Common Dreams says NSA surveillance has had a chilling effect on American writers.
"I am sympathetic to the sorts of visions that are discussed under the rubric of ‘re-wilding’, most recently in George Monbiot’s Feral. Enchantment is a great starting point for thinking about a more intimate involvement in the natural world. But I worry, too, that ‘re-wilding’ signals a reprise of a concept that, at its heart, disavows human agency." Fraser MacDonald writes on unwilding Scotland for Bella Caledonia.
Richard Byrne makes a nod to Ned Ludd on The Baffler.
Spitalfields Life celebrates a marvellous poster of Christopher Smart's "For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry" drawn by the artist Paul Bommer.
Daytonian in Manhattan discovers an abandoned Subway station under New York.
Apologies if I've already said this (working too hard, not sleeping etc) but in respect of what Bella Caledonia wrote, all concerned may like to read this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/our-beautiful-edgelands-a-dark-light-on-the-edge-of-town-2217071.html
I have read Monbiot's book and appreciate it a lot. At one point he debates a well-informed Welsh farmer and is given much food for thought. Of course there is a trade-off to be had but I lean more on his side of the ledger, particularly in terms of keeping or not keeping sheep on ultra-marginal land or particularly environmentally sensitive areas such as the Rest And Be Thankful area with which Bella Caledonia may be familiar.
To an extent, simply allowing the land to go back is not true rewilding because true rewilding calls for the return of now-extinct predators, and there's obviously another tradeoff in that some returns may be unsafe or just plain unfeasible. These are dealt with in a rough draft in Feral itself.
Not bad stuff at all, that.