Orion July / August 2013

AMERICA’S INFRASTRUCTURE — its bridges and roads, public buildings, mass transit systems, water and waste management systems, information delivery systems, power grids, dams, and pipelines—is crumbling. Trillions of dollars are needed to rebuild the country’s public works, and recent catastrophic failures, like the 2007 collapse of a Minneapolis bridge and the 2010 gas line explosion in San Bruno, California, underscore the need for action. Bursting water mains, congested airports, decaying schools, and a disemboweled railway system are further examples of the ways in which our infrastructure is flawed, inadequate, and obsolete. The problem with America’s infrastructure, however, runs deeper than its dilapidation. In fact, the biggest problem lies not with its condition, but with the outdated philosophy that underlies it. Most of the physical infrastructure we live with was imagined…

Cynthia Barnett has reported on fresh-water issues from the Suwannee River to Singapore. Author of the water books Mirage and Blue Revolution: Unmaking Ameri ca’s Water Crisis, she is now at work on a human and natural history of rain. Michelle Bonczek is the author of The Art of the Nipple and an editor at The Poet’s Billow. She teaches writing in Syracuse, New York. Todd Davis is the author of four books of poems, including In the Kingdom of the Ditch and The Least of These. He teaches at Penn State University’s Altoona College. Brian Doyle is the author of many books, including a novel, Mink River. His essay in the September/October 2011 issue of Orion, “The Creature Beyond the Mountains,” was a winner of the John Burroughs Essay…

Thanks to William Giraldi for “Splendid Visions” (March/April 2013) — it’s a beautiful essay. However, to some extent, I disagree with the author’s argument. The line between nature and society has been made to seem clear and definite when, really, our societies are fabricated from nature—there is wildness in cities and in ourselves. I have lived in cities my whole life, and, these days, my philosophy is that wildness is less a characteristic of our environment than a characteristic of us and the way we interact with our surroundings. Rather than raising our children in the woods, perhaps what’s needed is simply to raise them with more freedom and wonder, more opportunity to play and build, destroy and discover—wherever they happen to be. MEREDITH JACOBSONBerkeley, California I suggest William Giraldi…

Congratulations to two Orion writers: Rick Bass, whose essay “The Larch: A Love Story” (September/October 2012) won this year’s John Burroughs Award for an Outstanding Published Nature Essay; and Charles Mann, whose essay “State of the Species” (November/December 2012) was a finalist for a 2013 National Magazine Award. Orion has also been nominated for a 2013 Utne Media Award in the category of General Excellence. We’re honored to be among independent media outlets of such high caliber, and proud to be a member of the community of magazines and websites that are addressing the need for change. For a week in late July, writers of all ages and backgrounds convene at the twenty-sixth annual Wildbranch Writing Workshop, cosponsored by Orion and Sterling College, in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. Faculty members Robert…

1. ANCIENT SQUASHED DRIED ROUND FLAT SHARD OF BEAVER. Sweet mother of the mewling baby Jesus! You wouldn’t think a creature that likes to watch Peter O’ Toole movies would be such an omnivorous gobbling machine, but he has eaten everything from wasps to the back half of a raccoon. And let us not ignore the beaver. Speculation is that beaver was washed up onto road when the overflowing lake blew its dam, was squashed by a truck, and then got flattened ten thousand times more, and then summer dried it out hard and flat as a manhole cover, and the dog somehow pried it up, leaving only beaver oil on the road, and ate it. Sure, he barfed later. Wouldn’t you? 2. YOUNG SPARROW. I kid you not. Sparrow…

John Gifford Edmond, Oklahoma I HAVE A NEWSPAPER article from 1982 that details an interview with my great-grandfather on the eve of his one-hundredth birthday. The interview tells me more about what central Oklahoma was like in the years prior to statehood than anything I’ve ever read. My great-grandfather was seven years old at the time of the Land Run, which opened this area for settlement, and in the article he mentions his family having to fight to retain the 160 acres they claimed. They fought blizzards, tornadoes, wildfires—the last of which could be contained “only with the help of every able-bodied man” — and outlaws who tried to wrest away the land with gunfire. But the article also mentions the enormous herds of buffalo and other wildlife that once…