Word: wildness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Espy, rejecting all 30 remaining counts of a kitchen-sink indictment. The verdict was not just a repudiation of Smaltz's four-year investigation into gifts Espy received from people his department regulates. It could also be read as a repudiation of the very statute that made Smaltz's wild prosecutorial ride possible. And when that independent-counsel statute comes up for renewal by Congress next year, Smaltz will have contributed much to its potential demise. "I'm reminded of the saying that just because everybody's against something doesn't mean it shouldn't be defeated," says Senator Fred...
What is true about Monty Roberts is his ability to establish rapport with a wild, unridden horse and, within 30 minutes or so, "join up" with the animal to the extent that it will accept a saddle, bridle and rider. He observes the horse's body language and responds with his own motions to anticipate the animal's fears. Other trainers use versions of the technique. So did the hero of Nicholas Evans' weepy best-selling novel The Horse Whisperer, which later became a Robert Redford film. But though Roberts' book jacket bills him as "a real life horse whisperer...
...then the thought comes to me that this is the wilderness, not a zoo; the monkey is wild; the ceiba tree spreads its lush green cover in a vast tract of 4 million untrodden acres that constitute the Central Suriname Nature Reserve. Except for the few of us in the camp, there are no other people within a radius of 50 miles, nor is it likely that any people have even set foot in most of this land within the past thousand years. There are plenty of other species in evidence: rain forests contain a disproportionate share of the world...
...first wild monkey, a squirrel monkey, small and elfin-faced. One hears a monkey in order to see it: it rustles branches or drops a piece of fruit. One's senses grow keener after a while; the idea of coming to one's senses takes on new meaning. I pick up a scent that the others identify as that of a tapir, a large, smooth, big-nosed mammal the size of a small cow. An electric blue butterfly flutters by my ear. Mittermeier snags a vine snake, green and camouflaged in its habitat. Everywhere is a sign of life...
...watch Mittermeier watching everything. He is wholly comfortable here, and one sees why. There is nothing to be uncomfortable about in the villages, or in the surrounding forest, except some physical inconveniences. One calls this the wilderness, but it hardly seems wild to its residents. Pilgrims to America used to fear places like this; now people fear what has replaced them. I ask Mittermeier how all this affects him personally, apart from his sense of mission...