Cliffs As They Ought To Be

Google "cliffs" today and you will be inundated with blather about the "fiscal cliff." (WARNING--This note has nothing to do with the self-imposed drama taking place in Washington, D.C. these days)  Even Google ignores the "s" I put at the end of my search word.  The sad fact is that this unfortunate expression is washing away, albeit temporarily, some of the most beautiful and striking formations on this earth--the cliffs.  Having grown up in the Midwest, where it is mostly flat, and migrated to the Carolina Lowcountry, where it is even flatter, I have limited in person exposure to cliffs.  

In fact, I don't think I have seen any cliffs in North America.  One of the most memorable sights in Ireland I had the pleasure of casting my eyes upon was the Cliffs of Moher.  It was a marvel.  We were there on a drizzly day (not uncommon in Ireland, I know), but those visiting were undeterred.  We walked about in the rain and gaped in awe at the cliffs and their precipitous descent into the Atlantic.  We listened to the tales of tragic derring-do when those wandering too close to the edge fell to their deaths.  As cliffs go, the Cliffs of Moher at just over 200 meters are not the largest cliffs in the world.  There is one in Pakistan that rises more than 1200 meters from the ground.  

Thanks to Wikipedia, I was able to view spectacular photos of many of the cliffs of North America, which are more likely candidates for my bucket list than Pakistan's.    There was Notch Peak, Royal Gorge, Devil's Tower, El Capitan, and the Toroweap Fault, to name a few. The most dramatic to me eye were the "two-fers"--the canyons or gorges.  Go take a look at the Black Canyon formed by the Gunnison River or Zion Canyon.  If I had the talent, I'd import the pictures, but you can go to Wikipedia and see these cliffs if your mind's eye fails to bring up anything you have seen.  Please note that none of these cliffs are found in the Eastern half of the U.S.  In fact, most are in the mountain ranges of the American West, far away from the Beltway.  Surely this is a better focus for our attention than a fiscal cliff.

I will even offer a less majestic, but still worthy "cliff" for your consideration--that savior of many a high school student unwilling or unable to read some of those long and dull reading assignments--Cliff's Notes.  Education would have ground to a halt for at least a generation or two if not for Cliff's Notes and their complete and thorough explanation of the salient points of much of the most boring and tedious literature deemed essential by the educators of the last century.  Let's face it, The Catcher in the Rye was about the only book on those reading lists that everyone actually read.  Despite that fact, Cliff's Notes offers one of its digests on that book as well.  Anyway, even that is a better cliff for us to contemplate that the one before us today.    

The point here is for all of us to cast our votes in favor of forgetting about the furtive floundering of those federal fools and their freaking, fatuous, fictional fiscal cliff in Washington, DC altogether.  Let's focus instead on the cliffs we can scarcely take in for all their beauty.