Amtrak Moments

1. Sunrise in Nebraska 2. Lonely farms 3. New reading 4. Knitting to Impress 5. Chicago Station 6. West Virginia 7. Knitting at Sunset 8. Delayed in Virginia 9. Delayed at Sunset

All That – In The News!

Technology and Modern Life

• Apparently smartphone users don’t download health-related apps. Wait, actually, I don’t have a health-related app on my smartphone! Does this mean that smartphone users don’t care about their health? In my case, it just means that I prefer to handle my health in the real world, where, you know, my body lives.
• Pen and Ink bloggers were spreading this article a few weeks ago: How Twitter made handwriting cool. But the article doesn’t actually answer the question in the title (good lesson for article-writing, kids!). Instead, the article pits “notebookers and stationary fetishists” and “social networking, commenting and blogging” on opposite sides of “a modern social divide.” And frankly, this is just incorrect– but that will have to wait for its own post.
• Apparently men with liberal arts degrees are fairly screwed, professionally speaking. This is a good example of how sexism affects both women and men. Those poor artsy boys…
• So smart people are more likely to use drugs. Despite the titillating headline, the real point of the article is that in terms of evolution, intelligence doesn’t lead to healthy choices; it leads to innovative ones. Setting evolution aside for a moment, I think there’s a more important social meaning to this, in terms of today’s society. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the War on Drugs tends to punish drug users more than drug lords. Despite the inspirational posters in elementary schools, our society does not reward thinking outside the box (of capitalism, of a two-party political system, etc). When it comes to drugs, drug lords are thinking inside the box: they’re making money through exploitation and dependence. (Capitalism at its finest!) Drug users, on the other hand, are a problem because they reveal deep vulnerabilities in the United States: racial oppression, and the threat of innovative intelligence.

Rurality and Urbanism

• Cities may not matter as much as we think. (I mean, duh, from a personal perspective). It’s that damn suburban sprawl again…
• Transportation Secretary talks about liveable communities, but the recent election shows that public transportation might be down the drain.
• How the places we live make us sick, and how they could heal us instead.
• In my last link collection I included a Grist post about the lack of racial diversity in the sustainable agriculture movement. Now Tom Philpot calls our attention to women’s role in the sustainable food movement.
• Serious gift-economy inspiration: this guy lived a year without money. A lot of people say that it’s impossible to step outside the economic system we’ve set up now in the U.S. But frankly, that system isn’t exactly doing well, and this guy earns brownie points for provoking thought.
• Navajo nation talks about moving away from coal. On my recent road trip, we spent most of South Dakota driving through reservations; at one point we stopped to refill on gas and nearly got swept off our feet by the wind… which led to a conversation about how reservations could make bank if they started selling wind power to the US. Looks like the Navajo nation was a few steps ahead of us.
• On another note, I’m getting over my first horrendous cold of the season, so here are 12 DIY home remedies for a cold.

Rurality Online

Rural Recommendations

Browse: Farmgirl Fare blog has friggin’ cute baby donkeys, seriously delicious recipes, and beautiful quilts. To put it simply, this blog is good therapy after a long day of work.

Read: Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen, is a rare example of a novel that confronts politics, money, and the environment without being, um, badly written. Which is quite a feat, given that environmental novelists like Wendell Berry and Barbara Kingsolver (as much as I enjoy them) quite often become preachy and one-sided. Refreshingly, Franzen has created some of the most complex and engaging characters I’ve read in a long time. (And the book still manages to be a damn good exploration of the complicated political side to environmentalism)

In other news…

My alma mater, Kenyon College, just received a grant for a three-year project called Rural by Design, which focuses on a cutting-edge holistic approach rural sustainability. Over the past century, urban design has become accepted as a legitimate profession or pursuit, but this grant hopes to put rural design on the same page.

Speaking of rural design, check out these creepy aerial images of disconnected sprawl.

Grist posted this super-interesting article about the “war” between cities and suburbs– which might as well be titled “a real-life enactment of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom”. Unfortunately, this so-called war between cities and suburbs is not about the benefits and drawbacks to each structure of living and communing, but rather about structural sustainability versus the infringement on personal liberty. You might notice that there’s a third party missing from this debate: rural populations.

Obama talks rural communities and energy challenges. I don’t have nearly the leisure time to blog about the question of energy in the United States (aside from the occasional rant about the coal industry), but extraction of natural resources should always be in mind when thinking about rural areas.

