awakening into the great american nightmare

8/9/2019 Awakening Into the Great American Nightmare

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Awakening Unto the Great American Nightmare:

In Which Oil Strikes Us.

From: http://growingintothemystery.com/

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the wavesCombing the white hair of the waves blown backWhen the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownTill human voices wake us, and we drown.

-- T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Detail, WPA or New Deal Art Tile Installation, 1937, Coral WayElementary School, Miami, FL.. My alma mater, my siblings,

and my fathers.

Few of the more than 2,000 people on board [the Titanic] actuallysaw the iceberg as it went by, but the quartermaster, oneof the few, said it resembled a windjammer, sails set,passing along the starboard side." A passenger who hadleapt over his bed when he felt a bump and run over to theporthole observed "a wall of ice gliding by." In other

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starboard cabins, passengers with their portholes openfound chunks of ice on their floors... Some passengers inthe third-class recreation space, where several tons ofloose ice landed, threw scraps of it at each other, and insteerage, men played soccer with ice chunks.

Below deck, there was no such frivolity, however.

- - Marianna Gosnell,Ice: the Nature, History and Uses of an AstonishingSubstance

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it wasloaned to you by your children.

We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from ourChildren.

-- Teaching, Oglala Sioux Tribe

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"When you look at it, it's hard to believe this hunk of ice was behind the tragedy of theTitanic. This photo of the iceberg as well as 2 others in existence was snapped by a

passenger on the Carpathia, the ship that answered the Titanic's SOS call. As far as I have

been able to tell, this was the first because the scrap of Titanic hull paint is the largest.The berg stood about 100 feet over the water and even threw some chunks onto Titanic's

deck as it passed, which some passengers played soccer with, believing they were safe.

It's now thought that substandard steel used in making the Titanic's rivets was so brittlethat pressure caused them to snap, making the plates push apart. The berg, which was

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seen to melt away and change while in visual range, it drifted off during the recovery of

victims' bodies and unlike the Titanic, was never to be seen again."

(Both image and text used by kind courtesy of Rahni, who single-handedly runs a trulyextraordinary web site, http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/. Please check it out; if you

haven't seen the site theres really no describing it.)

It seems appropriate enough to begin with the ending of the Titanic, becausefrom that evening in in 1912 until (possibly) late last month, April 20 to be exact,the ship and its fate stood out as a singular and wonderfully dramatic illustrationof the damage that can result when man's unbridled hubris slams with full impactinto the real world. The satirical "imaginary report" below, done by the OnionPress for its book,Our Dumb Century, can even still make me laugh out loud. It

has always just tickled me.

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The story continues, At 4:23am Greenwich Standard Time, the followingmessage was received from the rescue ship Carpathia: Titanic struck by icy

representation of natures supremacy STOP Insufficient lifeboats due topompous certainty in mans infallibility STOP Microcosm of larger society

STOP.(Courtesy of The Onion Press, Inc.)

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Yetwe are definitely not laughing now. For all the dread consequence of theCaptains' choice to run his ship full throttle that frosty April evening long ago,that decision does not seem to me to even approach in its spirit of naked hubrisand wanton recklessness that displayed by the oil drilling operation, last month.The focus of its operations a full mile below, under the immense atmosphericpressures of that depth, it proceeded every day as if both the Gulf seas churningabove and the ancient and mighty Earth itself far below had somehow been"tamed" to mans providential dominance. It poked and prodded freely, andaccording to its whim, presuming to pluck and extract exactly what it would, andthat alone, from among the vastly powerful and ancient forces at play just underthe seas bottom.

Considering the known, probable and certainly devastating consequences oferror, how could it nothave seemed utter folly to dispense with safeguards thatwere not only well-known and available to prevent or mitigate the disaster, butactually in common use by the Company in other jurisdictions, that had the senseto require them? Truth is, BP was a little punch-drunk, high as a kite on thestellar profits going up, up and up every year. And the corporation, despite itsobscene wealth, has earned a famous reputation among its peers as a notoriously

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"cheapskate." It does not like to spend money, thank you very much. It muchprefers making it. As much as possible, please.And again.

And besides: the Company could do no wrong, really. Like the tobacco companiesin days of old, it enjoyed a certain swagger that had much to do with standing in

the favorable negotiating position of "dealers" with respect to "using addicts:" theformer holding a supply much needed by the latter. That unfortunate latter groupwould include you, and me, the people at work and your neighbors, and severalmillion more around the world. We all damned well need our cars, othermachines, etc., etc.

