Even the birds -- hell, especially the birds -- were celebrating yesterday’s announcement that the Navy was dropping plans for an outlying landing field in North Carolina until at least 2014.

Please forgive me for taking it personally, but after fat cat Virginians started bitching about the noise of the jets they had moved next door to, the Navy started to move its faux aircraft carrier down to Beaufort County where I lived. The foolishness of the concept eventually caught up with them and they moved their efforts northward to Gates County -- the place where I was born and where my mother still lives. More of the insanity of protecting the rich and the politically influential.

Yesterday, the Navy announced that they were dropping consideration in the area until at least 2014. With luck it will not happen. It is at least a temporary victory for common sense. I took this picture this morning near the state line on Highway 17. This red-tailed hawk and those distant tundra swans seem a little defiant and relieved.