(Click on for background music while you read the following post)

"We Can Build a Beautiful City, Yes We Can, Yes We Can . . ."

So I was at a place called Joe's Tavern (the kind of place with an outdoor brick patio with a tree growing in the middle of it) on Juniper Street in Midtown Atlanta last night, having a pint of beer for the first time in something like ten years (it came with a slice of orange on the rim of the glass. Orange. I had to ask poor, sweet Brad the waiter what on earth I'm supposed to do with the orange!) (And did you know that Budweiser has been buying up many small local microbreweries?).

I was finishing up reading an excellent book called Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods, by Dan Chiras and Dave Wann. I had started reading it at that log cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains several weeks ago, and had dragged it all around my suburban town, in the pannier of my bike to the pool and back, and now found it fitting to be finishing it in the shadow of numerous cranes building condos all around this little neighborhood joint in the middle of the city, a fan blowing on my hot face, my feet and heart and head having logged many miles since page one.

I had left my house on foot, walked uphill and down the block to the bus stop, taken the bus to the MARTA train station (after running into a high school boy I knew on the bus and talking the entire way), ridden the train to Arts Center, and strolled over here to meet my husband for dinner before catching the play in which my friend David of the Stage is appearing. (The kids were both away for the night.) (And nice dancing, David!)

So I was sipping my beer, the orange poking me in the eye, and thinking about one of my favorite sculptures of all time, which I had just passed in front of Symphony Hall. From a distance, it's a metal man holding a globe. Up close, you see that the structure is comprised of hundreds of tiny metal people all linked together, holding each other up, sort of like that wrecking ball in the truly excellent movie, Ants (the one starring Woody Allen) (not to be confused with A Bug's Life, by the way).

Yet this night I wasn't thinking about wrecking balls. I was thinking about building blocks, and about the big news I have to share with you, the amazing thing that has happened this week. Turns out the citizens of the town in which I live, a northern Atlanta suburb with a very active neighborhood association that has managed to keep the town from looking like a strip mall even as it has exploded with residential and business growth, has voted to make the town a city, the first new city in Dekalb County in 71 years. It will be the 14th largest city in Georgia, if you can believe it.

I am beside myself with excitement, not because I agree with the vision that has been laid out for this new city (I haven't seen anything that could be remotely called a vision yet), and not because I even know anyone who is emerging as the leaders of this new city, but because:

1. My daughters get an outrageously unique opportunity to view and participate in the creation of a brand new city (and learning about how government works and how to be a good citizen is on my list of Things You Need to Learn in Life).

2. Suddenly anything is possible, and you know how I thrive in the realm of possibility.

So what does a blogger do, of course? I locked in the URL for Sustainable Dunwoody, naturally, and already wrote my first post. I have a front-row seat to the creation of a new city, a city that represents citizen needs in 2008 and perhaps anticipates the changes of the future, and I will be bearing witness to it. It will be way more local than FoodShed Planet, but then again, maybe not. Maybe Dunwoody, Georgia is no different than Anywhere, USA or Anywhere-in-the-World.

And so I sat there at Joe's, sketching out my vision for Sustainable Dunwoody: the editorial focus I want to cover, the folks I want to contact, the mirror I want to hold up for all the world to see, and perhaps, the change I hope to find reflected there.

But back to Superbia. This breezy, infinitely readable book by seasoned neighborhood planning experts gives a wide range of suggestions whether you are building a community from the ground up (think co-housing) or trying to retrofit an existing community stifled by social isolation and excessive resource consumption and vision-impaired by government incentives, municipal zoning laws and bank lending policies. After a fantastic couple opening chapters that blew away any other thing I have read about the changing face of suburbia, the authors take an incremental approach to evolving communities, with small, immediately-actionable suggestions (add benches in public spaces in your neighborhood and watch community connections expand) that grow into way-outside-the-box innovations.

As I have been reading this book, I have been noticing and realizing the many very good elements that exist in my neighborhood already, things on which we could definitely build to create a more sustainable community. And now, with cityhood on our side (the city starts operating December 1, 2008), I find myself walking around singing that song from Godspell, "We can build a beautiful city, yes we can, yes we can . . ."

Catchy, isn't it?

