reviews

Frontier on fire... Author:  Timothy Egan The new frontier was open for business.  As white Americans spread west across North America, sweeping aside any inhabitants who got in their way, it became clear that there were vast natural resources to be had. In the late 1800s, those with even a smattering of prescience realized that the plundering was just getting started.  Something would have to be done to make use of Nature’s abundance in a rational manner.  Maybe more than anyone, President Theodore Roosevelt was instrumental in promoting this view, but it wasn’t until 1910 following an unprecedentedly massive forest [...]

Bringing zoos back to life... Author:  Terry Maple He was a formidable beast.  Even these many years later, I still have sad memories of the massive gorilla sitting glumly in his sterile locker room-like abode.  Known as Samson, he was the star attraction at the Milwaukee County Zoo in the ‘60s and ‘70s until his sudden death in 1981 at the age of 32.  He lived and died back in the day when zoos were basically a collection of cages, each one featuring a different creature.  Cement, tile and metal bars were the norm.  It wasn’t until the 1980s that [...]

A Cop, a Thief, a Murderer Author: Belinda Bauer Snap begins with a young boy, left in a baking car abandoned in the pitted and debris filled breakdown lane with his two younger sisters, waiting for his mother to return. She never does. Where this ultimately leads Jack is into a life of crime and the search for a murderer. Snap starts with a gut punch. A broiling scene of crying babies and mad siblings that paints an austere picture, one we can’t help but enter. From here though as the years slam by, the fear turns into teenage anger and the [...]