Life in our land seems to have turned vaporific or vagabondish. Anything but real. And we can examine this by taking a quick look at a couple of squints and squats that are not normally examined together.

Take, for example, American Inventions.

Thomas Alva Edison did not invent the light bulb. In 1844, three years before Edison was born, Jean Foucault made an arc light strong enough to illuminate Place de la Concorde in Paris. And Robert Fulton did not invent the first steamboat. These ships had been running on the Potomac River and the Delaware River twenty years before Fulton built his ship - which was never called the Clermont.

And, take American Concoctions.

I have one before me now, the newsletter of a chapter of a national organization. The editor and a few associates undertook to address the theme: Sustainable Communities. And how is that defined? The editor suggested we try Livable, Regenerative, New Urbanism, Smart Growth, or Neighborhood Development. But an associate had a different definition of Sustainable. He thought Human Relationships encompassed the whole enchilada.

What is one to believe?

Well first of all one should believe what is conveyed in the two cases above. Whether we're dealing with history or with the news, we should take each with a very fat grain of sand. Whether we are touching history, or probing the future, we should be able to ask a question or two that will lift us a step above the dusting. The reasoning, for planners, is clear. As planners we are asking others, and ourselves, to face up to difficult questions and we can ill-afford to lap up words that might serve our individual needs.

The editor of this affair demonstrates what I mean. Whatever the label, he writes, the intent is to improve the quality of our built and natural environments, whether in a rural or urban context, for present and future generations.

Or maybe the writer who thought human relationships covered the whole scene had the right idea. Both writers had the notion that we had to keep the word simple so we could get on with the work.