rspec users - Sep 2009 - turning on observers

hi,
I''m trying to run specs for an observer thats included with a plugin.  
There''s no guarantee the app has set the observer in its  
environment.rb. I''m presently doing this but expect there''s a
more
elegant solution

unless ActiveRecord::Base.observers.include? :subscription_observer
   puts "Cannot run specs on SubscriptionObserver. Please add the  
following to environment.rb"
   puts "  config.active_record.observers = :subscription_observer"
else
   describe SubscriptionObserver do
   ...
   end
end

By the way, I did try enabling the observer for the duration of the  
spec but that didnt work, eg

     before :all do
       ActiveRecord::Base.observers = [:subscription_observer]
     end

thx
--linoj