What $30 Buys This Week

Inflation is at a 17-year high here in the United States. Grocery bills are through the roof. I can run up a $75 bill even going through the 15-and-less aisle somehow. Things that used to cost $2.49 have suddenly catapulted to $4.99. And so, to see this abundance in my CSA box yesterday for $30 filled me with enormous gratitude.

Here's what $30 buys this week:

* Farm-fresh, local, organic crops: a pile of sweet corn, a bunch of tomatoes at different stages of ripeness, a handful of potatoes, a few red onions, and three heirloom melons--the makings of at least two nights of dinners and a lunch, plus leftovers: tomato pie, vegan corn fritters, and melon smoothies

* The connections from hand-to-hand as the human chain passed the boxes from truck to ground

* Two hours worth of conversation. including the birth of an idea about a multi-town North Atlanta Sustainability Alliance

* The opportunity to share in wishing our farmer Charlotte's son a happy 2nd birthday

* Tips about what DEET-free bug spray actually works (thumbs up seems to go to a company called Ozark Herbals)

And no one even asked if we wanted paper or plastic with that.

P.S. For those who don't know--my friend Judy started this brand-new CSA drop for Charlotte by canvasing her neighbors and friends to see if they would be interested in participating. Judy had never been in a CSA before this. Now, she has enabled 53 families to share in this bounty each week. Kudos to Judy for pulling this off, and for inspiring others (like you?) to do the same in your neighborhoods.

Beats sticker-shock at the supermarket, I'll tell you that.

"Just Tap It!" (or The Thrilling, Swirling, Infinitely Alive Space between Atoms)

So the first time we rode the MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) public bus that runs down the main street right by our neighborhood (once we walk a third of a mile straight uphill, by the way), we used cash to pay the $1.75 fare. I asked for a transfer and was told, "You can't get a transfer when you pay with cash."

Okay, odd.

"How do I get a transfer?" I asked.

"You have to use a Breeze card," the driver replied.

"Where do I get a Breeze card?" I asked.

"You have to go to the train station."

"But I'm riding the bus. I'm not going to the train station."

A shrug of the shoulders, as if to say, if this were New York, "Whaddya' gonna' do?"

So, several day later, we go to the train station and we buy the Breeze cards (you need separate ones for each person, even for the cards with a limited number of trips on them). Ten trips for $17.50 plus five dollars for the plastic card, which you can then reload. Not exactly a deal, huh? (There are other options as well, including a $13 unlimited-trip 7-day card). But each trip allows two free transfers, so you can go from the bus to the train to a bus, and you can literally blow open the map of Atlanta and suddenly get to many, many places.

So the bus comes and we get on and it's one of our bus driver friends (we've made friends with several of them, and they honk when they see us bike riding each day) and we proudly show our Breeze cards. The bus driver smiles broadly. I look for the place for us to swipe the cards, but there is none.

"What do we do?" I ask.

"Just tap it!" the bus driver exclaims, motioning toward the metal box in front of her.

"Tap it?"

"Tap it!"

Sure enough, I take the card and "just tap it," and bingo, it registers. My daughter does the same and we trot on back to our seats, the results of all the errands we ran overflowing in a bag I'm carrying.

And then we see it, the shopping cart a seasoned MARTA rider drags on to the bus with her.

And I want it. I sit there looking at it, coveting it, imagining how much easier that shopping cart would make my new semi-pedestrian/public transportation-rich life. And, ultimately, I realize what I'm actually doing is figuring it out. Figuring out how to ride this system. How to get where I need to go (or change where I'm going to accommodate where the bus and train actually go). And how to transport items when I'm traveling on foot in the heat of summer in Atlanta, GA. And I realize my view of the world, of my world, is once again changing.

In just a week or two, here is what we have experienced:

* A bus stop so surrounded by weeds that something scurried when we walked over to it.

* Bus stops overflowing with garbage and unprotected from the rain and the sun

* A bus stop that dropped us at a very busy corner across the street from a shopping center--with no crosswalks at all

* Sidewalks that simply end and dump us into busy parking lots with no pedestrian accommodations

* Consistently empty buses running through my town all day long while endless lanes of cars spew pollution everywhere we look

Forget all the articles and theory--these urban planning and transportation problems become clear as day when faced with them.

