Saturday, June 05, 2010

BTW, Has anyone proposed lighting the ocean on fire?

Dear gentle reader-

This post finds me in a fantastical mood. I've followed the BP gulf oil scandal with bated-breath, devouring any photos of the event I can get my greedy fingers on. I'm not so much interested in the Morning Show style of "failed heavy mud dump" talking points, but more along the lines of "how will we survive when the oceans have become poisoned and Ed has to live in a post-apocalyptic world he has yearned for?".

Look at this image I found of boats trying, as far as I can tell, to make pretty designs in the surface sheens.



The color palette immediately immediately reminded me of William Blake's Nebuchadnezzar, one of my all time favorites.



The painting of course depicts the dream in which Nebuchadnezzar goes insane (the un-PC term would be stark raving mad) and lives in the wild like an animal for seven years. For what some have surmised to be clinical lycanthropy, in which the affected person has delusions of being transformed into an animal, does this foreshadow a more conspicuous example, perhaps Kafka's The Metamorphosis?

Regardless, living alone in the wilderness doesn't seem like such a punishment to me. I would miss the internet and civilized facilities. After all, it was Mencken himself who said, "I'd trade the whole Acropolis for one American bathroom".

But I digress. Where were we? Oh, yes. The oil spill and finger pointing.

I like how the speechifying pontiff-in-Chief would rather play puppeteer to 15% of the nation's economy than show some goddamn exectutiveness and fix arguably the largest man-made environmental disaster since Chernobyl.

Staring agog from across your computer screen: But, Ed how can you, from your ensconced throne of curmudgeonly libertarianism, advocate government interventionism? Of all the 10th amendment trampling in the last few years, wouldn't this qualify for the general welfare clause more than "cash for clunkers"?

But there is plenty of blame to go around, and I'm sure the filth of the tawdry scene will cling to everyone involved like oil on a damselfly's wings.



Update: Yes they are apparently planning on burning the ocean.