Plug It Up! Plug It Up!

Are you a Stephen King fan? If so, those words might bring back his debut novel, Carrie, and the memorable shower scene that opened the movie. These days, we’d like to shout this at BP, but it’s going to take a lot more than cotton to stop this leak.

I've been following this story sporadically. It’s too depressing to do otherwise. Last night I was watching Anderson Cooper and it got worse. Cooper’s job is to take a story like this and drum up outrage. Here’s a prime example: due to the Jones Act of 1920, foreign ships have been turned away from joining the clean-up effort within a certain distance of our shoreline. Yes, you read that right. Other countries have volunteered to help and we said no. Unbelievable. If your house was on fire, would you refuse a firetruck made in Belgium? Read more here.

We’ve all seen the footage of oil gushing into the ocean. Ugh. I’d like to see something else. Do you remember the scene in Apollo 13 where they gather engineers in a room, dump a pile of random stuff on the table, and say, “They can’t get rid of their carbon dioxide. They’ll suffocate. This is the equipment they have. Fix it.” And they did. As far as I know, there’s no cameras focused on a set of engineers working furiously to plug the oil leak, but BP’s website is posting pictures and updates on what they’re working on.

The blame game is in full swing. Go ahead, pick one. BP is an easy choice, when you hear they may have put profit over safety. Or the politicians who okay’d drilling in the first place. Or how about us, the people who gobble up oil and gas at a rate of 17 million barrels a day?

I don’t know, but here’s what we all want: