Wilderness is also the name of a city in South Africa, a band and a movie.

Wilderness is generally defined as a natural environment on Earth that has not been modified by human activity. Ecologists consider wilderness areas to be an integral part of the planet's self-sustaining natural ecosystem (the biosphere).

The word, "wilderness", derives from the notion of wildness; in other words that which is not controllable by humans. The word's etymology is from the Old English wildeornes, which in turn derives from wildeor meaning wild beast (wild + deor = beast, deer) (The Collins English Dictionary, 2000). From this point of view, it is the wildness of a place that makes it a wilderness. The mere presence or activity of people does not disqualify an area from being "Wilderness." Many ecosystems that are, or have been, inhabited or influenced by activities of people may still be considered "wild." This way of looking at wilderness includes areas within which natural processes operate without human interference.

More on [ Wilderness ]

NYT > Home & Garden

The Curse of Duncraig Castle
Sun, 05 Oct 2008 05:12:23 -0000
Sam and Perlin Dobson bought a run-down castle in the Scottish highlands and then invited the entire Dobson clan to live there. That’s when things took a disastrous turn.
Homesteads: Up, Up and Away
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:34:12 -0000
Luxury treehouses give adults a vacation home in the backyard.
Ask the Contractor: My Basement Floods. What Should I Do?
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:42:51 -0000
Floodproofing a basement, replacing windows and more.
In Brussels, a Town House With a Vintage Vibe
Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:57:51 -0000
Brussels is famous for its tall, narrow town houses, but the slender entrance hall and impossibly high ceilings leading into Justine Glanfield’s home seem almost like a pastiche.
On the Cheap: Thinking Like a Student
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:20:13 -0000
In these economically difficult times, there is much that can be learned about creative home design from college students.
A Wall of Drawers and a Bartered Bed
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 03:35:36 -0000
Kayt Brumder, a fifth-year architecture student at Cooper Union in New York City, focused on maximizing space in her apartment in East Harlem.

L.A. Times - Home & Garden

Hot Property: Julianna Margulies' Santa Monica home for sale at $4.5 million
Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Hot Property Whenever I walk into a hospital emergency room, I still look for Nurse Hathaway -- the one who goes the extra mile for her patients, even when someone who looks like George Clooney is distracting her at the moment.
Windsor Square-Hancock Park Historical Society house tour spotlights a 1908 survivor brought back from the brink.
Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Architectural photographer Mary E. Nichols and Keith Wood saw good bones beneath the Wilton Place property's shabby facade. AS an architectural photographer and confirmed "house-aholic," Mary E. Nichols has seen many a residential wreck. But the 1908 specimen at 212 S. Wilton Place -- part of an L.A. street listed on the National Register of Historic Places -- was a house of horrors.
Only in Malibu: the $2-million mobile home
Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Bluff-side Paradise Cove and Point Dume Club take manufactured-home living to new heights. If you want to live among gas-guzzling, tax-evading, hippie-gypsies running from the law, then Malibu's mobile-home parks are not the places to look (as the Who might otherwise suggest in its hit song "Going Mobile"). Here you will find no country-trekking trailers, but double-wides and manufactured homes placed permanently atop sweeping ocean-side bluffs. In fact, the term "mobile-home park" is rather misleading in this mansion- and estate-packed section of the globe.
In Los Angeles, a 1900s White House for the not quite presidential
Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
A certain Pennsylvania Avenue address has spawned imitators across the continent, including Beverly Hills' once-grand Rosewall estate. JOHN McCAIN doesn't know how many houses he owns, but he wants 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Ever since the "presidential palace" was completed in 1800, the White House has been the ultimate American address. For a century it was our largest house, more than double the size of Monticello and Mount Vernon combined.
Los Angeles County Arboretum's Art in the Garden Initiative
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:59:04 -0700
How does the Los Angeles County Arboretum's garden grow? Very artfully, thanks to the launch of its Art in the Garden Initiative.
Home and garden events in the Southland
Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700
Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants hosts its annual Fall Festival. OCT. 4

Christian Science Monitor | The Home Forum

For me – the election is over
Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:00:00 -0500
A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
Where insects are always No. 1
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:00:00 -0500
For kids: At a museum in New Orleans, creepy-crawlies are the main attraction.
Nova Scotia's pre-Jurasic park
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:00:00 -0500
The Canadian province is home to a surprising number of famous fossil discoveries that track Earth's history back hundreds of millions of years.
Prayer that trumps economic politics
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:00:00 -0500
A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
Close encounter of the royal kind
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 01:00:00 -0500
Prince Charles was about to visit the local art museum, and I had inadvertently stumbled into the big event.
After school – special
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 01:00:00 -0500
Amid the afternoon carpool rush, a photographer captures a quiet moment of friendship.

Denver Post: Lifestyle

A flight of unrest urges us on
editor@denverpost.com (E-mail Fort Collins poet and writer Natalie Costanza-Chavez at grace-notes@ comcast.net. Read more of her essays at gracenotescolumn.org.) Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:13:40 -0600
Much ado is in the air. It is as if I am a green sticky-footed gecko trapped in a white shoebox. I move from wall to wall and then back again. Up, down, over, backward, ceiling, floor, faster, faster. I see no door, and I don't quite know what I'm getting done, yet I feel the tug and pull to do it now. I am hungry all the time. Unrested. Too full.
700 gather for Women against MS Luncheon
jadavidson@denverpost.com (Society editor Joanne Davidson / The Denver Post) Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:13:37 -0600
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has come a long way since the day in 1945 when Sylvia Lawry placed an ad in The New York Times asking for anyone who'd been cured of it to contact her.
And the music comes out here
djbrown@denverpost.com (By Douglas Brown / The Denver Post) Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:19:39 -0600
They talk woofers and tweeters, electrostatic speakers and amorphous transformers.

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