SPRING HAS SPRUNG: Ah, yes, spring is here, bringing warm weather, flowering bushes, crippling pollen and, of course, the constant, nagging fear that a bad-ass tornado will come along and take you for an unscheduled flight with Dorothy and Toto.

RISING BODY COUNT: Dozens of dead dolphins have been found this year on Alabama and Mississippi Gulf beaches, causing some experts to wonder if there is a connection between the deaths and the Gulf oil spill last year.

The people of Alabama ushered in a historical shift in power at all levels of government in November, but none more notable than the Republican take over of both houses of the legislature for the first time in 136 years.

THIS CAN’T BE GOOD: The deaths of baby dolphins have increased sharply this year along the Alabama and Mississippi Gulf Coast, according to Karen Nelson of The Sun Herald in Gulfport, Miss.

SCRAMBLE THAT TOFU, GALLEY SLAVE: If I could lift one-third of my body weight (after four hernia operations I can barely lift a box of Kleenex) and had $10,000 (which I don’t, of course, and never will) I would sail the sun-kissed waters of the romantic, garbage-filled North Pacific gyre this summer with a bunch of Greenies from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, a non-profit based in Long Beach, Calif.

UNPLUG ME, JESUS: Y’all, I need to unplug from EVERYTHING—email, cell phone, television, Twitter and, definitely, Facebook, better known as the Great Beast Numbered 666 (“It’s all for you, Damien”). And I don’t care that some dude I went to ‘Bama with just had a latte or doesn’t want to go to work.

PAGING STEPHEN KING: Dude, there’s a HUGE low-oxygen “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, near the mouth of the Mississippi River. It’s 8,500 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey—that place where the Sopranos whack people.

FOLLOWING SUIT: Two Alabama environmental groups, Black Warrior Riverkeeper and Friends of Locust Fork River, are appealing an administrative law judge’s approval of a permit for Rosa Mine, a 3,255-acre strip and underground coal mine in Blount County.

HI THERE, GREENIES: Y’all come in and sit a spell around the cracker barrel and tell Uncle Jesse your troubles. Now, I can’t help you—can’t even solve my own problems—but I’ll sure as hell listen, especially if you bring a half-rack of PBR long necks.

GREEN NOT VERBOTEN AT BENZ PLANT:“Mercedes-Benz Alabama Plant Goes Green” reads the headline of a recent article by Patrick Rupinski of the Associated Press.