"BRAVO," said the stockholders. No longer. No amount of money will ever makeit right, unless you feel a price tag can be put on the planet Earth. Because thatmight just be what has been lost.

Do I sensationalize? Read on.

I. Mind-Boggling Disasters Make for Devilishly Hard Writing.

Never before have I struggled so mightily with a posting. Generally, all I need tosee me through from first word to the last period is some sense of my message,and (if Im lucky) a general idea of how I plan to get there. I will start this onewith a prayer.

Why? Because we need one. I hope that you, in your own way, might join me. Theexact words you use, or whomever you might or might not choose to "address" it,are no ones real business but your own and those with whom you choose toshare. I suppose I refer here to the focusing of sacred intention, and I do believethat there is a Power in it. Individually, and somehow especially, collectively.

And if I have ever felt that a Great and Fateful Hour has arrived, and that we willvery shortly need every bit of help we can get, in whatever form it might come,that hour has arrived.

The time is now.

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This posting has been different, in a most agonizing way. I keep trying, becausereally I have no choice. At least seven or eight times now, nearly a full week, and

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all Ive to show for it thus far are a few selected images stuffed in a virtual foldersomewhere on this damned computer, some rambling paragraphs, and a state ofagitation that allows me no lasting peace. Call me melodramatic, I do not care.But in the whistle of the winds that have been strangely gusting outside mywindows for the last several hours, swaying the palms about, I have felt the Earth

weeping. "She is bleeding," I thought, seeing ancient black oil pouring forthwhere it has no business, in quantities too vast for the Earth to mount an effectiveimmune response.

Stop for a moment, and think. Has not the Earth been good to us? Despite everymanner of assault, insult, and wholesale destruction of her natural finery, havewe not time after time received from her mercy, and not justice?

Where would any of us be without her? Wherewillany of us be?

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Detail, W.P.A. Art, Coral Way Elementary, Miami, FL

_____________________________________________________

Before pursuing our relentless inquiry right down into the ocean's depths, let'spause for a moment to consider Carl Sagan's vision of this pale blue dotwe call

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home. The man was most certainly a scientist with a wonderful imagination, andthus apure poet. In 1990, as the Voyager spacecraft took its leave of our solarsystem, he had made request of NASA that the ship be directed to turn its lensback towards Earth one last time, to snap a picture of home. The picture isbelow, and the planet we all call home the tiny blue dot marked by the arrow,

seen from a distance of nearly four billion miles. The words, and the boundlessimagination behind them, are classic Sagan.

And even now, as if on cue, the rain starts to fall. She will give us all she has, untilshe has nothing left and can do no more. God bless Mother Earth.

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They will say, As it once was.

A real heartbreaker. A pod, or family, of Dolphins, this weekend. What have we done?

My God, where are they to go? As of this point the waters pictured are only oil-slicked,

and the fish kill well underway even though their atmosphere is now only partially

poisonous. The deep, dark sea of solid oil is coming. Like us, these are mammals that liveand travel through their lives together as families. We lack the intelligence to measure

theirs. They do exhibit attributes of playfulness, and of love. Say a prayer for them. And

if you dont feel that in your heart, stop instead to pray for your family. We are not farbehind. We will all of us have to do something, and it may not always be clear exactlywhat is to be done. We share one home.

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II. ExactlyWhatAm I Writing About?

Answer: an oil hemorrhage of unprecedented size in open seas, close to home. Adisaster of epic and unimaginable proportions. A quickly moving target, its rippleeffects widening into ever-larger concentric circles as it continues to growmindlessly, shape-shifting by the hour, day, and week. In many ways, a mass ofcrude oil floating upon the open sea defies many of the laws of nature as we knowand understand them to be. To quote the statement made by the CEO of BP Oilwith regard to the cleanup efforts, We are learning as we go along.Comforting, huh?

Some lessons, all one can say is, Its just a damned shame that its become ourlot to learn them. Generally, ripple effects weaken in their outward spread,weakening as attenuating links of an expanding chain. Not so with the ongoingruin inflicted by an oil mass, especially one of this magnitude. It only gets worse.Exact effects are unpredictable, but they never, ever bring any good news.

