Movie Review: The End of Suburbia

Hello Readers,

The other night, I got the documentary The End of Suburbia in the mail from Netflix. The movie begins with an in depth history of the development of the modern US suburban culture and infrastructure. This history sets the stage for documentary's hypothesis -and the title of the movie- the coming decline in the American suburban lifestyle as a result of the unsustainable reliance on cars as the sole means of transportation among other factors.

If this movie were made during the past year, I would have thought that it were ridiculous for stating the obvious. However, since this movie was made in 2004, it appears to be prophetic from our perspective 6 years out. Also, I did not notice any statements, claims or predictions that were contrary or exaggerated in comparison to any of the other literature and news that I've read in the past few years. In fact, The End of Suburbia is a great introduction and/or review to the topic of peak oil and peak energy... just beware: it can be quite depressing if you truly understand the magnitude of the situation! I highly recommend following up this movie with a discussion about potential solutions to the issue. Hopefully, this will mitigate the potentially overwhelming message.

Keep trying!
Sean Diamond


Trailer:

High Speed Trains

Hello Readers,

I recommend checking out this parody about transportation in America from the perspective of the 1960s Mad Men (the AMC series). It's not especially informative, but it makes an interesting point.

Enjoy,

Sean Diamond

Mad Men On Trains from Rich Sommer

Transition Town 1.0 Video

Hello Readers,

Here is an interesting video about Transition Towns. It is informative, but a bit cheesy. Enjoy.

Cheers,

Sean Diamond

P.S. If the video does not load immediately, try refreshing the page... vimeo appears to have some trouble embedding into blogger.


In Transition 1.0 from Transition Towns on Vimeo.

Sustainable Recipes

Hello Readers,

I have been doing a lot of cooking over the past couple years, so I have decided to start posting a few of them. Here is the first one (it doesn't have a name yet, but it is delicious).

You need:

• 2-3 potatoes (the regular brown kind)
• 1/2 cup of Arborio rice (the kind for making risotto... probably in the pasta aisle)
• 1/2 cup of lentils (I used brown, but any kind will probably work)
• 12-ish white mushrooms
• 1 small zucchini (or what the local grocery store produce section insists is a 'green squash' and British people call 'courgette')
• 1 small yellow zucchini (really it should look exactly the same as a green zucchini except for the color... whatever you call it)
• A few table spoons of olive oil
• A few cups of water
• Your favorite spices (I recommend garlic, ground peppercorn, red pepper flakes, etc.)

The directions are simple...

1. Fill a medium sized pot halfway with water and start boiling the water. Add the lentils.
2. Scrub any dirt off the potatoes. Then chop them into roughly half-inch cubes. No need to peel them or worry about the exact shape. Dump the potatoes into the boiling water once you are finished chopping them.
3. Let the potatoes and lentils continue to boil for at least 15 minutes (25 if you have time). Then start with the rest of the stuff.
4. Dump the Arborio rice into an uncovered sauce pan with water (use 3-to-1 ratio of water to rice... in this case 1.5 cups of water). Leave it to boil. (The potatoes and lentils should still be boiling that this point.)
5. Dice the mushrooms, and chop the zucchinis into disks that are less than 1/4" thick. When you are finished, the water should have just about boiled off. The sauce pan should only have fluffy Arborio rice.
6. Add the mushrooms, zucchini bits, dashes of your spices, an extra quarter cup of water, and liberal amounts of olive oil to the rice. Cook these ingredients until the mushrooms and zucchinis are soft.
7. After the potatoes and lentils have been boiling for at least 30 minutes (the longer the better), strain the water off them. Then add all the ingredients to the pot, remove from the heat, and mix them together.
8. Let it cool down just a bit.

Serve with pita bread and your favorite cheese.

Let me know if you have a name for it or if you have any changes to suggest.

Thanks,
Sean