Living the Suburban Lifestyle.....

“library card? that doesn't count. :p”

“I am getting too hopped up here. I've met many people from both sides of the tracks. And you can't tell anyone apart just from their stories.”

“Not being general, I'm being specific. Most people in that area do not care about what happens to them or their kids. Example: back-to-school night was on the 7th for most schools in our county. My wife said that there were maybe 50 parents AND students at her school. Same sized school down the road from where we live, there was over a hundred cars there, parked all over the grass since there weren't any more parking spaces.”

“See dicenta, I knew you were a "the" at heart, just took you a while to get here.”

“he's bad news I tell ya”

“Sarbar, kids are very flexible and resilient. Their external environment is not as important as their family dynamics, IMHO. IF you love then, encourage them, take them on outdoor trips, they'll have a great childhood. Wherever they are is normal to them. But nothing makes lack of love and kindness normal.”

“more than SarBrat! ;)

He's my little buddy and he's "gonna be a park ranger when he grows up!" Damn I love that kid! :)”

“"All you need is love, all you need is love, love is all you need"

Beetles”

“Huh?”

“It's bit's as a youngster.”

“Look at the post above mine and think hard...”

“No, I think he posted to the wrong thread again. :p”

“you are too CORNY!!

I'm too young to remember who that is! ;)”

“lol....”

“are you sure you weren't thinking about...

Coo, coo, ca-choo, Mrs Robinson... Jesus loves you more than you will know (Wo, wo, wo).

:)”

“Oh shut up! :p

At least I can still catch the young ones! ;)”

“Hold on a second... I have a Maxim article around here somewhere on how to please older women...”

“You lookin into the older ladies now and need pointers?”

“No! You mistake my intentions. I was going to make a bunch of photo copies for you to spread around your domicile ;)

OK... yes... I'll admit it... needed the pointers.”

“well just for the record, I no longer have a younger man... It was fun while it lasted though. ;)”

“If the cost of energy skyrockets, are the suburbs doomed? Would Long Island, already paying among the highest fuel and electricity rates in the country, become an unsustainably expensive place to live?

A way of thinking that says "yes" is circulating, and has assumed tangible form in a video called The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream" Made in Toronto by the independent producers Gregory Greene and Barry Silverthorn, it explores the idea that the world is running out of cheap petrofuels and predicts the utter ruin of North America's suburbs - and not in the distant future, but somewhere between 5 and 25 years from now.

The video was screened last month at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, under the sponsorship of Long Island Neighborhood Network, an environmental advocacy group, and Vision Long Island, an organization that promotes the "new urbanism" or "smart growth" philosophy, which favors high-density, mixed-use, work-where-you-live downtowns over the classic low-density, home-with-a-yard model of suburbia.

The video opens with nostalgic clips of the early days of suburbia - excited young couples holding boxy little home models, families piling up their shopping carts, neat little back yards - and asserts that the new sprawl pattern, totally dependent on the automobile, became synonymous with the American dream. It also represents, in the words of a featured commentator, James Howard Kunstler, "the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. America took all its postwar wealth and invested it in a living arrangement that has no future."

In this view the 21st-century poison is peak oil theory, the idea that the world has reached its maximum oil production or soon will, and that we are entering a period when escalating energy costs will make the suburban lifestyle untenable. The case is made by assorted geologists, professors, writers and oil industry pundits, but most notably Mr. Kunstler, a new urbanist whose book "Geography of Nowhere" is a strident criticism of suburbia.

As envisioned by Messrs. Greene and Silverthorn, the consequences go way beyond violence at the gas pump to include: unending economic depression, with radical downsizing of everything from manufacturing to education; a slump in food production because of soil degradation, lack of oil-based fertilizers and skyrocketing shipping costs; political upheavals; the election of demagogues; and global conflict as the United States tries by military means to maintain its disproportionate consumption of the world's oil. The filmmakers see the American suburbs as the slums of the future where people are desperately relearning how to grow their own food.

"I do see a lot of potential for darkness," Mr. Kunstler comments. "There'll be a great scramble to get out of the suburbs, a sort of fight over the table scraps of the 20th century."

continued...”

“I listened to the CBC Radio interview of Greene about an hour ago.

A lot of what he says made sense ...

BUT ...

Right after was a report on the shortage of children in First World society.

And there are GMO's and global warming.

Ten years ago there was a scare about an impending ice age (remember that?) - not to mention the global threat of population explosion - or is that the low birth rate?

My point is that these people make their (very good) living by thinking up approaching disasters. That's what they do - think them up.

Oh, yeah, I forgot Y2000 when the 'planes were going to fall from the sky.”

“But in this case there is a lot of here-and-now evidence of the impending oil shortage. Current oil reserves are being pumped at maximum rate. No new refineries have been built in the US for 25 years, so no extra capacity exists even if more oil is produced.

Now China is starting to suck up as much oil as they can get their hands on, due to their new middle class suburbia population. So there is even less oil available.

