The nation as a whole appears more and more these days to be adrift in psychic freefall:: we've got Portland police shooting a suspect with a beanbag gun, taking another 9 seconds to think it over and then nailing the man with an AR-15 assault rifle - just to be on the safe side, I guess. No matter how I try to resolve the images that this scenario calls to mind, I can't make it sane. And over on the right bank of Wild America, the Massey Energy Company has arranged to have a federal judge slap a temporary restraining order on activists attempting to block the company's further mountaintop removal mining operations at any of its southern West Virginia properties. Consider this: West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin has been in bed with Massey since the get-go: it's a marriage - if not made in heaven - made on a mountaintop. And this: In West Virginia, judges are elected. The judge in this case (No pun intended ) is federal. And this too: Massey Energy, although the biggest gorilla in the room, seems to be flying under the EPA radar. A federal District Court in Southern West Virginia, Mingo Logan Mining (part and parcel of Arch Mining) is being scrutinized for potential violation of the Clean Water Act. The only glow on the horizon: When environmental situations get politicized, rest assured, the Old Guard is on its way to becoming the coal fields of the future. The next generation is still going to go for the gold - that's just what people do - but the next time around when we add power to money, money to power, perhaps we'll come up with survival somewhere in the equation. "Protecting the environment" - such sad words for so many reason. First off, we are the reason it needs protection. Secondly, it is we, the very malefactors, charged with the protection. And thirdly, we are not separate from the environment; we are part of it, and not even the most important part. One thing the western world and you can hate on me all you like for saying this, Americans in particular need to come to terms with, in Nature's view every life form is equal to every other. That is the fact underlying the trillions of complex networks that weave This Simple Life...
- KBOO