Utne Reader

Rural Gas Compressors Linked to Health Problems

“Dave [Maier] didn’t know that the riverbanks had been defoliated with Agent Orange to protect against Viet Cong attack, or that the herbicide had washed off the banks and into the river. But he did notice that the shoreline somehow looked wrong. There was too much sand, and the vegetation “just drooped.” Most trees looked like sticks, with nothing growing on them. “The river itself looked absolutely terrible. It looked like the color of coffee.” Some of his shipmates tried to fish in it, but they never caught anything.

“His first time in Vietnam, Dave stood on the deck of his ship and studied the river. He remembered reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring back in high school. He kept bees then and wanted to find out whether pesticides could hurt them. “I’m up there on the deck, and I’m looking at that river, and all this crap floating through it, it’s like a dead river, and not much vegetation along the sides. And I thought, if there ever was a silent spring, this is it."

“The Westchester County had no facilities for storing fresh water. Ships from the “blue water navy” were designed to desalinate ocean water for drinking and general use. Unable to do this in Vietnam, the ship simply pumped river water into its holding tank. This water, which looked so much like coffee from a distance, was the color of tea when it came out of the ship’s pipes and faucets. The men brushed their teeth with it, showered and shaved with it, did their laundry in it.”

If economic security and well-being through a good job, decent income, some savings in the bank, and a comfortable home represent important elements of the American Dream, then perhaps acquiring economic riches is even more of a good thing. After all, the goal of significant wealth has long been a part of the rags to riches story. We continue to celebrate the modern-day lottery winners who by good fortune find themselves in the millionaire circle. Likewise, a vast array of books and conference meetings abound each year with advice on how best to make your millions. Surely this must be the dream for many Americans.

Forsaken Handwritten Letters

When considering the environmental drawback and informational delay linked to snail mail, sentimentality has taken a backseat to practicality. Passing doodled notes in class is riskier than a sneaky text message. Mailing love letters is far slower than a Skype or email to appease distanced relationships. And casual how’s-it-going-letters have been replaced by phone calls and pretty much everything online.

Still, there’s something irreplaceable about the pleasantly surprising handwritten letter. But from 2007 to 2013 alone, there’s been a 21 percent decrease in letter volume.

Imagine Virginia Woolf’s horror today, when in the 1940s she already mourned the decline of letter-writing in her essay, The Humane Art: “News and gossip, the sticks and straws out of which the old letter writer made his nest, have been snatched away. The wireless and the telephone have intervened. The letter writer has nothing now to build with except what is most private.” Nothing seems quite as rousingly secretive as a personalized note sealed in an envelope, federal law even protecting its content from unwarranted eyes. “The letter writer… speaks not to the public at large but to the individual in private,” she wrote—a concept that resonates in the era of mega-phonic tweets and too-revealing status updates.

Hi Tim,

I’m a middle-aged woman with an elderly mother and two older siblings. My brother is never around unless he needs something, and my sister lives much closer to Mom than I do. Mother’s Day is approaching and my brother will never show up or call, but I’ll be there and so will my sister, who never fails to turn every holiday into drama by berating Mom about all her past failings. Mom wasn’t perfect, but nor were we abused or neglected. Mom always cared for us and kept us safe, even when our father disappeared after I was born. Still, my sister constantly reminds her that she’s a disappointment and bad mother, sometimes directly but always passive-aggressively. When I defend my mother, my sister turns on me. I dislike my sister and I’ve come to terms with the fact that she’s just an unpleasant person I don’t want in my life. I don’t feel much differently about my brother. But I like Mom and want to make her happy; what can I do?

- Peacemaker

Hi Peacemaker,

Living Beauty

A Good Night’s Sleep Is Hard to Find

Forget the recommended 7 to 8 hours of regular sleep. History has shown that inspiration and energy don’t come from the undisturbed hours we try to sandwich between bedtimes and alarms, but from their disruption.

Suspended Animation Is Within Our Grasp

Antibiotic Resistance Found in Crows and Other Wildlife

One afternoon in the winter of 2012, Julie Ellis unfurled a long, white tarp under a stand of trees near Coes Pond in Worcester, Massachusetts, where hundreds of crows roost. Her mission: to collect as much bird poop as possible.

Back in the laboratory, Ellis’ colleagues combed through the feces. Testing its bacteria, they discovered something unusual—genes that make the crows resistant to antibiotics.

Drug-resistant infections are a fast-growing threat to human health, due largely to overuse of antibiotics in human medicine and livestock production, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least 2 million people each year in the United States alone are sickened by infections resistant to drugs.

The Depletion of the Oglalla Aquifer

Julene Bair describes returning to her family’s farm in Western Kansas:

“...[W]hen I got semiannual emails from the agency asking if I was still interested, I always clicked Yes. For as long as I can remember, I’ve never wanted children of my own, but I saw no reason why I couldn’t use the material my body had already made to help someone else’s dreams come true. When friends expressed their concern that egg donation might affect my fertility in the future, I wryly responded that I hoped they’d make a mess down there. But truthfully, I saw the act of egg donation as an almost-sacred duty that I’d be happy to take up, if someone thought my genetics would be ideal. I just didn’t think I’d actually be chosen.“

The Forgotten Perks of Reading Fiction

Do Babies Dream?