One certainty we do have is exactly where the problem began, and the ongoingsource of the continuing damage:

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The real challenge becomes simply keeping up. Because the oil is always andmotion, and always will be, and never tires. And then there are the wild cards ofcorporate malfeasance and deceit, governmental obfuscation, understandableHuman denial, and an ongoing soft-pedaling by the media. A couple of daysago, I noted a front-page headline in the Miami Herald: Uncertainty Shrouds Oil

Threat to South Florida. People, we wish.

Uncertainty can indeed provide some comfort when facing the truly unthinkable,but in this situation provides false comfort. There is no uncertainty on thequestion ofif, onlywhen. And about even that, barely any. The answers are awful.I am no fatalist, and would never counsel giving up.

That being said, I must say that having been lied to tends to aggravate any seriousharm already inflicted. I am so disturbed and angry, in various turn, much moreso than I can ever recall feeling in response to any event outside the immediatesphere of my own day-to-day life. I am desperately seeking redemption, here, so I

have my work cut out for me.

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Everywhere I turn, looking for hope, the view only grows more dim, and my toesslip a little deeper into the bog of despair.

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It Keeps Growing, by Leaps and Bounds.

IN a way, wrestling with this post, and its message, has been such a struggle thatI have devoutly wished that Id not begun writing it. Whatever I come up withjust is not likely to be worth the cost. But then again, damn it, it wasn't exactly asif I had a choice. I had to do some work, here. And some hard thinking.

Even if no one listened at all; even if I knew for a fact that each and every of my

readers were to turn away, for any reason or none at all (and I cannot honestlysay that Id blame them), Id still have to try to express what I am feeling. And inthe process, explore that very question in the hope of finding some answers.

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Or possibly even some good questions. Whatever might lead us in the direction oftruth, no matter how awful, Ill take it. For our benefit and that of all succeedinggenerations, we have critical work to do. We cannot even begin to strategize untilthe truth has been told, and the cobwebs of corporate manipulation swept fromour eyes.

So, for example, if it is indeed correct that any real repair is unlikely, we canstop living in fear of that very possibility, and figure out how to move forward.Whatever we do, and wherever we go, I feel that we might have a chance, so longas we go there together. Yet we are so damaged. Obama was voted into office, Ibelieve, not so much for the change he promised, but because the Americanpeople had grown weary to the bone of the withering political cynicism that ranlike a river of corrosive acid through nearly every decision, priority, and choicemade by the previous administration. Nothing was safe; even our reveredConstitution was a grievous casualty. We have surrendered to a world in whichdaily color-coded states of alert told us what level of cold fear might be prudent,

in response to imagined threats, and yet survived. This threat is no phantom, andbeyond resolution by any form of national or global diplomacy.

We need not give up our political differences, but can no longer afford to grantthem the power to divide us and govern our relations. Diversity of thought is verymuch an American tradition, and to be honored. We must try to leave behind thetone of insult, personal insensitivity, and attack that have become part of politicaldiscourse; none of it necessarily belongs there.

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If we cannot join together in one spirit as we get to work, I am not sure that wewill make it. We must extend a hand to one another, and mean it, exactly as if theworld depended upon it.

OH, Little Bird. You were innocent. May you again take wing in a cleaner, better place.

If it means anything, Little One, I will say "I am sorry, so very sorry, that it had to end

this way. I am sorry that you have been so thoughtlessly robbed of all that was,

and ever would be, yours. Most of all, your right to spread your fine little wings, and fly.

On my own behalf, and that of all of my fellow Human Beings around the world, Iapologize. Rest in peace.

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I SOUND a madman, I know, and hope to God that is all this turns out to be:misplaced, over-hyped rantings. I would be utterly elated to be proven thealarmist fool. If any of what I am feeling and starting to read might be true,however, the hour has arrived for what Jeanne Houston called "Leap Time."Ifour species is to survive, she said, it will not be by sticking close to the path that

we walk, and know. If we are to remain viable in a world that knows onlyconstant adaptation and change, we will have to join together in taking a leap,possibly in a manner and towards a direction beyond our present conception.Ifwe do not, she said, we shall all perish.

Asa matter of survival, we the People must set aside our differences and onceagain focus upon our common humanity. So let us focus, if we must, on ourchildren, nieces or nephews, and theirchildren. We need to think bigger, andstart acting in concert.

We are facing the battle of our lives.ForgetRush Limbaugh,forgetNancy Pelosi.And for Christ's sake, stop trying to make Obama an issue here. The presidenthad exactly as much to do with the situation as you, or I. So I address thisquestion to all of the American people, and I mean ALL:

Can we please start sticking to the point? Can we commit to keep our sharedfocus on any path that might lead us somewhere? I need a Yes from you, there.Honestly. Because without you, I have no hope. Together, we stand a chance.Divided and isolated, we are going down in flames. Lets not do that.

