It is time again for the annual Bohemian Grove encampment. Here, in 1942, the Manhattan Project was conceived. Here, in 1967, Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan were said to have settled on who would first seek the presidency. And here, in 1981, Caspar Weinberger, then the secretary of defense, gave a lakeside talk" that seemed to hint strongly of the military buildup to follow. Yet the ritual on this day includes only one protester, bearded, lanky Brian Romanoff, 28, who has been working mostly alone since the two-week encampment began on July 16. He says he has adopted a nonconfrontational approach, better to spread the truth about the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. Two words: controlled demolition. But why has interest flagged in the goings-on at Bohemian Grove, where the likes of the singer Jimmy Buffett, Colin L. Powell and former President George W. Bush are said to assemble? The answer, boys: Mary Moore, 75, the area's silver-haired earth mother of activism, is focused on other matters. So it's just not the same. A former beauty queen from San Luis Obispo, Ms. Moore moved to a wooded Sonoma County enclave in the mid-1970s. Although active in liberal causes, she knew nothing of the annual elite-male getaway in her community until she read The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats: A Study in Ruling-Class Cohesiveness, by the sociologist G. William Domhoff.