A speckled crab in the process of dying, or metaphor
for something else? (Press-Register/Ben Raines)
for something else? (Press-Register/Ben Raines)
"I am made aware just how little people outside the coast understand the complete and utter devastation that is taking place right in our own country. If they did I hope that every American would stand up and demand .... that the federal government admit that the entire Gulf of Mexico is in its own death throes and demand they finally stop putting profit above our people, wildlife and environment. I know of no other way to say we are sitting idly by, as our world dies around us. And I mean “death” in the most literal sense possible.
"Have we all become so complacent, so apathetic that we no longer regard nature, life...human life, with enough regard to fight for it? What more must it take to outrage this nation??"
~Jennifer Roth
7 comments:
DK sent me this link w this photo (too?).... I have to say I am thinking about a 4th of July post & was going to include this photo too....
It's a REAL glimpse into the state of our nation.
You want to read something haunting?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill
An oil spill in the Gulf that spilled for 10 months.
It is almost a mirror image of the Deepwater disaster. Explosion, rig sank, and even worse....31 years later, all they have is the exact same response as now- Corexit chemical, burning & skimming.
Nothing new in 31 years of drilling, as far as cleaning up spills.
The other thing is it full 3 more months of spilling after they drilled the relief wells.
A different article I read said it took about 2 full years for the water/wildlife to recover, but they still find residual leftovers.
Thing is some of the wildlife is unique to the area of this spill- Brown Pelicans, for example, just came off the endangered list in Louisiana.
Kemp Ridley turtles rely on the gulf for nesting, exclusively. 4 times as many have died than have been rescued/rehabbed.
(I did a turtle post today).
If the BP spill dumped 2x as much oil will it take 4 to 5 years for the Gulf to recover???
BP is going to pay everyone whose income is effected for that long?
How will BP make it right for the turtles & the pelicans & the crab in this photo?
Fran: First of all, I want to give a "heads up!" to D.K. for the link that contained this photo. I haven't witnessed all the vids it contained, mostly because Mrs. Dada was still asleep when I wanted to view them in the pre-dawn morning of my favorite (birth) month earlier today and I couldn't find my earphones, plugs, whatever. So, "Thank you, D.K." But I think they are gut wrenching and extremely depressing.
Had I been given the assignment to make an image that best represented the state of our nation on the anniversary of its birthday this coming Sunday, I would have been hard pressed to beat this one: a dying speckled crab before the background of a soiled, oiled (dying?), American flag. What a great metaphor!
Yesterday I read, then chuckled, at a quote by "Unknown" on ICH that went something like, "A terrorist is one with a bomb, but no bomber." (Not exactly true, some terrorists with bombs have B-2s, Tomohawks and Predator drones to deliver bombs atop the heads of innocent, unsuspecting civilians, and that's no less terror than the our losses of innocent lives on 9/11, now being used as excuse nearly 10 years later to still disperse our own brand of heinous crimes against humanity in the name of meting out justice to those supposedly responsible who just coincidentally happen to live atop rich oil fields, blah, blah, blah -- I weary myself.)
But my thoughts strayed to US forces 1/2 way round the world ("fighting terrorism" -- NOT), while millions of American's health and lives are being gravely altered by terrorists just off our shore in the Gulf and cushioned leather chairs in Washington!
And lately I've been listening to "late night talk radio" (and yes, sometimes the guests are "out there"...on the edge, over the top, etc....whatever, but recently it has included creditable trained academicians expressing dire concerns about the indiscriminate use of chemicals to disperse (or conceal) the more drastic effects of the spill; or the atmospheric effects of degrading oil over time or their dispersal further inland by upcoing hurricanes; but probably most concerning, the huge potential for extreme, drastic consequences of annihilation of innocent, unsuspecting residents (i.e., "victims") of methane around the Gulf. Point being, we just don't know what we're dealing with nor its long term ramifications. And that sounds a lot like terrorism to me.
And, of course, my deepest sympathies go out to the innocent creatures of nature and residents of the Gulf who are the front line victims of this ongoing atrocity, the backs of whom humanity stands upon with unwitting appreciation that, ultimately, we share their fates.
The oily flag hanging there in the G of M like a diseased piece of watery drapery really does say it all. Glad it provided such wonderful inspiration for what should be a day filled with BBQ and fire works, kids playing in parks, everyone breathing clean air and drinking clean water and/or beer. How many places around the country will be able to choke down those hot dogs tomorrow while the G of M seethes, basting in an oily glow?
For some reason the flag scene also reminds me of Shakespeare, King Henry IV, which I'll paraphrase here with more modern characters:
BP spokesliars: "We can call spirits from the vasty deep."