There is no shame in it, needing one another. And not just as a preposterousproposition offered in this web log posting ,or for a moment, but as a way ofproceeding into our future. So that we might each have a future; a luxury of timeto spend with those we love, in the kind of world we have known and loved.

And so it begins: off the coastline of Mobile, Alabama, a few days ago now.

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The sharing of simple beach time together, for example, without thought that atar clean-up will be needed before getting back in the car. That is, if we are stillable to go to the beaches, at all.

Beach Rapture (Pass-a-grille)P. Crockett

One of countless sweet, simple days i have been privileged to hang out on the beach, in

this case captured on canvas as I sat in the sand. The painting was done at Pass-a-GrilleBeach in St. Petersburg, on the Gulf of Mexico. In retrospect, I suppose such times were

so much a part of me that I took them for granted. Or, put another way, they have been

too close to me tosee. Now, I know a little better. I hope I get another chance.

Oh, what luxury: to pack up and head out for yet another glorious few hours onthe beach, instead of having to stay home, or go to yet another movie at that awful

mall. But it will be harder when the breezes on the shore have come to smelloverwhelmingly ofoil (as theywill), that awfully strong chemical smell, andnothing like that clean salt spray we never really even bothered to think about.Looking back on it, we will realize thatIts the small things that make a life, andgive it sweetness.

And the time may come when we will allswearthat well just scream right outloud, together and all at once (who really cares if everybody thinks were gone

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nuts, is what Dad'll say) if we come across even one more baby or Momma seaturtle gone all stiff and covered in black washed up on the shore, so dead its hardto imagine it had ever known life. Or maybe even more so, another dolphin (itsworse when a whole family tumbles in, sort of glued together like bowling pins.But theyre not.) That is awful because theyve just gone so still, and we

remember how they used to play out in the surf, delighting us with the gracefularc of their dive. Plus, they always looked like they were smiling.

Even another shark washed up, sharp teeth and all. Its just not the same oceanwithout them. Nothing out there really even knows if you bleed, anymore.

________________________________________

Come to think, it would be awful nice to think that anything was still out there,living carefree and beautiful like the fish always used to. As we imagined that theyalways would. The sea horses, the star fish, the stingrays, even the jellyfish. Thesea was so alive.

And meanwhile the thick roiling clouds of black crude continue to gush out andupwards into the once-clean sea at ungodly rates, exactly as they have for 28 daysand nights as of this writing, along with an unknown quantity of gases not at all

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fully understood, and themselves quite likely to pose a serious threat. Possiblysooner rather than later. Nevertheless, I have seen as of yet only the business asusual effort of each governmental agency and oil interest involved in the fiascoto look busy and cover their own behinds, not necessarily in that order.

If I seem unkind to some of the good people that are working heroically aroundthe clock to do whatever they can, even as we still await the ominous andinevitable arrival of this new black and deadly sea that will forever despoil ourshores, I regret that.

I have been thinking: it is in the People alonethat is you and that is me, tosomehow work our way out of this.

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Longer-term projection based upon volume of oil released and oceanic current patterns.WE did NOT ask for this.

III. Life In a Slippery New World:Reality Check.

This is an extremely dangerous time in which to make assumptions. We have noteven begun to take the tally of that which has been destroyed, even in the veryshort-term. I am no expert, but I know enough to say with some certainty that thedamage to be done will be exponentially worse than the worst you could imagine.There has never, ever been such a huge quantity of oil released into the sea, and

that would be true even if the gusher will not still vomiting forth its dark poisonexactly as if it had an intention to destroy.

As if life were not enough of a demanding struggle before this news broke. Now,on top of the white-knuckled struggle to keep roofs over our heads, deal withrapacious lenders and their credit cards, etc., etc., we stand together on thethreshold of a whole other kindof nightmare. Hyperbole, or literaryextravagance? Hardly. Think about it: even the most horrific of bad dreams reachtheir end upon our awakening. Not so here.

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Ive a feeling that coming to terms with a disaster of this magnitude is like grief; itcannot be done all at once, or (necessarily) according to any specific schedule. Itmay be like peeling the layers of an onion. It will not be easy, and many tears will

be shed. Each new realization will be a small awakening, deeper into a baddream.

