Oil Spill

Normally over a big news-making thing like BP’s oil spill in the gulf, I’d make a big deal out of it pretty quickly. It’s been months and this is the first I’ve written about it. The reason is that it makes absolutely no sense to me. I have too many questions to say anything intelligent. For instance:

Why is oil “gushing?” Why isn’t it sitting in the ground? Are the pumps still on? It seems to be exerting a lot of effort to push its way into all five thousand feet of heavy water sitting on top of it. I don’t understand.

Why can’t people help? Why are entities that aren’t necessarily BP or Barack Obama forbidden to do things? There are great ideas and enough at stake that the private sector could come up with a lot of money to do them. Why isn’t that allowed?

Why did environmentalists think that drilling at five thousand feet was a better idea than one thousand feet? Why aren’t they taking any heat for their legislation?

Is it really that hard to plug a leak? It’s giving us a hundred thousand barrels of oil each day, let’s see what a couple thousand barrels of cement could do.

How is it nobody stepped up until the leak had been going for a month? Does no one with power care? What do the powers-that-be stand to gain from this?

Can you really call it pollution when one natural substance infiltrates another natural substance, just because it’s unsightly?

A platform blows up, and a mile away a leak springs. This seems like it should be starring Bruce Willis or Harrison Ford, perhaps it should be directed by Michael Bay. This just doesn’t make sense.

Again, rehashing the point that BP somehow let it go on for months. How did they not jump on top of this problem immediately? How did they not have a contingency plan to cover this?

The word “crisis” just sued for abuse. It seems that it doesn’t like being used 24/7.

Hasn’t Louisiana suffered enough?

Anyway, you can appreciate that I am flabbergasted by the whole situation. If you’re not, please write in and help me figure it out, because we’ve taken more drastic measures for smaller problems. We invaded Afghanistan to find one dude. We spent more than our economy is worth to save it. Maybe I’ve finally figured out the hallmark of modern society: exhausting ourselves with minimal effect.