G of M human residents: "Why, so can we, or so can any man; the question is will they come when you do call for them?"
BP spokesliars: "We can teach you to command The Devil."
G of M non-human residents: "And we can teach you to shame the devil by telling truth -- tell truth and shame the devil. If you have power to raise him, as proved by your oily mess, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!"
I guess that scene is stuck in my mind cuz I'm so tired of the lies surrounding this disaster.
(ps, that play also contains another of my favorite Bard characters, Falstaff, who questions the glory of dying in war, but I will save him for another day).
Personally, we should hasten the demise of BP by major boycotts & encourage the Brits to hound the hell out of BP headquarters (its all of our planet & they do such a bang up job w creative demonstrations).
I keep thinking making huge paper mache "dead animals" & piling them up @ BP headquarters & stations would be great.
When all the litigation, fines, fees & clean up costs are paid (or for as much as they have $ to cover this till they run out....
BP needs to shut down & be held as an example of total failure.
They won't just go away though-- they will be reinvented under another name.
The latest effing news is a media blackout.
Instead of shutting down the chemical dispersant.... the Coast Guard is now imposing $40,000 fine & class D felony if you show workers, boom or dead things.
I shit you not!
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/bp-coast-guard-bans-all-media-access
read it & weep.
Or read it and send a scathing letter to the White House.... that's what I did.
It's as Kendra Arneson said, "Now, as far as EPA, OSHA, NOAA, BP and the federal government, everyone of 'em is in collaboration with one another."
Or, if you're really into extinction (which I'm thinking more and more Dada's should focus on instead of the seemingly insane bell we have on the total destruction of mankind ), what Fred said in making The Case for Human Extinction: "I wonder what the world must have been a million years ago, before our sordid race of moralizing apes arose to invent the sewage outfall, before we learned to perforate the floor of the floor of oceans and poison whole seas with the bile of the inner earth. Yes, I know of property rights and the desperate need for the economy to grow, though to what end I cannot imagine. It seems to me that we should strive to shrink the economy. Pelicans and seals do not grow their economies and, I think, seldom use bulldozers. Yet they prosper."
Oh, pardon if I'm a tad bitchy this Fourth. (BTW, liked your state's debts chart and upside down flag in today's blog, Fran -- our flag on our front door has been similarly oriented since placing it there sometime after 9/11). But maybe I take the news too seriously: Things like the NY 36 yr old idiot who blew his left arm off at the shoulder with fireworks this weekend (as some indication of man's 'higher intelligence'); U.S., w/AC carrier, with South Korea practicing the gentle art of brash provocation in a naval war exercise off China's Yellow Sea coastline (equivalent of Valenzuela & Russia conducting same off our Gulf coast - thank god for the oil spill as deterrent to such thoughts, or maybe they're just not as f*ckin' insane as America with its rocket's red glare, bombs bursting in air bullshit mentality), while Detroit reduces its EMT's and # of ambulances to 13 (for a city of 900,000) and Calif suggests putting its 200,000 state workers on minimum wage (the best is yet to come!), etc. ad infinitum.
But it's the 4th so I'm about to go out and grill brats and drink a couple of IPAs -- like always -- on what annually becomes an increasingly more meaningless day. It's just another Fourth. But got to do it -- never know when it may be our last!
just read your Fred link. wow a kindred spirit. though I disagree with one of his final sentences about there being no poets -- his writing is ample reproof of that!
fran, I had not noticed a media black out. I keep having to avert my eyes when the struggling animals are shown. But now that you point it out, I see it is the same footage over & over & over. free press, hmmm, when did it die.
dada, we passed on the brats and went swimming instead. couldn't help thinking how pristine the pool was and comparing it to what much of the gulf looks like now. how'd the patriotic gulf residents celebrate the 4th. they are usually so rah-rah go-flag.
oh yeh, we also toasted the imposition of min wage in calif! a few bureaucrats in the state equalization and franchise offices deserve even less than that. "equalization" is calif-speak for "sales taxes". "franchise" is calif-speak for "corp taxes". ya think arnie will be able to force a budget on these guys? I would not bet on it myself.
Deke:
I agree. The thing I disagreed with most re The Case for Human Extinction (http://www.fredoneverything.net/Extinction.shtml) was his "no poets" because, ironically enough, I had just come from reading some of local author/poet Ben Saenz's things. One passage, which I related to this particular holiday weekend reads:
I don’t believe a flag
is important
enough to kiss—
or even burn.
Some men would hate me
enough to kill me
if they read these words.
(from his “The Fourth Dream: Families and Flags and Revenge”)
As for Arnie and forcing a budget on the legislators, I doubt it too. What a mess. This looks to be an exciting year!
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