My God, how I hope I am dead wrong. My God, how I fear that I am not.

And who have we to turn to, really? Who to even tell us the truth?

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Honest to God: with corporate citizens of this disastrous caliber, who in the Hell needs Al

Qaeda (or any other imported radical group) to bring down our country, and fast? Not

even the most ingenious terrorist plot could have inflicted such severe, ongoing, and

lasting damage, on so many fronts.

By all means: clue us in, please. A Giant evil squid? An 8-armed octopus, armed with 8

secret tools of sabotage? What??

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Meanwhile, about a mile beneath the sea, a different kind of gaseous slime flowsoutward even more constantly. The blather above, that makes a sound, onlyseems as if it will never stop. The flow below, tragically, neither stops nor evenpauses.

Even now, nearly a month in and the oil moving in our direction, we have no realidea of what is actually happening out in the Gulf of Mexico, nor any sense ofscale to inform our response to whatever might start washing up on our shores.We have no information , and so cannot prepare. What is wrong with thispicture?

___________________________________________________

I was disturbed by this headline, two weeks ago:

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They should choose important words more carefully, I thought. We all knowwhat a spill is, and we reach for that term "by default" when we hear of crude oilaccidentally hitting water. "Spill" implies just that: a vessel emptied, or even the

outflow from a pipe temporarily damaged. A spill, even when "fresh," signifies tothe public damage done in the recent past tense. In every such event we have everhad to deal with, the amount of oil released is not itself in question. There mightbe a substantial mess, but no mystery. That becomes helpful as the focus shifts tocleanup. In an important sense, it is much more of a noun than any sort of verb,or process unfolding.

I found myself blurting out loud to the newspaper, as if it could hear, or care,"This is NOT a spill. The use of the term just did not square with what I'd heard,that the "leak" was still very much an open wound, and flowing. Crude oil wasstill being actively released into the Gulf of Mexico, exactly as it had from themoment of first rupture.

If the leak is serious, I thought, and oil is still pouring out, it's no simple "spill,and use of the word is flat-out misleading. If the damage is still being done, Ithought, weve got an entirely different kind of problem on our hands, anddefinitely one that deserves to be addressed as such.

This headline might be closer to the truth:

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I must say: the idea that the Government apparently does not want us to knowthe scope of the problem is itself highly disturbing. The idea is no paranoiacfancy, but an official policy documented abundantly both expressly and through

conspicuous omission in reporting on this event. I can imagine a few reasons whyit would prefer that the information not become public, but I find none of themsatisfying, or even vaguely comforting.

if the world is actually going up in flames, for example, Id rather not be handed alemonade and advised to sit out the heat wave, Thank You Very Much

But maybe thats just me.

.

I believe that we have a right to know, but apparently others in positions of muchgreater power, disagree.

1921. Amoco eventually absorbed by BP.

We are learning that much , much more oil has been released from the site, bytens of millions of gallons, than was ever reported to us by anyone. It will soonbecome clear that the "news we have been spoon-fed, at the pleasure of BP Oil,or the USA GOV, disturbing though it might have been, may boil down only to a

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meringue mish-mash of omissions, statistics, lies, and damn lies intended topacify more than inform. The American people, and indeed the citizens of theworld, have been consistently lied to, "handled," and tossed every imaginableshred of distraction since this crisis began.

The perennial question of governmental credibility, however, will soon be theleast of our problems. The more we know, the greater will be our outrage. Andwith sound reason. The important question will become,What are we to do withit?

Take a look at this video:

IV. Coming Soon to a Shoreline Near You!

The monster is coming to Florida. As sure as the charted oceanic currents remain in

motion, it is coming:

http://blog.skytruth.org/2010/05/bp-gulf-oil-spill-slick-now-entrained.html

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As of today, the damned oil slick was more than twice the size of New Jersey, yetonly day before yesterday was only (only?) the size of Maryland. (Just for therecord, I must note that this trend of gauging the size of oil slicks so very close toour coastline with reference to the size of states is highly disturbing. In a veryshort time, however, we will be seeing any number of things turn utterly freaky.As of yet, weve no real idea exactly how much so.

It's bound to be a heart breaker.

Even as the slick grows, various novel formations of oil have begun coning andspiraling outwards, under the sea's surface, in different directions. It is a novelexperience, observations of such pluming, , since oil is lighter than water andthus tends to rise to the surface and form slicks.. Here, for the first time, wehave sufficient quantities loose in the sea to displace huge volumes of water. Notgood.

