The Gulf

The gulf between what BP says and what it does has grown more obvious, if not larger. It may always have been as big as the Gulf of Mexico.

The situation has gone way beyond links to news stories.

There is something called "The Beauty Strip," such as the strip of trees on the side of the highway that masks the clearcuts, concrete buildings and toxic waste dumps on the other side. BP tried that philosophy on the ocean, but using toxic chemical disperants to drive the oil below the surface where it couldn't be readily seen.

But there are cameras and they can go underwater, and the underwater death camps perpetrated by BP with the apparent connivance of the Bush era Interior Dept. are on view.

I expect that BP's various forms of lying--either lying directly to the federal government, or lying by means of PR to the public, or lying to its employees and those affected on land--bought top execs and stockholders the time they needed to move their money out of the company. But those not smart enough to intuit what was coming have lost out, because the company's paper is now worth half of what it had been, and some form of bankruptcy is coming.

President Obama continues to be hammered, irrationally as usual but also partly because of the White House. He should have addressed the nation by now, and taken some large action, even if it was symbolic rather than the serious action the federal government is taking, without credit. They really should have figured out by now that the only way open to them to communicate directly via TV is by getting that hour of prime-time, with the President in the Oval Office, talking directly to the nation.

But I must say that my overwhelming emotion right now is grief. There is so much death and dying out there in the Gulf, it's almost inconceivable. Yes, there are lives and livelihoods being tested among the people, but they're alive and they can move and adapt. Not so those thousands of creatures out there. The only appropriate response is keening, long and loud.