Green Oil & Spam

Eleven men dead and 200,000 gallons a day of oil headed toward the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Florida. BP is supposed to be green! Their signs say so. Their ads say so. Their outlet stations are painted green. Instead of solutions, we get spam. Why doesn’t anyone have a plan? We have telescopes sophisticated enough to film the far reaches of our universe. Physicists study quantum particles so small we’ll never even see them, particles that can move through miles of lead without displacing a single atom. So why hasn’t someone figured out how to control this oil spill from the BP rig?

What’s the plan so far? Well, the Feds send bureaucrats down on private jets. Lots of cameras, big smile, sad eyes, but no substance, no answers. The Attorney General sends troops of lawyers to talk to the Big Easy’s US Attorney! (You couldn’t begin to make that one up.) Homeland security sends SWAT teams to other offshore rigs. And through it all the president dither’s…for eleven whole days.

There’s a big party tonight with the Washington press corps (in D.C. of course, not here) and I’m sure between the jokes there’ll be a few words spoken for comfort, words that communicate Washington’s empathy and understanding.

Words matter, our President says. Maybe so, but unless they’re matched with effective action, I’d suggest a spam filter. Tell you what I see – the bed’s too short, and the blanket’s way too narrow. (By the way, the first person who figures out where that saying comes from gets a free, signed copy of The Moon in the Mango Tree.)

It’s been eleven days and time is of the essence as that oil slick moves toward our shoreline. Can you imagine the mess when that 150 mile long/70 mile wide slick hits our fragile ecosystem, the beautiful wetlands, marshes, tidal pools…the heron, bald eagles, pelicans, seagulls…redfish, speckled trout, oysters, shrimp. They will die. And what happens to the families that depend on these for a living? Well, we may never know. The clean up alone could kill us.

But the real question is, why wasn’t a plan in place? We’re supposed to be the caretakers. Why is everything moving so slowly…except the slick?