Others on this board have pointed out that as the demand for a new fuel source grows, someone will step in with an answer.”

“Solar, wind, hydrogen fuel cells, plant based fuels, etc, can all be developed successfully if they took the money they pour into oil exploration (& exploitation) and used it for other research!

Just my 2 cents!
Capt. Jim”

“That's true Jim but oil will have to get insanely expensive to make those alterate fuels cost effective.

It'll happen though, just not sure when and I doubt that it will be soon.”

“and in New Jersey the new houses are about 3x the volume of the older houses.

Granted there have been big improvements in insulation so they probably only take twice the energy to heat, not three times.

Then you have the space trade off -
Large lots mean the houses are far apart increasing transport energy use, but enabling environmentally friendly waste disposal via septic which returns most household water back to the acquifer.

Cluster housing requires sewage collection and treatment, so the household water goes into a river down to the sea, depleting the underground water acquifer.
Also the central sewage plant runs on gas.

We can survive without gas, but we cannot without water.”

“Greene's point is that once peak oil production is reached the increasing cost of fuel will render the suburbs less and less viable.

Of course, mass transportation might become more popular and efficient.

I live as clean as I can and I'm not losing any sleep over possible future crises.”

“Don't forget, gasoline costs $2/gallon and bottled water costs $4/gallon. Change those numbers around and you'll definately see conservation take hold!

Actual cost of regular gasoline today in Southern California: $2.30/gallon”

“Background:
1. pg3 of the metro section of the Post has a feature called "Random Acts" - peeps post acts of kindness. There is a beeyotch fest feature also, runs on different days

2. Springfield (Va) is just outside the Beltway.

RANDOM ACTS

Wednesday, May 30, 2007; B03

We confess to being urban creatures to the core, but at the end of [Claire's] enchanting tale from a place where trees grow taller than buildings, we will reveal the true depth of what we know about the outdoors.

Gimme S'more Mountain Hospitality

I was out in West Virginia on a hilltop, helping some friends build their dream house. The children were disappointed that we had no marshmallows or Hershey bars or graham crackers for s'mores around the campfire that night.

Since I was going back to sleep at a motel in town, I purchased all those ingredients for the next night's campfire. When I awoke in the morning, I suddenly realized that I had no coat hangers. Neither did the motel nor the nearby Wal-Mart. Everything was plastic! Since the dry cleaner was still closed, I headed out of town, hoping to find a yard sale where I could purchase a few m etal hangers.

I drove mile after mile seeing nothing but beautiful countryside. Finally, there was a little country store. I pulled into the parking lot, but no one was there. Just then, a woman emerged from the house next door and asked if she could help. When I told her my plight, she beckoned me to follow her. After a few moments, she returned with an armful of wire hangers and then said: "Would you like some breakfast? My husband and I don't eat very much."

That was truly kindness to a stranger.

-- Claire, Springfield

Dear Claire: You can roast marshmallows on a stick.

Goes to show you suburbanites can be more lost than urbanites.

;)
last edited: 5/30/07 9:50:01 AM”

“I have NEVER heard of using a coathanger for s'mores! I was always tole not to because you don't know what kinds of metal are in those things.”

“And, they burn the crap out of your hand!”

“LOL, i'm an idiot...i kept reading this "Living the Subaru Lifestyle"...i kept thinking, "what in the hell does this have to do with driving a subaru?"”

“LMAO TH! I was thinking Suburban SUV myself.”

“Sass is correct, the soft metal of the hanger will conduct heat right nicely.”

“Coat-hangers work quite well... especially if you're making s'mores at home in the fireplace, *G*”

“A meat fork works great for holding a marshmallow over a gas burner stove at home.”

“I discovered you can make s'mores in the microwave and gained 3 pounds in 24 hours.     ;-)”

“That's a lot of marshmallows!”

“You can even get them pre-made:

http://www.hersheys.com/products/details/smores.asp”

“Well... maybe it wasn't 3 pounds, but it sure felt like it! *G*

I'm surprised the Moon Pie people didn't sue! Cool link --- the History of Reese Cups... and some background on the Skor vs Heath Bar conundrum.”

“I found strawberry marshmallows at Kroger, combined them with dark chocolate and chocolate graham crackers last trip. I only could eat one but MAN, was it good.

S'mores make my teeth hurt.”

“You can use cinnamon graham crackers to give em a little touch of Mexico!!!”

““I discovered you can make s'mores in the microwave and gained 3 pounds in 24 hours. ;-)”
Tilt
10:00:48 PM
5/30/07

”

“They do expand as the microwave radiation is applied....

but Don't Cross The Streams!!!”

“Ray, when someone asks you if you're a God, you say "YES"!”

“lmao, i've been forced to watch the ghostbuster movies every day at work, for the past week... i knew all the lines before, i know all the lines now..

btw, what's the biggest anyone has ever gotten a marshmallow to grow in the microwave?”