Still so many tabs.

* Gmail has a new 'offline' feature. I'm about to give it a whirl.

* Vermont: the least religious state. If only it weren't so cold...

* Lesbian separatist communities are dying out.

* A Republican who gets it: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky – one of the country’s highest-ranking Republicans – will warn his party leadership later this afternoon that the GOP is rapidly turning into a regional party that can’t compete with Democrats at the national level.

* Having become a recent acolyte of This American Life, I can now say taht Kasper Hauser's TAL parodies are fairly well-executed.

* The alternative comics apocalypse has begun.

We'll eventually be doing a full writeup for our Indy article on energy issues in the Triangle and North Carolina, but for now let me say that Earthaven Ecovillage near Asheville is easily one of the more interesting and inspiring places I've visited in six years in North Carolina. Nearly fifteen years old, and one of the largest communities of its kind in America, the project serves as a model for sustainable living and alternative, off-the-grid mode(s) of life.

I'm not going to lie to you: I was thinking about Mars the whole time we were there.

I've been up since six, so that's about all the coherent thought I can manage at the moment. For a lot more useful background on Earthaven, check Think or Thwim's report from a year or so ago. (There's always the Washington Post, too.)

Lots and lots of photos—over a hundred!—at my Flickr site. Just a few favorites below...



One of the many signs greeting you as you enter the community.



A painting inside the community's Council Hall.



A characteristically Ecotopian home.



Good advice.



Also good advice.



Delicious berries.



Delicious solar-powered golf cart.



Ducks.



Sometimes this happens. That's part of it, too.



The name of the main thoroughfare in the community and a succinct expression of their mission statement—there really is one. And in fact, as our tour guide was quick to remind us, emphasizing the diversity of the community and the many approaches to sustainability to be found inside Earthaven, there's not just another way, but other ways.

We spent most of the morning out in Pittsboro with Lyle Estill at Piedmont Biofuels, one of the largest renewable energy projects on the East Coast. Literally begun as a garage project in Estill's backyard, Piedmont Biofuels grew into a cooperative for approximately 600 local users before incorporating as an industrial site that sells biodiesel for blending with commercial petroleum.

Estill's a great guy and Piedmont's a fascinating and important project, which I'll have a lot more to say about in an longish Indy article we're working on about responses to Peak Oil in the Triangle. (One of the things that won't be in the article are some more Kim-Stanley-Robinson-inspired, science-fictiony thoughts on Utopia, particularly Robinson's critique of enclavism and his advocacy of distributed Utopian nodes, dispersed in a network and immanent to the system they oppose. That's the switch from the biodiesel cooperative to Piedmont Biofuels Industrial, LLC, and I think it's pretty interesting.)

In the meantime, here's the FAQ, and here are the pictures Jaimee took while we were out there. What's impressive is not just how clean everything is, but the lengths to which the group has endeavored to make the project both sustainable and ecologically friendly—alongside the biodiesel plants are sustainable farms, hydroponic greenhouses, biodiversity gardens, waste-product reclamation, and a huge vermicomposting bin.

All in all, it's a pretty ecotopian place.

As promised, I threw up a brief culturemonkey post with links and pictures about arcology, a central concept for our study of Utopian architecture this week. Don't miss the fifth culturemonkey's first post, either, Google Video of a talk with Kim Stanley Robinson on climate change—it's been open in my browser for half a week now, but I definitely plan to watch it tomorrow morning...

I, _________________ do voluntarily agree to abstain from all intoxicating liquors as beverages, from tobacco in every form, and from the flesh of animals; to promote social, moral, and political freedom; to maintain the observance of all good and righteous laws, and to otherwise conform to the rules adopted by a majority of the Vegetarian Settlement Company.
—Declaration from the Constitution of the Vegetarian Settlement Company

MetaFilter has a great post up this morning about the history of Kansas's Vegetarian Settlement Company, including a memoir from one of its settlers (Went To Kansas: Being A Thrilling Account Of An Ill-Fated Expedition To That Fairy Land, And Its Sad Results).