We've also experienced:

* The incredibly joyful feeling of sitting on a comfortable bus and gazing out the window, our minds wandering, our conversation stimulated by things we never noticed before

* Connections to some amazingly nice bus drivers that make us feel more completely part of the network of our community

* The pleasure of making new memories and, for me, reliving the memories of all the buses I've ridden in all the cities in which I've lived and visited, mostly that bus I used to ride up 3rd Avenue in New York City every morning to go to work. I had forgotten how much I loved starting my day each morning on that bus.

Interestingly, in the quiet moments of my day, I find myself piecing together the puzzle of MARTA routes in my head. I call my mother and say things like, "If I leave my house on my bike, catch the bus and load my bike onto it (there is a place to load then on the front of the bus), take the bus to the train station, catch this other bus, ride it up to the corner of this and that, and then ride my bike two miles down that street, I can get all the way to your house!"

Silence. (Sorry, Mom! I know I exhaust you sometimes.)

I read something the other day in Ode magazine's excellent issue about silence that keeps resounding in my mind (ever so paradoxically). Turns out that according to quantum physics, the spaces between atoms are filled with vital energy. And I think I'm realizing that the spaces between destinations are filled with vital energy, too. And that these spaces, between here and there, are opportunities to feel alive, if we embrace them. To connect. To experience. To know that we are making a difference. To celebrate the vital energy in our communities, and, in doing so, to enhance it even more.

And so, this MARTA thing, I realize, is yet another step on the journey for me. And when I "just tap it" with my Breeze card from now on, it is as if I am tapping into the thrilling, swirling, infinitely alive space between atoms.

Once in a Blue Moon

While returning the Pesticide Sandals the other day at REI, I walked by these freeze-dried organic "trail meals." Packaged. Processed. Expensive (eight or nine bucks a package). Not for me.

But curiosity finally won out. I had heard of that MaryJane Butters. Didn't she used to have a magazine? Hadn't she written some books? And now, here were some interesting organic options (vegetarian, to boot) from her company, MaryJane's Farm.

So it couldn't be easier. You boil a cup of water (I microwaved it), pour it in the bag, stir, fold down the top for about five minutes. Eat. We got two adequately-sized lunches out of each 1.5 servings bag. The ingredient list is surprisingly short. Nine grams of protein. A reasonably low amount of sodium, especially for a processed food. A non-aluminum "EcoPouch" bag that "can be burned in a hot fire in areas that allow burning." And enough intrigue about this MaryJane Butters, "Backcountry Ranger Turned Organic Farmer," that I got completely engrossed with her website (warning: if you click on here, we may not see you again for hours, possibly even days). (But at least check out the wall tents on her farm!)

Okay, but there is that one problem. I'm still not a camper (although I'm way open to those wall tents!). And so, until that becomes a reality, I was thinking these are not items I would include in my life. And, note to MaryJane, I think that's simply a limitation of how these meals are being marketed, because, in fact, I think they would come in handy in a wider range of circumstances than just out on the trail, such as:

* If you travel for business, you know what it's like to arrive in a strange city late at night, hungry and tired. Tuck one of these babies into your suitcase and you're moments away from curling up in crisp white sheets with a yummy, satisfying meal and a few moments of peace. A cup of hot water from the in-room coffee maker. That's all you need. (And yes, you can then head straight to the mini-bar chocolate! Not that that's what I'd do. No, no, no. Not me, not me.)

* If you are traveling with your family and you're sick of searching beyond the fast food restaurants along the highway for a decent lunch, just order some tea with tea bags on the side at any old gas station food stop, save the tea bags, pour the water into a couple of these and find a nice grassy knoll for a picnic lunch.

* Keep a few in an emergency evacuation kit (didn't we all compile these right after 9/11?) They would be a lot more interesting and delicious than the dried milk and cheerios that originally went in there.

* Staying late for a school commitment? Carry one of these along (or send one with your older child) and you won't be stuck trying to find a meal. What's more, you might even engage others in a conversation about why fast food restaurants as the only food options by schools are pretty much a crime.

So, I'm only looking to have these meals once in a blue moon, but boy, would they come in handy. (MaryJane also sells this stuff in bulk, by the way.)