Upon reflection, the slick might bear a disturbing resemblance to an iceberg, in

the sense that most of the action is happening inexorably, with great stealth,beneath the water and thus outside of our field of vision. There is much more tothe oil than even the monstrous slick alone would suggest.

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And, just in time for Hurricane season. Think about storm surge in a sea of oil,and you will soon long for the good old days, when driving winds and smashingwalls of water simply tore to shreds all within their path. Utter destruction, but atleast it was clean. Add an unknown quantity of crude oil into that ruinousequation, and you've got a different kind of clean-up required. One that we wouldhave no clue how to undertake, even if we could begin to afford it. Not onlyeverything upon the land, but theEarth itselfthere could quite easily becomeuninhabitable. For generations.

Utterly poisoned. A desert wasteland.

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I'm just saying.

The odds of a hurricane hitting land somewhere among the coastal shorelinealong the Gulf of Mexico this year are extremely high, possibly 100%.

And unfortunately, the oil will be everywhere. In quantities and patterns ofdispersal even the experts can only now begin to guess about. My questions aremany, and simple. I wonder: If a shoreline is already saturated, will the oil justkeep piling on atop itself? Or will the field of ever-incoming oil in effectivelyextend the shoreline, forming a black scrim changing the very shape of our

beloved land? Will the waves become sluggish, having become somewhat moresolid than liquid? Will there still be foam? If so, will it still be white in color? Willthe sand become hard? Will all beaches be closed for the rest of our lives, forreasons of public health?

Will the seagulls survive? And if so, how? I hate these questions. I dont wannaknow.I do NOTwant to know.

But what I want, what any of us would really want, no longer makes anydifference.

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Maybe now you understand why I am feeling a little crazy.

Quite honestly, I find myself longing already for the good old days.

Why, time was, even a poor mountaineer who could barely keep his family fedwas as likely as not to strike oil as he was shootin up some food, equipped onlywith the technology of his rifle (and company of his faithful dog):

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And up through the ground came a bubblin' crude. Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

And here was the extent of the environmental damage:

Sigh. But that was then.

V. Now, the Bad News.

The worst part of the present scenario, by far, is that we don't know how to fix the

leak. A growing number of experts are beginning to whisk aside the "spin," andpublicly opine that, in light of the the present mess still precariously perched onthe sea floor at "Ground Zero," and the intense atmospheric pressures involvedand the sheer depth of the site, there isno known way to "plug the leak."

A monstrous door of destruction has been opened that no science fiction writercould have imagined,just like that. And we don't know how to close it. Wait aminute, you say, They opened it. You are telling me that THEY CANNOT FIX IT?

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Right. Look: I have no interest in alarming anyone, but that does appear to be thecase. At this time, we lack the technological skill to stop this leak, nor will thatnecessarily change within the foreseeable future. It might be YEARS, and it mightbe NEVER. In any event, either possibility might add up to the same result, agrand sum of zero.

I hope to God that I am wrong.

Listen "between the lines" to this story from yesterday's Wall Street Journal,reporting on the take of Janet Napolitano, the Head of our country's HomelandSecurity Administration, on the subject. (Why has the very idea of a bureaucracyfor homeland securityalways sounded so alien to me, so farfrom home, and leftme feeling so insecure?)

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. Homeland Security Secretary JanetNapolitano, who declared a Gulf of Mexico oil spill an event of "nationalsignificance" nine days after a deadly oil-rig explosion, on Monday said that theObama administration had showed an "all hands on deck" response "since dayone."

Napolitano also said that the response to the disaster could be far from windingdown. "Worst-case scenario is we'll be at this for quite a while," Napolitano toldthe Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. "We'renot at the beginning--we've been at it a month almost--but we're not near the endas well."

(Emphasis added.)

So, that is where we stand. I have marginal faith only in the Government, andobviously none in BP or any of the Big Oil concerns, but I do believe in you. I amspeaking as seriously as I know how, so I need for you to listen. Please. It is in usthat I'd put my money, and in that prospect alone can I scout out hope.

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Morningside by the Bay P. Crockett

I thought a color-filled reminder that Biscayne Bay is not yet blackened and deadmight be called for, as a question of balance. Its not here yet.

Thank God for our Bay.

And with that touch of gratitude I leave off for now, because I am at last spent.Thank you for lending me your ear. God bless and keep you and yours
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awakening into the great american nightmare

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