Right now, in the summer of 2010, the world is experiencing it's greatest environmental disaster in the history of the world, an ecological disaster from which the world may never recover. The oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico, measuring millions of barrels gives the company, on which you could see signs on every highways just a few years ago, “gulf oil” a new significance. There were Gulf Oil service stations everywhere, above all, sponsoring NBC News coverage in the 1960s.
Early oil-derricks workers were called “roughnecks” because of their hazardous work, and wild living. Early auto-mechanics were called “greasemonkeys“. With the increasing size of the oil slick in the Gulf, the roughnecks have fled the derricks and all animal life in and around the Gulf can now be called “greasefish”, “greasepelicans”, “greasedolphins”, etc.
About ten years ago, before the place became a bigotry disaster of its own, I would go to the local YMCA each day for exercise. I met a young man there one day, who asked how I got to the place each day, I answered “most of the time I have someone who can drive my car, if not, I can take a taxi.” He said, “I would be glad to stop by and give you a ride.” I said, “ Only if you would let me give you the money I would normally give a cab.” So, for several months he would stop by each day and give me a ride. Turns out, he was a roughneck, oil-derrick platform worker in the Gulf of Mexico. His folks lived in the city, and he was home for several months vacation.
I learned from him all I need to know about these floating oil platforms about the size of a small village drilling in the Gulf, puffing out millions of gallons of oil from the ocean floor, thousands of them around the world. One would think that every possible problem involving their operation would have been legislated, regulated or at least discussed ahead of time. Surely, any engineer involved in oil production would recognize the need for certain fail-safe procedures. This man who worked on the oil drilling platform told me that the pay was exceptional, that the work was demanding, but not excessive, and that, “like most prisons, it was a haven and heaven for gay males.” Just perhaps, the employees did not have their mind on their work, and like so many other catastrophes, unexpected, always happening when someone is not alert. The world will be a long time recovering.
The thing about drilling for oil at the bottom of the ocean, or Gulf, at the depths comparable to the height of Mt. Everest, the oil drilling pipe must go many miles further, where there is tremendous pressure in the depths of the Earth. There is much explosive, flammable gases involved (this is the reason you see flames at the top of a derrick when oil is discovered). The gases escape into the atmosphere, and into nearby areas. When there is this type of spillage, marine-biological science and engineering takes over. Oil going on to land surfaces destroys everything, including the breeding grounds of marine life. Life depending on the marsh lands, breeding production, fresh seawater and nature's homeostasis. The insult to marine biology affecting the entire Gulf, will probably affect agricultural stability throughout the western United States. From Woods Hole in Massachusetts, the creme-de-creme of marine studies, to UNCW and the marine biology outpost along the Florida peninsula, and other places, Biologists, who up until now have been very silent about the disaster, should be right on top of this catastrophe.
In my lifetime, the study of science has disintegrated to a matter of funding, not a matter of truth. I was a supportive, active member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for most of my life, this was the premier, international, academic foundation of the scientific method, the sterility of accuracy, the battleground of truth. Now, with science as everything else, there are oceans of lies with just a ripple of truth, and vice-versa, oceans of truths can be dispelled by a wave of lies. Philosopher Henry Ward Beecher, said “you can put a small handle of truth on any lie, and people will believe it.” During the spill, from representatives of BP (British Petroleum) and from the federal government, we have seen one lie after another. News now, has become not a matter of journalism, but a matter of public relations. “Stinking-thinking” has given an aroma of distrust, deception, deceit to every area of the Obama administration. We need honesty in government, even more than that, we need honesty in reporting, we need honesty in the matter of global warming (Inconvenient Truth, carbon footprints).
I crossed Russia on the Trans-Siberian railroad, built in the early 1900s. This was a phenomenal experience for me. The railroad tracks have a different gauge than anywhere else in the world. Wheels on all trains not made in Russia, must be changed when they enter Russia. I was on the train, the Orient Express, going from London to Hong Kong, when the train car was jacked-up, the wheels interchanged by women railroad workers. It is “reported” that during the building of the railroad, a “flash-freeze” had occurred sometime in history, previously. Herds of hundreds of elephants had been “flash-frozen” instantaneously, standing, eating, food still in their mouths, their eyes instantaneously frozen, instantly covered in Siberian ice, preserved so that their meat could be eaten. Their meat, hundreds of years old, was sold in Paris restaurants as a delicacy. This is the same type science we are experiencing with Mr. Gore and his fellow purveyors of scam.
One reporter said that listening to Walter Cronkite was “like listening to the voice of God.” We know that Mr. Cronkite had a tremendous influence on Americans, we know that Mr. Cronkite help defeat America in Vietnam, because he was always a communist sympathizer.
While there is still sanity in the world, it is time to revolt against evil, whether from the evil of big oil, the evil of political correctness, the evil of modern science progenitors, or the evil of federalism and spiritual gnosticism.
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