A blue moon? That's the third full moon in a season of four full moons (not, apparently, when there are two full moons in the same month). This occurs every 2.72 years. Here in my hemisphere, in my time zone, it happened in May of this year and won't happen again until November, 2010.

A blue moon is more commonly used to refer to a rare event, as in "once in a blue moon."

Like me camping.

It's Not About the Soil or the Sun or the Size of the Harvest (A Victory Garden "Companion Planter" Update)

I see him every morning, this goldfinch, feasting on the black-eyed susans, the carotenoid pigments of which give it its bright yellow plumage. It is mid-July, nesting season for goldfinches, and we imagine it won't be long until there is another young family in our yard, to join the rabbit family--the mom, the dad, and two adorable babies--that we find hopping hither and yon every time we step out in the garden. They nibble the white dutch clover in the lawn, mostly, and kindly leave the lettuces for us. We don't see as much of the bright red cardinal family, who nested this spring in my neighbors' Fran and Alan of the Appalachian Trail's Carolina jasmine yet dined in our garden. It was a truly symbiotic neighbor relationship where together we provided a habitat for a new family.

And so the crops grow, but so do the families. The birds. The rabbits. The neighbors. And us. We do a comfortable dance of interspecies communication, and, somehow, against all odds or perhaps because it's the most natural thing in the world, we belong together.

As for my companion planter team, similar things are happening. Yes, the crops are growing, lots of them, but they just serve as a backdrop or stage for a larger, richer, more complex life:

Hannah (Sprouting Broccoli) in South England says:

Most exciting is the fact that my boyfriend, former plant-killer extraordinaire, has started to get interested in the garden. When I started he wasn't really into it and just saw it as 'my thing' but now he even gets a little bit excited when things grow or flower or something, puts some plants and tools on the joint account (he always used to make me pay!) and actually did some weeding the other day... I think it was tasting the strawberries....

She has also "come clean" with her landlord about how much they are changing the land around their home, and it went over very well. Here is her post about it.

David (of the Clothesline, whom I will now start calling David of the Stage because he is a wonderful actor, having discovered his passion just several years ago and now appearing regularly on Atlanta stages) has squashes and herbs and onions all right, but he has nurtured something else, someone else, to maturity. After years of attention and nourishment, his daughter is about to leave for college, and the world beyond. Read this tender post about the day they spent together recently picking blueberries.

And then there's Liz, of Tim and Liz fame, the ex-corporate-and-classroom back-to-the-landers who are farming naturally-raised animals for the first time in their lives. I'm actually afraid to ask Liz how her kitchen garden is going, because of posts like this.

And so life comes and goes and yet we dig and plant and hope and tend. And we watch things grow and we watch things change. And we realize that it's not about the soil or the sun or the size of the harvest. It's about our relationship with all these things, and more. So much more.

In Terms of a Collective Debate

When I first read about the book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, written by Mark Bauerlein, a professor at Emory University, I thought it sounded like a perfect complement to Last Child in the Woods, the book I loved so much last summer by Richard Louv. Last Child in the Woods maintains that one of the big reasons that children are losing their connection with nature is because of their increased obsession with, and reliance on, computers and technology. As a result, many negative things are occurring, including their loss of a "360-degree awareness" of the physical world.

After reading The Dumbest Generation, I would add that this obsession, specifically with computer-based social marketing (which studies show "dumbs down" teenager's vocabulary and virtually eliminates time spent reading books), results in a dramatic drop-off of 360-degree intellectual awareness. According to research Bauerlein cites, the current coming-of-age generation has severe limitations in their knowledge of history, literature, art, civics, philosophy and politics. He is particularly concerned that this lack of any cultural or historical perspective is producing citizens ill-equipped to lead a democracy.

I called Professor Bauerlein to discuss this book in more detail. I was particularly interested in knowing if the new generation represents a paradigm shift that might, in fact, be good for our country. Perhaps faster, more elastic ways of thinking might provide this generation with a new surge of innovation (I'm a fan of fresh thinking). Professor Bauerlein indicated that research is not showing the positive effects that were predicted of computer use on student achievement. However, he considers culture wars to be a good thing for a democracy, with some people holding fast to the past and others advocating for change, leading to a balance.

"We need a plurality of opinions," he told me, "so that ideologies don't become too fixed. People should always think in terms of a collective debate."

