“The Martians were there—in the canal—reflected in the water…. The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water….” –Ray Bradbury, “The Martian Chronicles”
Month: August 2012
San Onofre Nuke Plant: When the Bottom Line Pushes Us Over the Cliff – By Jerry Collamer
What’s it going to take to have Edison admit its deadly addiction to nuclear, and mothball SONGS forever, before its thunder domes of molten uranium go over the cliff and 8-million citizens suffer the horrific, eternal consequences?
Beasts of the Southern Wild: Bayou Culture Sinking into the Gulf
“Beasts,” a hard-knock ecological fairy tale about the disappearing Louisiana bayou cultures and coastline, highlights the fragility of the region’s hurricane defenses and the resulting devastation of communities living on the flooding margins.
Electric Streetcars: Back to the Urban Future
The movement toward revitalization of downtown areas in the United States with streetcars brings 19th century urbanism together with 21st century sustainability, despite the usual fossil fueled detractors.
Dirty Realism: The Anti-Social Satire of Charles Bukowski
I go outside – and all up and down the street – the green armies shoot color – like an everlasting 4th of July, – and I too seem to swell inside, – a kind of unknown bursting, – a feeling, perhaps, that there isn’t any – enemy – anywhere
Chinese Mega-Cities Contrasted with Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities”
Rapid industrialization in China has caused a massive migration to crowded, faceless and polluted urban mega-cities of 10 million residents or more. They should consider Italo Calvino’s utopian “Invisible Cities” to rethink the role of imagination in urban planning.
Gonzovision 1970s: Hunter S. Thompson on the American Dream
“America could have been a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race. Instead, we just moved in here and destroyed the place from coast to coast like killer snails. Everybody wants power over a country that’s had it’s day.”