Letter From Michiana: Invasive species

As I weed, I am reminded again about the extent to which nature has become a design proposition, dependent on human agency and, I hope, humility. For, when it comes to invasive species, we are the most invasive of them all.

Continue Reading »

Letter From Michiana: Plastics!

Microplastics, the unnervingly sturdy specks left behind by our packaging, are circulating through the food chain. They are, in other words, inside of us  — second nature indeed.

Continue Reading »

Letter From Michiana: The Fair Oaks Farms Fiasco

(I) watched the surreal spectacle of cows being milked by machines as the creatures rotated on a stainless steel lazy susan the size of a flying saucer.

Continue Reading »

Letter From Michiana: Turbid discoloration

The juxtaposition of U.S. Steel and Lake Michigan invites us to contemplate the extent to which our world is designed. 

Continue Reading »

Letter From Michiana: Along the Red Arrow Highway

Road conditions notwithstanding, it’s easy, on a sunny afternoon, to imagine yourself behind the wheel of an old time roadster, headed for a rendezvous in some road house where the jukebox is playing big band and blues.

Continue Reading »

Letter From Michiana: Legalizing Cannabis in Indiana (Don’t Hold Your Breath)

Hoosiers like to say that Indiana waits. Waits, that is, for other states to make changes and adopt new-fangled ideas so that we don’t have to. This attitude is promoted by many of our reigning elected officials, who like thinking of Indiana as the cracker barrel philosopher of states, the winking codger who spits and […]

Continue Reading »

Letter From Michiana: Weird Spring, weird climate

The lake’s cycles can seem hard to predict. They happen and people get used to them, forgetting that things are bound to change. Now, though, there’s a wild card that’s put the old certainties in a new light — make that a strobe light: climate change.

Continue Reading »

Letter From Michiana: Mayor Pete

His eclectic personal story seems uniquely suited to our moment…he can, in other words, speak personally about a variety of experiences in ways most other candidates can’t.

Continue Reading »

Letter From Michiana: Our newest national park

This national park, you realize, is actually a last line of resistance, a green and blue membrane holding back the accumulated pressure human will has piled on the earth and insisted was progress.

Continue Reading »