore kids nowadays and then get irritated when the kids are so needful of attention. The brave adults who played with those kids in the pool had the best time.

As for vegetarians, I have several friends who are vegetarians and I know several people, myself included, who eat meat rarely.  There are awesome vegetarian restaurants, farmer's markets, and local food co-ops.  You were hanging with the wrong crowd.  Next time drive down an old state highway to south Georgia and see what great vegetables are raised in this state.

You know I left the south, but I came back after 20 years or so.  I still agree with most of your post, but I've been back long enough that I can see the good in the region and the good in most people.  

By the way, people all over are getting fat and children are getting out of control!

I do have some very slim, healthy, intellectually agile aunts who seemingly haven't aged a day in the last 20 years. What is the secret to their youthful vitality, everyone wonders? They won't tell.

I will happily (unhappily?) agree that the homogenization and obesification of American culture are not at all confined to the South. Indeed, there are only a few urban bubbles where you can escape it. I'm just happy to live in one, is all.

grist.org

Hey, all:

Ya know practically all of the observations David Roberts has made are universal in the U.S.?  Not to diminish his comments, but to point out that to a large extent we are much the same.  Do we not know that?  Le's see: overweight, unattentive, on the cell phone, ADHD generation children, autistic children, I-Swear-Are-Undiagnosed-Psychopathic children gone wild, children overweight, big box shopping, no Mom and Pop stores, few real local veggies/produce/eggs/anything without conducting a major search, middle class, strip malls, (strip joints), new highways to nowhere, new highways right through developed areas, potholes in both places, uniformly different, differently uniform, millions of new stick-built, alien-corporate-monster-crapping-across-the-landscape-new-housing, ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots, mirror image Wal-Marts and Targets and McDumb FatAss....  Hmmmm?  did I miss anything?  I am SURE I did....

AND... under the surface: diabetes, heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, near bankruptcy, past bankruptcy, poverty, credit cards maxed out, one paycheck from disaster, broken/decaying/neglected infrastructure, living on borrowed time, family violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, overprescribed medicine, insurance companies cleaning and moving on, declining education achievement, declining economic potential, families dissolving, ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots....  Hmmmm?  did I miss anything?  I am SURE I did....

When my daughter was very young I could be a mean MOFO protecting her, so I can really understand scolding other children when needed.  I fully embrace the "it takes a village..." rule.
I even embrace the same rule on a broader scale when dealing with parents who haven't got a stinking clue how to.  I called 911 in a grocery store several years ago and had a woman goddam arrested after she shook the Hell out of her child in front of several people.  To those who think this is bad, grow a spine for Gawd's sake, and for those who have done things like this yourselves, fight the fight.  

Atlanta is a huge metro area, with tendrils spreading everywhere (which I maintain are cancerous but that is another story).  It also occurs  to me that metro areas are a microcosm (macrocosm?) of problems everywhere.  

Vacations have great educational value, if we pay attention.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

Lots of veggies and fruits, lots of exercise and an oblivious attitude?

I feel your pain though, and I will come visit you.

Wow.  David, your generalizations have blown me away to quit lurking and finally post a comment.

I grew up in the northeast, but for 15 years have lived in a largish Southern college town with several local farmers markets, two organic groceries (one of which is a coop that sells abundant local produce), bike lanes, an attractive and vibrant downtown, and outdoorsy activities galore.  You need to get out of suburban Atlanta, man.

I have elementary school-aged children, and my observation is that they and their friends have FAR better manners than the kids I see when I visit relatives up north.  Even with the large percentage of newcomers to the South here, the local zeitgeist is still nicer and more laid-back than the northeastern suburbs where I grew up.

I've been to Seattle and it's very nice, but I wouldn't trade my home here for anything.  Come sit on my screened porch for a while, and you'll see why.  Don't worry, the town is overwhelmingly liberal.

...is why cars haven't gotten better mileage for the last 20 years, and why they probably won't until gas just gets too expensive, because people want the "oomph" and the "oomph" takes a lot of energy.

Equals my VW diesel. I was noting just this morning, as I was pulling up to the petro dispensary with 600+ miles on the trip odometer, that my speedometer goes up to 160 mph. And I ascend the big hill on my daily commute (about 2000 ft in 2-3 miles) with cruise control fully engaged and nary a sign of hesitation. I pass touristas in their RV behemoths on the 2-lane highway with great confidence. It's not a race car, but it has performance equal to or better than most comparably priced and sized passenger cars in the U.S. And I get 48+ mpg.

Not that I advocate aggressive driving, not at all, at all. Just wanted to make the point that there is a "peppy" and efficient alternative. And until I can power up my auto with raw electrons, I'll stick wit mein diesel, danka.