According to the Associated press, Tobacco alone is predicted to kill a billion people this century, 10 times the toll it took in the 20th century, if current trends hold. This humongous number begs for a morbid illustration. If you lined up the dead bodies of one billion dead smokers end to…
Earlier, I wrote about the tendency of suburbanites to feel they have limited options, and how such a life can seem unfulfilling or failed. At the time, I inspected the personal shortcomings that have a hand in this, as well as the human predisposition to discontentment. But it appears that yet another factor contributes to the often portrayed suburban dread: the structure of the suburbs themselves.
Prior to the Second World War, most suburbs had what architects and city planners call a “traditional” or “mixed-use” structure. Towns of this type have closely arranged, small city blocks intermittent with other amenities such as shops, restaurants, churches, and public buildings such as schools and post offices. To get a better idea of a town of this type, picture the typical conception of a small New England village or city. This traditional structure made pedestrian activity both easy and inviting, claims Andres Duany, one of the authors of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream.
In the 1950’s and beyond, building codes began to prevent such a seamless blend of commerce, public activity, and personal residence from organizing. Most American towns now have much more rigid building codes the divide all the realms of society into isolated sections: a housing district, a shopping center-like area, and government buildings shoved somewhere else. Duany describes the trend this way:
…“It’s an architectural version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Our neighborhoods are being replaced by soulless
Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine there is a salad bowl sitting (upright) on your kitchen table. Imagine, also, there is a marble resting in the bottom of the salad bowl. If you slightly disturb the marble with your finger, the marble will roll around the bottom of the bowl. If you disturb the marble a bit more, the marble will roll up the side of the bowl and then roll back down to the bottom. In this situation, the marble is said to be in a “stable equilibrium,” because the marble remains inside the bowl (equilibrium) despite reasonable-sized disturbances.
Now, imagine removing the marble from the bowl, turning the bowl upside-down, and resting the marble on the flat base of the bowl. Although the marble will remain within the boundary of the flat base (equilibrium), even a relatively small disturbance will roll the marble off the base, down the side of the bowl, across the kitchen table and onto the floor. In this situation, the marble is said to be in “unstable equilibrium,” because of the tendency of the marble to roll (far) out of position with even a small disturbance. Once on the floor, the marble is again in equilibrium: it will stay on the floor unless some force lifts it back to the tabletop.
Now, let us consider global warming. For tens of thousands of years (and perhaps much longer), our planet has maintained roughly the same average temperature. Yes, there were a few ice ages, but …
We are all descended from kings, according to a recent MSNBC article about experts who have combined computer science and genealogy. Even without a documented connection to a notable forebear, experts say the odds are virtually 100 percent that every person on Earth is descended from one royal personage or another. "Millions…
Yesterday’s coverage of the 2006 midterm elections on NPR’s All Things Considered immediately grabbed my interest. Like the major Democratic upset of 1994, polls show that the public feels extremely disillusioned with those currently running our government. This could lead to a decisive shift in the composition of the House, just as when the Republicans took control 12 years ago. This year’s election parallels the 1994 election in many other ways: voters that identify with the minority party feel more energized than those of the party in control, and independent voters claim they prefer the opposing party to the current majority.
That part doesn’t really surprise many people at this point, though it does invigorate me a bit to see Americans have actually paid enough attention to the legislature’s behavior in recent years to find it disturbing. The real surprise in this story lies in what makes this year’s election different from the one in 1994: voters don’t just dislike Republicans, they dislike Democrats too.
In 1994, dissatisfaction with the Democrats drove many to vote for the then-better-regarded GOP. But this year, polls by the Wall Street Journal and the Pew Research Center show that Americans have a marked distaste for both parties:
…“The proportion saying the current Congress has achieved less than previous ones has climbed to 45%, double the number who said this in the 2002 or 1998 midterms, and higher than the number who expressed frustration with Congress in 1994 (38%). Republican leaders in Congress are blamed