Oil Spill Sorrow, Anger and Despair

Well, I have decided that sending the corporate offices of BP, Halliburton and TransOcean all the dead fish and wildlife they are creating is a satisfying fantasy. In my mind, I will also send a few thousand tons of dead oily baby animals to the U.S. energy regulatory commission that thought getting excessive gifts from the oil company employees was part of their job description, and actually doing any regulation oversight of those companies was optional.

I will not advocate actually doing that though, because it wouldn't be the executives and middle management that would have to clean that up, either.

They would probably get some of the long-term unemployed or poor illegals to do it for $10/hr, and those folks would suffer from all the ill health effects that the fishermen in the Gulf are being asked to take on without safety equipment.

So, being practical, I switch my karmic fantasy payback position to be that all decision makers from all the guilty parties--oil companies, contractors and regulators--be mandated to spend one week a month for as long as clean up lasts in the thick of the clean up, with no better safety equipment than the least of the clean up workers presently. I would still like them to do their jobs for the rest of the time (when they aren't hospitalized with burned out lungs and skin rashes) and maybe they will actually do them better.

I despair that BP will actually get the hole plugged--ever. I despair that Halliburton will keep getting government contracts and working with oil companies, never getting the consequences they deserve for shoddy, second rate work that has killed our troops and caused one of the links in this catastrophe. I despair that the broken congress will dither away, stuck in their puerile mindset that petty politics and snarkiness is the reason their constituents put them in office.

But mostly, I despair for the ocean and its creatures big and small. The Gulf is ruined. The kill off will likely nearly be complete. As it stands now, the currents are taking the oil out to open ocean, and may contaminate the Atlantic all the way up to Northern Europe. Then, there is hurricane season. Oy vey.

I also despair, because when it comes right down to it, we are all guilty of killing the Gulf (and potentially, a good part of the Atlantic). Stupid gas guzzling consumers that we are, we also should be getting our karmic come-uppance as well. We will. And that is no fantasy.