20 Years of Utne Reader

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Tree Heroes ? 1996
British journalist John Vidal chronicled a crusade by young people to save a Berkshire forest, and Tony Olmos' brilliant photographs caught the contrast between the shaggy-haired young idealists (many of whom tied themselves to trees) and the grim-faced men in hard hats whose job was to fell the Druidical old oaks to make way for a motorway.

The Most Enlightened Town in America ? 1997
It was Ithaca, New York, our editors decided, and we profiled the bustling alternative culture there, which includes a pioneer community currency, a thriving ecovillage, and more grassroots political organizations, cultural enclaves, and environmental groups than in most cities three times its size. We honored enlightened towns in the 49 other states, too, from Bisbee, Arizona, to Iowa City, Iowa, to Charleston, South Carolina.

Designer God ? 1998
More and more Americans are crafting personal versions of spirituality by mixing and matching various traditions. Nature mysticism, belief in reincarnation, and elements of Native American spirituality fuse easily with Buddhist meditation and a pagan feel for the solstice. Utne looked at the social and historical reasons that Americans are becoming 'cafeteria' believers.

Rescuing the 20th Century ? 1999
What a nasty century: two huge wars and countless smaller ones, mass murder, AIDS, environmental spoilage. What's actually worth keeping from the 20th century? We answered the question in essays praising, among other things, antibiotics ('the least complex and least expensive of life-sustaining technologies'), crossword puzzles, Earth Day, neon lights, European social democracy, and the zipper.

Hail the Quirkyalones! ? 2000
We reprinted a lively little essay by Sasha Cagen from a brand-new zine called To-Do List, and a trend was born. Quirkyalones refuse the dating scene -- not because they reject love, but out of sheer romanticism. 'For the quirkyalone,' Cagen wrote, 'there is no patience for dating just for the sake of not being alone. We want a miracle.' Her Web site was inundated with quirkyalones seeking contact, and the book Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics was published in January 2004.

If the Planet Is Sick, We Can't Be Well ? 2001
In 'The Coming Age of Ecological Medicine,' Bioneers cofounder Kenny Ausubel quoted public health expert Carolyn Raffensperger: 'Truly holistic medicine extends beyond the mind-body connection to the human-planet whole.' When human breast milk is one of the most dangerously contaminated foodstuffs -- laced with dioxin from burned PVC plastics -- how can we talk about raising healthy children apart from altering our habits of consumption?

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