East Sand Island, a slim strip of sand, sludge, and beachgrass near the mouth of the Columbia River, is home to an estimated 28,000 cormorants. Make that 26,800 cormorants: Since Memorial Day, crews from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services have shot more than 1,200 adult birds and doused more than 5,000 nests with vegetable oil, suffocating developing cormorant […]
Miscellaneous
We are pleased as punch to welcome the supremely talented Rose Eveleth to the LWON fold. Rose is the host and producer of Meanwhile in the Future, a podcast from Gizmodo about … you guessed it … the future. She’s also a great writer. Need proof: Just read this awesome story she wrote about the tiny town of […]
I was at an airport not long ago when a TSA agent did a double take while checking my ID. I’m used to this. I’ve always been blessed with youthful looks, and typically people meeting me don’t believe I’m actually nearing a half-century of years on Earth. Occasionally I’m still carded in bars. That feels […]
September 21 – 25, 2015 According to John Locke, a man’s labor is his own, and so when it is embedded in the land he works, that land becomes his own. Guest Julie Rehmeyer contends the connection goes both ways – we belong to the land we tend. Abstruce Goose demonstrates the correct response to […]
For me, geography is a time machine. The shape of the land sets the dials. Artifacts are keys. A few days ago I was watching for mammoth hunters out a train window. Climbing through the Rocky Mountains on the California Zephyr, I looked for spear bearers in the bony canyons and pine woods along the […]
September 14-18, 2015 This week was a blend of the old and the new, the past and the present—and how the two connect. On Monday, Christie reduxes a post about her former life as a researcher, and the mundaneness that is a part of science. Erik was thinking about Donald Trump before the rest of […]
The first time I ever saw a marching band I ran away and cried. The band wasn’t even really marching–it was cooped up inside a small music hall. Maybe that was the problem. The timpani and the tubas, trapped in a single room, were far too loud for a little kid’s ears. When I finally saw […]
A year ago this month, I followed some random link and came upon 10Q, a site that promises to ask you 10 questions over a period of 10 days and then send your answers to your inbox after a one-year interlude. The questions were generic but reflective: “Describe a significant experience that has happened in […]
