1. Despite the fact that tens of thousands of oil rigs have been operating in the Gulf without significant incident for decades, it only takes one catastrophic incident from one rig to kill a whole ocean.
2. No one, not even giant companies with giant budgets at stake, can be trusted to be prepared for the worst.
3. Nature has an astounding capacity to recover itself from catastrophes of nature. It has little hope against man-made catastrophes.
4. Dead sea animals are already washing up on the beaches at Waveland and Pass Christian. I know this because of pictures friends from coastal towns have posted on Facebook, not because it is being reported in the news.
5. Gene Taylor is downplaying the significance of the oil spill. Gene Taylor evidently has a political death wish.
6. The boons being used to protect the Louisiana wetlands from the oil spill are also being used to direct the oil toward the Mississippi beaches. I’m speechless on this. Thanks, Coast Guard. Mississippi is always happy to be the nation’s dump.
7. Too many people around here make their livings from the oil field for Mississippi to get behind shutting down the Gulf oil operations even if we do take the worst of the hit here. We do need to be a lot more concerned about getting out from under our oil dependency, though. We need to step up efforts toward conservation and toward moving to alternative fuel sources. We also need to step up efforts to bring in other industries to provide jobs.
8. Whatever happens this week along the coast will only be the start of a long term nightmare. We’ll only hold the attention of the national news until the first wave of high drama subsides.
9. The Sun Herald has put together a list of links to organizations and volunteer efforts for cleanup efforts. It seems to me that one of the best places for people from other places to support financially is The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport. They’ll be training people to help with cleanup in addition to trying to save animals.
10. I don’t eat seafood, but if I did, I’d be eating whatever I could get this week.