The ability to have that collective debate, however, is being threatened. And why is revealed in what I consider to be the best part of this book. There's a whole section about the "Incidence of Rare Words" in various media. Apparently, there is a list of the 10,000 most common English words. Any word not on that list is considered rare. Various media expose readers or viewers to a certain number of rare words per 1000. The more rare words you encounter, the more your vocabularly grows. The fewer rare words, the more your vocabulary stagnates, and the less likely you are to engage with material that challenges you--an endless cycle.

Get this--adult TV has fewer rare words per 1000 than children's books. And kids, teens, and young adults are not reading. Some enormous percentage of them read nothing for pleasure in the last year. Not even a magazine article. In short, the more you allow your vocabulary to stagnate, the less likely you are to experience a plurality of opinions. And that, according to Bauerlein, leads to complacency.

And, let's face it, complacency is probably not a good thing for a democracy. And a language deficit that prevents our youngest adult citizens from being able to engage in a complicated discussion about issues of importance for our country is clearly an emerging problem.

Professor Bauerlein told me that, in the last twenty years of teaching, the big thing he has noticed is a major drop-off in vocabulary, not surprisingly, but also an increased inability for students to memorize things such as poetry. Today's students have a severely limited ability to recall information, perhaps because of their growing dependence on quick computer searches for facts-at-their-fingertips, and, in all fairness, probably also because of our country's current educational focus on short-term recall of facts that can be measured on a standardized test rather than on long-term learning and intellectual development.

Interestingly, just after finishing The Dumbest Generation, I saw that the current issue of The Atlantic has a cover article titled "Has Google Made Us Stoopid?" which adds a whole other level of discussion to this topic (and, for the record, The Atlantic has many, many "rare words" in it!)

And, before young adult readers of FoodShed Planet lambaste me, even though I'm a solid twenty years older than the age-range to which Bauerlein refers in this book, I (a relatively heavy computer user) plead guilty about some of the things he claims are problems with the younger generation. For instance, I found the book a little slow. I kept wanting sidebars, shorter chapters, bullets, wrap-ups at the end of chapters, things like that. It also took me forever to get through the book. Yes, I kept taking breaks to check my email, my Technorati score, my Feedburner and Adsense stats. Is that bad? Debatable.

After reading this book, I think it is time to add a few items to our list of Things Kids Need to Learn in Life (remember when we started that back in early May? This ever-expanding list has been influenced by numerous reader comments!):

* How to grow your own food (and how to store it)
* How to ride a bike
* How to swim
* How to take care of where you live
* General etiquette/manners (and awareness of how it differs across cultures)
* How to access resources (physical resources as well as information)
* Basic "earth skill" survival knowledge
* Basic self defense
* Basic car maintenance
* How to use a variety of tools
* How to earn, manage, invest and share money
* How to recognize and follow your passion
* How to navigate a mass transit system
* How government works, and what influences it, both now and historically
* How to be a good citizen
* How to continually challenge yourself to broaden your mind and not settle for complacency
* The first-hand experience of volunteering
* How to sit still for two hours and read a book
* How to ask questions and not just give answers
* The pride and joy of memorizing a beloved poem. My personal fave is The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, especially since I memorized it while hiking in the woods.

Any other thoughts on this list?

Washing My Hands of Triclosan

This is a bar of soap. You use it with water, and it actually works to reduce germs. This is apparently becoming an antiquated way of washing your hands.

Triclosan. That is a word of which I had never heard just two days ago. Then, I got the jarring mid-summer email from the elementary school that listed the school supplies for the new school year, which starts here in Atlanta on the shockingly early date of August 11. And sure enough, there it was--one bottle of hand sanitizer or liquid soap. As this product category has soared with the addition of "antimicrobial" properties, I decided to finally figure out what's in these things.

Triclosan.

According to the stack of research I read last night, triclosan is a pesticide that kills bacteria. Like the overuse of antibiotics, the overuse of triclosan contributes to the growing catastrophic problem of bacterial resistance. What's more, there is concern over a link between the escalating numbers of people with allergies and asthma and our increasingly antiseptic lifestyle. Additionally, triclosan "bioaccumulates" in both wildlife and humans, and has been found in fish, human breast milk, and the umbilical cord blood of newborns. Finally, triclosan contains small amounts of dioxin and can be converted to additional dioxin when heated by the sun. Dioxin is a known carcinogen.

