ModeShift - Part 42

More on the Energy Boom and Water

by Keith SchneiderNovember 27, 2011November 27, 2011

Since June 2010, Circle of Blue has pursued a comprehensive and ground breaking reporting project – Choke Point: U.S. — to understand the confrontation between energy production and fresh water supply. Circle of Blue, where I serve as senior editor, is a non-partisan, non-profit, online news organization covering the global freshwater crisis from our six-person newsroom in Traverse City, Michigan. You’ll see from the Web site that when it comes to serious original reporting on …

Donald Spitzer, Last Of A Great Cambridge Family, Is Gone

by Keith SchneiderNovember 19, 2011November 27, 20119

When you ask his friends and family what they most admired about Donald Spitzer, the answers included his quick wit, his considerable intelligence, and his great love for family and friends. They also note that in a family of gifted athletes Donald was tall and slim and gawky. And in a family of rugged Hungarian menÂ skilled in pounding wrought iron into graceful swirls and curves, Donald trained to be a graphic artist in the …

Owensboro’s Downtown Development Plan in New York Times

by Keith SchneiderNovember 16, 2011February 3, 20146

The New York Times today published my article on Owensboro’s downtown development plan, much of it financed by a local tax increase enacted in 2009. Though the public spending has spurred new development and thousands of jobs in the last two years — Owensboro has generated 2,400 jobs in 2010 and 2011, more than any other Kentucky metro area — just two of the seven elected leaders who voted for it are still in office. …

Squirrels Are Smarter

by Keith SchneiderNovember 10, 2011November 10, 20110

Near the last days of fall color in Michigan’s northwest corner, where I live, squirrels were especially active. They darted across the two-lane roads in front of my bicycle. On one ride to Glen Arbor (that’s Glen Lake in pix above) you could hear their quickening steps on the forest’s dry leaves, like the brushed strokes on a tight snare drum. Foraging and darting, they prepared for a cold winter. We are told that people …

On Keystone Pipeline, White House Blinks

by Keith SchneiderNovember 10, 2011November 10, 20110

Aware of the growing and visible opposition to the 1,700-mile Keystone Pipeline, much of it organized by writer Bill McKibben and his colleagues at 350.org, the White House today blinked. In a statement, the administration said it would evaluate a new pipeline route from Canada to the Gulf Coast, one that presumably takes it away from sensitive wetlands in Nebraska. Protests there have been so strong that even Nebraska’s Republican Governor Dave Heineman announced his …

Nashville’s City Cafe East; One Fine Lunch Joint

by Keith SchneiderNovember 3, 2011November 4, 20111

Knocking around Nashville last month dropped me on the doorstep of City Cafe East, one of the finest lunch spots I’ve ever had the pleasure to visit. It was a Thursday, when owner and executive chef George T. Bird (on right above) and Calvin Oden feature a menu headlined by meat loaf with zesty sauce, Jerusalem chicken, salmon croquettes, and baked tilapia. George and Calvin serve lunch cafeteria style at the 1455 Lebanon Pike restaurant …

A Civic Pact: Owensboro’s Next Development Strategy

by Keith SchneiderOctober 25, 2011November 5, 20143

The privilege to spend six months studying an American community is rare in journalism. Nevertheless that was the assignment from Citistates last spring. Immerse yourself in Owensboro, Kentucky and emerge with a clear sense of where the community is, and where it might consider going in the 21st century. Last week, in a series of public events, Citistates described the findings in What’s Done, What’s Next: A Civic Pact. The project found a number of …

Benzie County’s Gorgeous Leaves of Fall

by Keith SchneiderOctober 13, 2011January 31, 20130

The anguish of fall is upon us in northern Michigan. The astonishing colors, temporary as they are, are brushed onto this magnificent place I’ve called home for two decades. Yesterday, on one of the last road bike rides of the year, I took this gallery of shots with my iPhone. Every corner on our two-lanes, virtually empty of traffic these days, a billboard of reds and oranges and yellows unfolds, the colors deepening with the …

On Beautiful Fall Day Central Lake Is Shuttered For Business

by Keith SchneiderOctober 8, 2011January 31, 20130

CENTRAL LAKE, MI – There is no sprawl in Central Lake, a northern village of 942 residents in magnificentÂ Antrim County. At this time of year rows of feed corn await harvest and the green white pine and multi-colored hardwood forests pour down the hillsides to the deep blue waters of the lake that gives the village its name. (see pix above and below) Central Lakes possesses an asset all-too rare in American communities – …

Bluegrass, Mark Schatz, and the Approaching Main Stream

by Keith SchneiderOctober 4, 2011December 15, 201413

It wasn’t that I existed all these years without encountering bluegrass music. As a freshman at Haverford College in the 1970s I lived across the first floor of Barkley Hall from two upperclassmen –Â Peter Doan and Evan Lippincott — whose vinyl collection included the 1972 Nitty Ditty Dirt Band’s Will The Circle Be Unbroken. But not until this summer, when I arrived in Owensboro, Kentucky, where the International Bluegrass Music Museum is located, did …