Nature

Patt Morrison Asks: The poet, W.S. Merwin

2011-08-27 00:00:00

An Idaho resort hotel's verdure is not the wild tumble around W.S. Merwin's beloved Hawaiian home, but disciplined grass and orderly stands of trees. Not, perhaps, the sort of trees Merwin had in mind when he wrote, "On the last day of the world I would...

Bel-Air estate was a nature sanctuary – amid mansions

2011-09-03 00:00:00

Imagine it is Labor Day 1924. You've just finished dinner on the porch, the kids are playing next door and the radio just tuned in: "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Today's story is about bestselling author Gene Stratton-Porter. At this very moment...

Peter Berg dies at 73; advocate for bioregionalism

2011-08-21 19:08:00

When thousands of American youths dropped out of mainstream society and descended on San Francisco in the mid-1960s convulsion known as the counterculture, Peter Berg and a small band of like-minded subversives were there to greet them. Calling...

Proposed Keystone XL oil project draws a divisive line

2011-10-03 00:00:00

Reporting from Atkinson, Neb. Some might have been surprised to hear that plans to build a 1,700-mile oil pipeline through the Midwest to the Gulf Coast — a source of new oil and thousands of jobs — would drive an emotional fault line down...

The Siren's Call: Step right up!

2011-09-25 00:00:00

The novel "The Night Circus" (Doubleday: 387 pp., $26.95) is receiving a good deal of attention, and it's rightly deserved — even though some comparisons of Erin Morgenstern's fable to other popular books seem sky-high and unfair (to her). Does...

Wangari Maathai dies at 71; Kenyan environmentalist

2011-09-27 00:00:00

Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist who made it her mission to teach her countrywomen to plant trees and became Africa's first female Nobel Peace Prize winner, has died. She was 71. One of Kenya's most beloved figures, Maathai died Sunday after...

Rick Perry talks energy, slams Herman Cain's '9-9-9' plan

2011-10-14 09:07:00

Friday marked the day Rick Perry finally tried to go on offense. First he blitzed the network morning shows, then he delivered a detailed speech on energy policy in Pittsburgh. All before lunch. It amounted to what felt like a new chapter in the Texas...

Anne LaBastille dies at 77; naturalist inspired women to explore outdoors

2011-07-10 00:00:00

Naturalist Anne LaBastille became something of a cult hero among modern women for embracing a distinctly frontier past. When her marriage fell apart in the mid-1960s, she took refuge in the wilderness, building a log cabin on a hidden lake in the...

Manifest Destiny, in art

2011-08-21 00:00:00

In 1861 Carleton Watkins took the definitive picture of Yosemite Valley from the aptly named Inspiration Point. The sheer granite wall of El Capitan, as sharp as if cut with a cleaver, fills one side of the photo. A rising tier of rock monoliths marches...

Discoveries: 'The Chairs Are Where the People Go' by Misha Glouberman with Sheila Heti

2011-07-24 00:00:00

The Chairs Are Where the People Go How to Live, Work, and Play in the City Misha Glouberman with Sheila Heti Faber and Faber:: 175 pp., $13 paper Sheila Heti wanted to write about her friend Misha Glouberman. The Canadian performance artists had...

Book Review: 'An Ideal Wine' by David Darlington

2011-07-24 00:00:00

An Ideal Wine One Generation's Pursuit of Perfection — and Profit — in California David Darlington Harper: 356 pp., $26.99 The California wine business is full of contradictions. Little wonder. On the one hand, the industry cultivates...

Word Play: Where the Wild Things still are

2011-07-03 00:00:00

The idea of caring for the environment seems to be easier to get across to kids than to adults. Many adults just think the world is too complicated. "What difference does one light bulb or one plastic water bottle make in the wide world?" they think. For...

Rocks that were excavated on the site of Howard County Recreation and Parks' James & Anne Robinson Nature Center are arranged around a pond, part of Millstone Plaza, near the entrance.

2011-09-10 00:00:00

Local ecosystems are highlighted through exhibits at the Robinson Nature Center in Columbia.

2011-08-30 14:11:25

Everyday practices at this eco-friendly retreat include geothermal heating and cooling, solar heating of water, rainwater harvesting, native habitat restoration and the use of rain gardens to decrease runoff and increase absorption.

2011-08-06 21:16:41