when r. said she and mom didn't make it to openlands, and the blocks of skokie hardly give the solace of nature, i thought how, despite all the manhandling of wooded island, since the time it was sculpted of earth and water by frederick law olmsted, there's still a quiet magic and feeling of nature here, bowed but alive, a spirit of place they can't slash and burn or poison away. there's death here too, deadwood, stumps, stubble and  charred vegetation. maybe what i feel here is the particular character of an island in a city where every green space is cultivated, but with an island's own genius loci, though man-made, it slips the wardens hands, into its own aura, it's made of the material of nature, spiritual material, it makes itself, and it draws out the spirit of every person and animal that feels drawn to it. 
you just have to wonder what the spirit this place will feel like if obomba gets his hands on it. how much manhandling can a genius loci endure? 
i think of the first people of the place that is now australia, meeting in supermarkets sitting in the aisles because the trails of the dreamtime still run through there. 
what was this place before? i'm sure it would be unrecognizable to the former inhabitants, none of whom are here to decry obomba's proposed land grab, but maybe if they lived they would still know this place, maybe they're here, in the spirit of the genius loci, maybe there's something that can't be grabbed, extracted, capitalized or killed.