This won't take long to spell out. How long it'll take to fix, I don't know.

Spinning around the radio dial Wednesday, I alighted on a news story about the water deal reached in Sacramento. The announcer said something to the effect that the deal balances both ''human and environmental'' concerns.

What? Stop! When are we going to get it through our still-insufficiently evolved craniums [crania, if you like] that environmental concerns ARE human concerns, that we are only as healthy and as likely to survive as are our fellow species and the land and water and air on this planet?

For years, we've been shoved into accepting the false, manipulated choice of jobs versus the environment; now there's the insidious manufactured either-or of "us versus them,"'  the `"them'' being a balanced water system and the habitat and creatures that are part of it. Well, here's some breaking news that should be old news: We ARE them.

-- Patt Morrison