yesterday i thought about wooded island and the awful handling of the little nature sanctuaries we make and then manage ruthlessly for human utility. mary said she wanted to take nicholas and friends for a birthday outing to show them a wild place. that sounded odd with my picture of the sad island. it once was kind of urban wild. now it's a stage between then and obombaland, where the wild things aren't. i said i hate to be a party pooper, but the place has been abused and sadly eroded, hacked and burned and poisoned. it's important to see things as they are, and feel what they might have been, and to take careful note of what remains in places that are wasted.