jumpingfish

They’re finally showing the oil gushing forth live. Seems that more’s coming out than what they’ve been saying.

CBS tried to get a look at oil coming ashore in Louisiana a couple days ago. They have video of a boatload of BP contractors turning them back.  The boat evidently included a couple Coast Guard officers.  It was “BP rules” the Coast Guard officers said, as they told the journalists to turn back under threat of arrest.

BP rules.  Coast Guard officers. Threat of arrest.

After reporting from the scene, Kelly Cobiella turned it back over to anchor, Katie Couric.  Katie’s cutting-edge follow-up journalism?  To ask, with empathic concern in her eyes, And Kelly, what is the impact on wildlife so far?

As if to say, Well that’s interesting.  Now let’s talk about something else.

No need to dig into the collusion of government officials with BP to prevent the media from seeing firsthand the results of the oil spewing up from the bottom of the Gulf.  No need to draw attention to that.  No.  What we need to talk about now is the wildlife. Something to pull the heart strings and distract our audience from this colossal disaster.

During the Cold War, we in the West were taught that the Great Satan was an all-powerful government — down that path lay tyranny.  Those in the Eastern Bloc were taught that the Great Satan was an all-powerful capitalist oligarchy — the dreaded bourgeoisie. These were our closely guarded mythologies.

But there is a different way to look at things. A way to see beyond the myths. A way to perceive something that threatens to engulf us as the 21st century dawns and doesn’t fall into those convenient late 20th century templates.  A centaur, a minotaur, a harpy, a hybrid of the tyrannical government and the exploitive capitalism drawn from darkest night thoughts of the West and East: government and capitalism working hand-in-hand not for the betterment of the people, but to keep them from knowing, to keep them blissful in their ignorance, to protect the flow of profits, to maintain control. (Britt/Pattern #9, Mills/Corporate State)

There’s no call to show the public those videos of the oil spewing forth.  And for that matter, there’s no call to let uppity scientists with federal research grants talk about their own estimates of how much oil is gushing out of BP’s black hole. (Notice how they’ve clammed up since they first contradicted the gospel of BP?)

No.  No need to dig any deeper, Katie. Best to move on. Because, you know, we need to talk about turtles.  Because in the long run, it’s turtles all the way down.

We sat on the top of the hill looking down on the stage.  Overhead, stars twinkled in the sky.  Across the amphitheater, over the heads of the crowd sitting on blankets and folding chairs, a great Oak tree stood listening.

The Eggmen had been playing since before the sun went down.  With each song, the crowd grew and the number of kids playing on the playscape increased.

Day turned into night.  The band played Beatles tunes. The entire crowd sang along, sometimes waving their hands, great beaming smiles on their faces.

And then…

We sat on the top of the hill looking down on the stage. The words melted the sour gloominess in my heart.  A smile came over me, and tears came to my eyes.  Trudy took my hand. And we sang.

It’s that time of day—when the organizations call.

 

“Hello?” I say.

There’s a delay on the other end as their auto-dialing software rings up some poor drone.  I sit silently, waiting for them to speak.

“Hello?” says the drone, evidently puzzled by the silence.

“Yes?” I say, stepping out of the darkness.

“Oh hello. May I speak to Trudy, please?”

“She’s not here.  May I take a message?”

“Oh that’s ok.  This is an organization she supports.  We’ll get something out of her later.”

Um, my bet is that you won’t.  Not if you keep calling while she’s at work, and not if you word your ask like that.

I gotta go: the phone’s ringing again.

Cleaning up some papers sitting atop my dresser this afternoon, I found a sheet that had the following three things on it.

1. In the center of the page was a statement of the eigenvalue problem: Lf = λ f, residue of a project that never got off the ground.

2. On the right side was the phone number of a friend I call when I have programming questions—the telecommuter’s equivalent of walking down the hall.

3. And then in the lower righthand corner was a list entitled, “externalities”:

• bags in the bushes
• oil spills
• pacific gyre (awash in plastics)
• Chernobyl
• non-union mines
• unregulated finance
• global warming
• nuclear waste
• highways instead of trains
• soda pop
• cutting down the trees on Easter Island

The eigenvalue problem and phone number sat on the page with this long curling list wrapping around the bottom of the page, threatening to overwhelm them with foul complaint.  I don’t think I was in a good mood that day.