…speaking of which, the coal industry is setting its sights on Illinois now that Appalachia is nearly used up and fucked over. Is anyone else reminded of that sleazy guy in college who was clearly dealing with his own insecurities by sleeping with one girl after another?

On the plus side, there’s finally going to be a study released about the links between mining and cancer! Except–oh, wait– we’ll only see it after it’s been reviewed by a mining industry group. Biased much?

Meanwhile, a new study looks at the different lifestyles that young urban people want– and while cushy, it also sounds pretty sustainable…

Hooray, my mountains! The Blue Ridge Mountains preserve 58,000 acres

Farming

Natasha Bowens offers a solid critique of the white majority in sustainable agriculture.

In Ireland, recession is returning the economy back to its rural roots. More evidence to support my quiet hypothesis that underneath the fluctuations of money, rural living is the natural state of communities.

A Kentucky county finds that the Farm-to-School movement isn’t as simple as it should be. Having worked with local food programs at my own college, I know that these projects are so exciting in those early idealistic stages, but are less easy to actually execute.

Native American Indian farmers have settled with the Obama administration after years of discrimination from the USDA.

Digital v. Analog

USA Today discusses the role that e-books have played in renewing people’s love of reading…

…while the New York Times interviews college students about the same debate between e-books and hard copies.

A Blogger’s Worst Nightmare!

Forgetting your camera at the other side of your road trip. GAH.

In any case, my Road Trip Post will have to wait until my camera is shipped to me from Ohio.

In the meantime…

Check out what’s been up with Rurality in the News*

• Despite our collective mental image of quaint family farms and lush fields, most rural communities are what city dwellers would call “pretty fucking ugly.” They’ve been the victim of an ugly little thing that architects and designers call Sprawl. You know the kind I’m describing: strip malls and fast food restaurants (except in rural areas, they’re dirtier, badly funded and badly maintained). But behold! ICMA recently published a document about Smart Growth in rural communities.
• Speaking of fast food… Is eating poorly a choice or an addiction? A recent study suggests junk food has addictive qualities. When you combine that with bad community design and a lack of access to healthy foods, it makes sense that rural populations are more obese than urban ones.
• Your Brain in the Wilderness. Neuroscientists decided to study what happens to your brain when you step away from electronics, digital communication, and, uh, society in general. The result? Reaching your Full Cognitive Potential.
• A new healthcare initiative is prescribing vegetables and conversation. Recipe for good health!
• Eilleen at Simple Green Frugal Co-Op questions whether you can be both frugal and generous. Seems like my rural friends have been doing this for years…

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*Should I come up with a series title for this? I don’t ever want to be a reblogger, but because rurality is such a broad concept I think it’s useful to compile all these different subjects and articles into one place.

How To Keep Your Roots On The Road

I’m going to be gone until August 27, doing this:

Boulder - Black Hills - Keystone - Blue Mounds - Winona - Nappanee - Gambier (and some stops in between)

To make up for my absence, though, expect a Massive Artsy Post (MAP*) on my travels when I get back. I’ve got my travel sketchbook packed, my watercolors condensed into a travel kit, my camera is charged, and I’m prepared to spend some quality time with a scanner when I get back.

Road trips always make me feel excited and uncomfortable at the same time: I don’t want to be one of those tourists that takes advantage of a rural place and then just heads back to my cushy privileged “regular” life. But in this case, I’m taking a friend back to school– legitimate reason, right? –and the Dakotas are calling to me way more than that long drive across Kansas.

Rurality (that is: roots, heritage, history, physicality, wisdom…) is functionally incompatible with Jack Kerouac. There are no roots “on the road.” That’s why trickster figures– the unpredictable Coyote and Ravin of myths and folk tales –appear in varied settings in different stories. Trickster figures are without a home (or at least, any stable or consistent home). They lack roots, and so it’s ironic that they have been consistently present in the indigenous folk tales of cultures for millenia.

Trickster has smarts, but no wisdom. (That’s why they say one has “street smarts,” but wisdom seems to be something more associated with rural values). And thus stealing, deception and trickery all reside at the crossroads. They characterize the traveling life.

Yet “on the road” is also where adventure, flexibility, and possibility come into play. And those things are necessary too. Justso long as one’s sense of Play doesn’t overwhelm one’s sense of Place.

Until the 26th, then!

*ha!