It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black

The gusher in the Gulf just gets more depressing every day. It's increasingly obvious no one has a clue how to stop it and this admission by degrees is driving me insane. Latest worst case scenario is it could keep spewing oil until Christmas. Meanwhile, BP's ongoing cover-up of the damage continues apace.

"When we found this dolphin it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it. It was the saddest darn thing to look at," said a BP contract worker who took the Daily News on a surreptitious tour of the wildlife disaster unfolding in Louisiana.

His motive: simple outrage.

"There is a lot of coverup for BP. They specifically informed us that they don't want these pictures of the dead animals. They know the ocean will wipe away most of the evidence. It's important to me that people know the truth about what's going on here," the contractor said.

Glad that someone involved is interested in telling us the truth, no matter how painful. Sure as hell not going to get it from BP. Their CEO Tony Hayward is still denying the three 20+ mile long underwater plumes scientists have discovered even exist.

And if you're know someone who is having trouble grasping the enormity of this disaster, this is the best tool I've seen so far. It's a map that shows how big it would be if the spill was centered in your own town. Just heartbreaking.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Après le déluge, rien.

by Capt. Fogg

Political and economic repression probably bother the Burmese less of late than the problem of staying alive in the mud along with the rotting corpses of man and beast. It's a natural disaster of bigger than average proportions and some estimate the death toll will be over a million when the toll of disease and malnutrition is paid. The earthquake in Sichuan seems almost inconsequential in comparison and so do the hurricanes, school shootings and lead paint scandals of recent times, yet the "Hillaryobama" chant continues to dominate all three rings of the 24 hour American news circus.

If the magnitude of the tragedy is lost on most of us, the significance of the event is clear to the Apocalypse fans. It's more evidence of the end times. It's more evidence of the the human sacrifice demanding Yahweh "who so loved the world" getting warmed up for the big one. To some, possessed of a more informed and wider view of history, it's just another small incident in a billion years of much worse. To others, it's a demonstration of the perils of overpopulation and poverty. To the more fashionable, it's the alarm bell of the Global Warming warning system. To the religious leaders to whom America listens while condemning Reverend Wright, it probably shows clearly the perils of not accepting their processed Jesus product and at least hints of various sexual improprieties of the oriental sort.

To me? Well I just knew you'd be interested. To me it all means nothing. It means we live very briefly in an unfathomably huge, ancient and hostile universe in which we and all we do are supremely insignificant except to each other. It means we waste our brief and often miserable lives by pretending it's otherwise.

Cross posted from Human Voices