For Cook County residents, here's an incredibly easy way to help fight climate change and support biodiversity. A slightly different version was published in the Oak Park Wednesday Journal on October 18, 2022. At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of farsighted people had the novel idea to create the Cook County Forest Preserves system, the first of its kind in the country. It was a daunting task to plan, persuade people, and get laws through the legislature. Only then did the real work begin of purchasing and managing vast acreage, developing public programs, and conserving biodiversity while catering to humans. None of this was easy. Starting with an initial purchase of 500 acres in 1916, today the FPDCC comprises 70,000 acres of natural and recreational areas stretching from Lake-Cook Road south to Steger Road. Consequently, Cook County, home to over 5 million people, can also boast that it’s the most biodiverse county in the state. In this time of global warming, en
- Get link
- Other Apps
Comments
I have my comp students read a poem by Pablo Neruda (Ode to the Apple; my own translation). Another poem I use in class is one by Mary Oliver about the wanton destruction (for a shopping mall) of a pond she used to play around as a child.
Regarding accents and other diacritics in Spanish, a Spanish keyboard is the best solution, but I don't recommend it (letters will not be where you are used to finding them). Aside from that, if you use Microsoft Word, you can access them through the Insert: Symbol features. It's kind of tedious, but it does the job. Another option (again, in Microsoft Word) is to use the Set Language command to set your spell checker to Spanish. When you run spell check, the spell checker will often flag words without accents and other diacritics as misspelled; correcting them will add in the diacritics.
I know the Neruda poem--it's nice you can do your own translations. Don't know that Mary Oliver poem. I saw her read a few years ago.
Thanks for your help with the Spanish. The Word Set Language and Spell Check worked well. I was then able to paste it into blogger with no problem.
Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been
a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon
Loving the earth, seeing what has been done to it,
I grow sharp, I grow cold.
Where will the trilliums go, and the coltsfoot?
Where will the pond lilies go to continue living
their simple, penniless lives, lifting
their faces of gold?
Impossible to believe we need so much
as the world wants to buy.
I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clips
than I could possibly use before I die.
Oh, I would like to live in an empty house,
with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass,
No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.
And I suppose sometime I will.
Old and cold I will lie apart
from all this buying and selling, with only
the beautiful earth in my heart.
From Why I Wake Early, 2004