There's a hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a hole, there's a hole
There's a hole in the bottom of the sea ...
Have other former Girl/Boy Scouts found this song
stuck in their heads lately, as I have?
Since it won't let me alone, I'm going to write
about the Gulf oil spill — even though I have no idea what to do
about it. I certainly admire those people who keep trying to come up
with something.
There was the hairdresser who started a movement
to save the hair that is on the salon floor after a haircut, on the
theory that clean hair will absorb oil, so it could be spread over
the spill, then scooped up. I read that lots of people sent hair,
but advocates ran out of storage space, and BP didn't actually want
to use it.
A local letter to the editor suggested they
"simply blow up the leaking well, maybe with one of those gigantic,
bunker-busting bombs we developed for the Iraq war," noting the
Russians have had success with this technique. This seemed to me a
huge improvement over an earlier idea that seemed almost serious, to
use a nuclear weapon to plug the leak.
Once I wrapped my head around that one, I was in
horror-show mode, and cringed at an idea to release oil-eating
microbes, imagining them eating the oil spill, then reproducing
uncontrolled and attacking gas stations, plastic companies,
fast-food restaurants and eventually, our unwashed hair. I found
myself thinking about the cute little mongooses that were brought to
Hawaii to kill rats, and now are busy killing off other local
species.
Early on it seemed sensible to let BP
professionals deal with the problem they were trained to address.
But slowly we learned that, in fact, no one was trained to address a
hole in the bottom of the deep sea.
I saw Sarah Palin on Fox, telling us how she
asked to see the original BP contingency plan for a Gulf oil leak
and was shocked to see that it was the Alaska plan simply lifted and
copied — even though Alaska leaks happen on land or in shallow
water. She said what caught her attention first was a section on
caring for impacted wildlife; she found the plan referred to
walruses and other creatures unlikely to be found in the Gulf area.
The Obama administration's biggest idea so far is
a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf, which has upset the residents
who rely on clean water but also work in the oil business. A
solution to this, heard recently on CBS, was suggested by Rep. Anh
"Joseph" Cao, R-La., that would allow drilling to continue, but
force companies to stop drilling just before they actually hit oil.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is said to be open to this idea.
So the oil companies are to drill little holes in
the Gulf just for the sake of drilling holes? How will they
determine when they arrive at "just before"?
Last Saturday Chip heard a discussion on talk
radio among some experts who were saying that this oil isn't the
same as the decomposed dinosaurs that we normally encounter, that
it's somehow different and that it may be part of a giant underwater
reserve that covers the entire planet; so that now that the door has
been opened, the oil will continue to pour forth until it's all
gone.
If this is true, we should hope that there is no
connecting tunnel to the remaining dinosaur remains, or the entire
planet could be drained of oil in a rather short time. I suppose we
could just go scoop it off the southern United States and keep
ourselves warm and driving in New England for at least a few more
years.
Last Sunday a local Wiccan group planned to
conduct an "ocean blessing and healing" ceremony in Salem, sending
out "magickal healing energy." Some may scoff, but let's be fair:
This approach makes a lot more sense than detonating a nuclear bomb
over the hole.
I even admit to digging through the pile of
papers on my table to find the latest literature from the Jehovah's
Witnesses, to see what they had to say. Their "Awake" magazine is
usually right on top of current events, but unfortunately hadn't yet
addressed the oil spill. I'd guess that when it does there may be
reference to its being yet another sign of the coming "end of days;"
i.e., the concluding time period of this system of things.
It may seem I'm being flippant about a serious
crisis. The truth is, I want to cry every time I see those seabirds
covered with oil, trying to groom themselves. God bless the many
people, both amateur and professional, who, like the "experts," have
no idea what to do about stopping the oil, but are out there on the
Gulf shoreline, trying to block and/or clean up the mess.
Perhaps their efforts will buy humanity a little
more grace time before "the end" than it may actually deserve.