That Spring breeze ruffling your fur? It's the sea breathing a sigh of relief. At least for three miles out and ten years on, new legislation protects Oregon's coastal waters from off-shore drilling. Of copurse there are still millions of up-tapped miles wide open for oil and gas 'exploration'. (Love that term, 'exploration': See it's Okay. They aren't really destroying marine habitat - they're just...Well...'exploring' is all.) Representative Ben Cannon (No relation to the beach but if it didn't already exist, we could quite justifiably name a coastal community after the man - Perhaps an unspoiled, un'explored' one...) While we stand on the shore, battered copy of Moby Dick in our hand, contemplating the briney deep, how about 'exploring' this: When the the environment needs help - and protection - from the Human Animal tthat's when you know that Nature is in bad trouble and we are in worse. Viz: Two Guinness-caliber (The record-keeping receptacle, not the ombre beverage) storms in less than a week, Cascadian snow not as packed as it should be, the Winter Olympics looming over Vancouver and no White Stuff - for the first time since uhhh, since the land's real residents resided there. Desertification steals across the planet polishing it's shiny doorknob and drought continues drinking us to death.
- KBOO