Blue in the USA

Perhaps I love his use of "crypto-human land whales" to describe the overweight, but James Howard Kunstler can write a gripping lead:

Having just returned from a week in England where, among other things, walking more than ten yards a day is quite normal, I was once again startled by the crypto-human land whales waddling down the aisles of my local supermarket in search of Nabisco Snack-Wells, Wow chips, and other fraudulent inducements to "diet" by overindulgence in "low-fat" carbohydrate-laden treats. And they did not look happy.

His point is a serious one: Have any reporters noticed how we actually live here in America?

With very few exceptions, our cities are hollowed out ruins. Our towns have committed ritualized suicide in thrall to the WalMart God. Most Americans live in suburban habitats that are isolating, disaggregated, and neurologically punishing, and from which every last human quality unrelated to shopping convenience and personal hygiene has been expunged. We live in places where virtually no activity or service can be accessed without driving a car, and the (usually solo) journey past horrifying vistas of on-ramps and off-ramps offers no chance of a social encounter along the way. Our suburban environments have by definition destroyed the transition between the urban habitat and the rural hinterlands. In other words, we can't walk out of town into the countryside anywhere. Our "homes," as we have taken to calling mere mass-produced vinyl boxes at the prompting of the realtors, exist in settings leached of meaningful public space or connection to civic amenity, with all activity focused inward to the canned entertainments piped into giant receivers -- where the children especially sprawl in masturbatory trances, fondling joysticks and keyboards, engorged on cheez doodles and taco chips.