Quick hits: Burning Man's footprint; affluence and affordability; adaptive gardening; books to read on child-welfare system

Photo via The Daily Yonder

"As a retired child-welfare professional, I no longer spend my days working with abused and neglected children, but they are never far from my mind. Certainly not after the three excellent books that I've read recently," recounts Charlie Baker for The Daily Yonder. "The Pulitzer Prize-winning Demon Copperhead is a novel set in southwest Virginia. Lucky Turtle is a love story that begins in a wilderness reform camp in Montana. And Invisible Child, also a Pulitzer winner, is a nonfiction account of 'poverty, survival, and hope in an American city.'"

The Burning Man ends up burning the equivalent of a lot of fossil fuels. What began as a movement for climate change might leave much more "than a trace" behind, reports Zoya Teirstein of Grist. "The festival generates around 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide every year, the equivalent of burning over 100 million pounds of coal."

Matt Scheer bought a house 11 years ago when the price was
more affordable. (Photo by Joanna Kulesza, The Post)

Places that are attractive to live are also getting to be pricey. "The outdoorsy lifestyle of Colorado mountain towns has become a magnet for the new remote-worker class, upending life for those already rooted there," reports Talmon Joseph Smith of The Washington Post. "Job growth has severely outpaced the stock of shelter throughout Colorado. Median rent in Frisco—which a decade ago was considered a modest 'bedroom community' for commuting employees—is about $4,000 a month, according to Zillow, and 90 percent above the national median."

If you call 911, your first point of contact is a dispatcher who will stay with you through your call, answer your questions, and help keep you calm. But what about those dispatchers? How many calls have they taken? Have they been up all night? "Through long days and mentally taxing calls, dispatchers work to maintain a helpful demeanor that keeps citizens calm and engaged on the line as they work with complex tracking and dispatching technology," report Mike Brewer and Steve Cover of Route 50. "Recognizing the toll the position can take on mental and physical health, Jeffcom911 in Jefferson County, Colorado, has invested in technology to ease workloads on emergency dispatchers by reducing the number of non-emergency calls they receive."

America is struggling with a divisive culture. In his essay for The Atlantic, George Packer writes that the country has split not two ways but four. "People in the United States no longer agree on the nation's purpose, values, history, or meaning. Is reconciliation possible?"

Illustration by Sonaksh, The Washington Post

Gardening can bring joy, fresh food and healing. "For Rosemary McDonnell-Horita, a 29-year-old with multiple disabilities, gardening gave her an opportunity to be a caregiver rather than a care receiver. Taking care of plants shifted the way she thought about her own body," reports Amanda Morris for The Washington Post. McDonnell-Horita told her: "Over the years, gardening has made me feel more confident in every aspect of my life. I'm planting what I want to grow, and there's a lot of power in that."