I was directed to a “wonderful curmudgeonly rant”:http://www.oriononline.org/pages/oo/curmudgeon/index_BigAndBlue.html in “The Orion”:http://www.oriononline.org/index2.html. It’s worth the time to read the whole thing.
bq. What we see all over our nation is a situational loneliness of the most extreme kind; and it is sometimes only recognizable in contrast to the ways that people behave in other countries. Any culture, after all, is an immersive environment, and I suspect that most Americans are unaware of how socially isolated they are among the strip malls and the gated apartment complexes. Or, to put it another way, of what an effort it takes to put themselves in the company of other people.
bq. This pervasive situational loneliness, of being stuck alone in your car, alone in your work cubicle, alone in your apartment, alone at the supermarket, alone at the video rental shop — because that’s how American daily life has come to be organized — is the injury to which the insult of living in degrading, ugly, frightening, and monotonous surroundings is added.
We chose our house specifically to be within walking/biking distance of our kids’ school, and we’re within walking distance of both the GO Train and the subway. So we’re not in complete suburban hell; we can get lots of places without our car. My “new commute”:http://blog.cfrq.net/chk/archives/000315.html is going to be ugly, though.
Our neighbourhood is relatively old (for Canada :-), but it suffers many of the problems of modern suburban life. There are few amenities within walking distance (and particularly, no pub :). There used to be a grocery store, but it closed; Dominion decided that small stores were not cost effective. It’s now a Shopper’s Drug Mart, which does carry emergency rations, but it’s not the same. There is a small bakery close by, and (ugh) a KFC. Fairview Mall is walkable, but it is its own kind of wasteland. We have lots of parks and ravines, but they seem to be the terrain of the dog walkers. On the plus side, NYGH and _three_ medical buildings are all in walking distance :-)
I’d love to be able to walk and bike more (other than as recreation), but it’s not terribly practical. I’d love to cut my (non-car) commute down below an hour each way, but again, not practical; even if we lived downtown, we’d then have to commute uptown to take our kids to school.
People joke about how we can walk to IKEA. Who would _want_ to walk to IKEA? I’d rather drive there, and walk to the grocery store.
(Can you tell I’m not looking forward to driving to work next year?)
(via “Philip Greenspun”:http://www.oriononline.org/pages/oo/curmudgeon/index_BigAndBlue.html).
Jeff K 
Ryan 
Peter
Hey, I’m a beef producer in Quebec, and I’d like to say that it is not time to stop eating beef. There is very little chance of eating meat from an infected cow, especially if you avoid 99 cent/lb hamburger. No good feedlot beef is ever older than 2 yrs, so if you buy good cuts, no problem. If you want to eat old dairy cows, take your chances! My whole life is about producing good healthy food products (beef and organic maple syrup), so I have very little patience for city dwellers (no offence) who think they have any insight into the subject beyond “paper or plastic ?” We are doing a great job, don’t believe everything you hear in the news.
A couple of comments:
– I think things are pretty good in Canada. We have some bad apples, but generally speaking most providers are honest, and the inspection system mostly works.
– I think things are worse in the USA. The percentage of bad apples (those willing to compromise safety to make an extra buck) is still small, but higher; and the inspection system sucks; we could argue that the US government is deliberately looking the wrong way (the point of my posting).
I’m not going to give up beef just yet, but I am going to be a bit more careful; reputable sources, etc. …