Both the CDC and the FDA state that the use of antimicrobial personal care products offers no benefit over the use of regular soap and water. Okay, so why are schools across our country asking parents to bring this stuff in? Got me. But I can't fight every battle, folks. I just can't do it. I'm worn out from the school lunch thing and happy about our decision years ago to simply pack our own. I will provide my child with regular soap and tell the teacher that my daughter is not allowed to use antimicrobial products. If asked for a reason, I will be happy to provide some research, but lord knows I'm not barreling into the PTA meeting and screaming about this. I will vote with my dollar and try to influence change with my family's personal actions. That seems to be more effective anyway.

Okay, so far so good, right? Well, we're walking home from the public bus stop and I keep telling my daughter not to walk on people's lawns because I don't want her dragging their pesticides into our house on the bottoms of her sneakers. I somehow use this an opportunity to rave yet again about my Teva sport sandals, which I bought from REI about a month or so ago. I absolutely adore these shoes and have been happily walking and biking miles in them. I tell my daughter we will get her some sport sandals so she doesn't have to wear those hot sneakers and socks all the time.

So we go to REI and we get the sandals. We get home and I look at this little tag hanging from them. Microban. What on earth is that? A little research reveals--yes, you guessed it. Triclosan. Turns out Microban is the brand name for triclosan when used in footwear, protective wear and sporting gear. Its brand name when used in fibers is BioFresh. Its marketing hook is that it eliminates odors and that it lasts for the lifetime of the item.

Yes, these "environmentally friendly" children's sandals are made with a lifetime supply of pesticides. And I was worried about her walking on the lawns?

And so, of course, the sandals are going back. My daughter asks if she can get Crocs instead, a purchase we have somehow avoided during all these years of their popularity. I say, "Let's check them out." We go to their website and it says they are made with this proprietary material that is neither rubber nor plastic. And yes, it is antimicrobial, but we don't see any mention of Microban.

So I call Customer Service and get a very nice woman named Sharon. Poor, sweet Sharon.

I ask her, "Can you tell me what it is in Crocs that makes them antimicrobial?"

She is silent for a moment, and then says, "I don't know!"

I say, "Well, I'm trying to find out if they contain Microban, which is the brand name for triclosan."

She says she will find out, puts me on hold, and comes back a few minutes later with this, "No one I asked knows, but I'm going to find out. I have to ask the engineers and it may take a few days to get back to you with an answer."

I then ask the question I'm now wondering, "Sharon, am I the first person who has asked you this question?"

And she says, "Yes."

And so, the Crocs will have to wait. But this gets me curious. What else has triclosan? Turns out there's a list a mile long. Numerous soaps, of course, but also certain daily face washes, toothpastes, lipsticks, deodorants, shaving gels, cutting boards, computer keyobards and mouse pads, socks, toys, paints, laminate floors, blankets and towels.

Listen, folks, I don't want pesticides on my apples. I don't want pesticides on my lawn. I certainly don't want them, as an active ingredient, no less, in items I use or wear on a daily basis, especially if research shows that they are harmful. And I'm guessing most people don't know what or where triclosan is. Except for the Tevas, I don't see any other items I use on the extended list, but of course, this got me curious. Here's a great site where you can check out the products that you actually use or are considering purchasing for detailed information about the hazards of their ingredients (including triclosan). You will also find tons of information about "unsettling facts that you have a right to know."

I was telling my mother about this last night and she said, in a hushed and worried tone, "Is Crest on the list?" I know how she feels. The last thing you want is a product you've been using your whole life to betray you. I told her that the Crest products come up with a score of 2 (a low score) to 6 (quite high) for hazards, and that by checking the site, she could choose the formula that was on the low end. This would help product selection when standing there in the aisle looking at the sea of options.

If we, as consumers and as parents, continue to let the marketing machine of Big Business sell us on the benefits (none of which have been proven) of triclosan in our everyday products (and those of our children), then we are, once again, asleep at the wheel. As for me, I'm washing my hands of triclosan. Effective immediately.

I guess that means I need to return my beloved sport sandals, huh?

Ouch.