About

This site is named ‘NearWalden’ for a couple of reasons. The obvious one is that I live in Concord, Massachusetts a couple of miles from Walden Pond. The less obvious one is that Walden Pond has come to represent for me the inherent complexity of many of the issues we face today. Walden Pond means lots of different things to different people – it’s a fishing hole, it’s a historic site, it’s a natural sanctuary, it’s a nice view from the commuter rail, it’s a national treasure, and it’s a source of traffic jams in the summer.

All of these various interests are valid – Walden Pond is all of these things – and these interests have legitimate, and often competing claims on the future of Walden Pond. So Walden Pond has come to symbolize for me a growing array of issues ranging from National Parks to energy policy to intellectual property to the ethics of genetic research, all issues characterized by a range of valid, competing interests.