editorial

Borrowing from an idea from Michael Hasty in his last month’s column title. There has definitely been a chill in the wind this late fall and winter. From Florida I apprehensively regarded the reports of unusual early cold in West Virginia. Instead of relaxing and appreciating the subtropics, I worried for my little home in the woods which in its rusticity is especially vulnerable to the bugaboo of freezing water pipes.

From my snowbird perch in Palm Beach County, I was more concerned about my pipes than I was about the daily drama being manufactured by the media and the various legal systems involved in who the next President of the United States would be. Deep in my bones I knew that even if Al Gore won the Florida popular vote, that the machinery was there to hand the electoral votes to the Shrub. With Brother Jeb as governor and a strongly Republican legislature, the opportunities were plentiful for some legal (or illegal) chicanery.

When the ritual was finally over, a ritual with all its attendant recriminations back and forth, my concern for freezing pipes was more than matched by a growing concern for our struggling environmental movement. With the in-your-face Shrub nominees for the posts of Interior, EPA, etc., it was enough to hark back to the days of Reagan whose administration did more to destroy our nation in the name of greed than any other in recent American history.

With a spanking new governor in West Virginia we don’t seem to be faring much better. It is hard to think of a more in-your-face appointment to our embattled environmentalists than that of Kirkendoll. On the national scene Democrats are acting more like Republicans all the time. In West Virginia the Democrats might as well all be Republicans – you can count the "good" ones in the legislature on the fingers of your hands. Has it not always been thus? At one time we had the United Mine Workers of America on the side of the progressives – now the majority of them seem to be in bed with the coal companies. Will wonders never cease.

You can bet your bottom dollar that Robert C Byrd, although never wholly predictable, has a pro-exploit and anti-conservation bias. This has been tough and continues to be tough for the "ordinary folk" constituents of his "home" state. But why should he care – he’s had a home in DC for ever and a day, it seems, so doesn’t have to face the environmental degradation that so many of his constituents have to face. His going along with the James Watt protege, Norton, for Interior Secretary is a big case in point. (And many thanks to Rocky for his vote against Norton) If we’ve been increasingly embattled with the injustices in the coal fields for the past decade or so with someone like Babbitt, then heaven help us with Norton over the federal mine agency.

It is going to be a l-o-o-o-o-n-ge winter.