Lecturing the chamber of commerce
James Howard Kunstler is an author whose books about urban design, and the decline thereof, my mom has read. He also writes for Orion magazine, such as this juiced-up rant on the half life of current American values. Good stuff.
“But something had gotten into me that day. Maybe it was the chain hotel I spent the night in, isolated in its free parking orbit from everything else in the universe. So I throttled up to rant-speed: “We’re about to send soldiers to Afghanistan,” I told them. “If one of them steps on a land mine over there, what will he remember, in his last moment, about the place he calls home? Will it be the curb-cut in front of Chuck E Cheese’s? Will he pine for the stacking lanes at the traffic light in front of the mall?”
The grumbling got louder.
“We’ve got twenty-thousand places like this in America that are not worth caring about. How long is it going to be before all these places add up to a nation that is not worth defending?”
“Boo. . .”
“We’re gonna have to come up with some reasons to care about this civilization beyond discount shopping and hamburgers.”
“Siddown.”