Today marks the six-month anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig accident that turned into the largest oil spill in the history of the United States. Yesterday marked the one-month anniversary of the final sealing of the well, although the spill was largely contained by mid-July.

The media being so totally distracted by the midterm elections, they have pretty much forgotten about the oil spill, which has the unfortunate side effect of giving people an opportunity to put it out of their minds and/or jump to the conclusion that “all’s well that ends well” (pun intended). So let’s try to counteract that here, shall we?

Writing in the latest issue of Orion Magazine, Terry Tempest Williams writes about her first-hand experiences in New Orleans and other parts of coastal Louisiana over the summer, roughly from the time the temporary cap was installed until the final seal in September. Here’s a short excerpt of an encounter with a ruined shore and a reporter from CBS News engaged in some serious spin:

The marsh grasses are burnt. The mud flats hold an iridescent sheen, and it looks like a painter came to shore with buckets of oil and dipped his brush in it, then spattered the island with drops, not black or brown, but red drops, like blood. Comfort Island looks like the scene of a crime.

Jumping off the boat, I sink into the muck. It is my first look at an oiled beach. Shells are strewn across the shore, angel wings, whelks, and tiny, hinged sunrise shells. Brown pelicans and royal terns are standing three, four deep on the edge of the island. One pelican is standing on the yellow boom, now a broken circle….

Farther down the beach, a television reporter from the CBS Evening News stands with perfectly coiffed hair, sporting a flak jacket. He wants a shot with the yellow boom in the background. He is about to interview Dr. Paul Kemp, vice-president of the National Audubon Society’s Louisiana Coastal Initiative. He asks his cameraman if he is ready. The cameraman gives him the go sign: “It’s Day 100 and I am on Comfort Island in the Breton Sound with Dr. Paul Kemp of the National Audubon Society. Dr. Kemp, would you agree this is not the environmental disaster we were all expecting?”

“It’s too early to tell,” says Dr. Kemp. “We just don’t know what the effects of the dispersants are going to be on the overall ecosystem.”

“But wouldn’t you agree that the oil spill isn’t as bad as was initially predicted?”

You can see some of that media distortion still in play in this Washington Post article about BP’s efforts to make restitution payments through their “Vessels Of Oppportunity” program. The article begins with the assertion that because the oil can’t be seen, it must not be a problem anymore, and goes on to complain about the behavior of the locals scrambling for cash from the beneficient BP.

This n+1 article from September by Erin Sheehy also talks about the efforts by the locals to cash in on the VoO program, without the obvious effort to minimize the effects and lingering aftermath that hallmark the WashPost story.

Another devastating first-hand account comes from Natural Resources Defense Council spokesperson Rocky Kistner in the Huffington Post today. His words sadly echo those of Terry Tempest Williams with their descriptions of bayous turned to tar pits and the animals who inhabit that ecosystem poisoned by the hydrocarbons, while BP tries to discourage any truthful accounting of loss of wildlife:

These thoughts still plague fishermen here. They know the bayous like the back of their hands. Many people here know the oil is not gone, and they worry their lives will never be the same. Government assurances that the waters are safe for fishing just don’t wash with many of them. Scientistific reports that the marsh is recovering and the oil damage may not be as bad as once thought are met with skepticism by the fishing community here. They know something’s not right, the shrimp aren’t in the normal places and the large ones don’t seem to be migrating out to sea as they normally do this time of year.

I’ve seen numerous samples of shrimp people have saved with a black substance in their gills. Just this week, an NRDC colleague was taking photos at the Venice marina when she was shown a large grey shrimp by an irate fisherman who claimed the gills were full of hydrocarbons. Is it oil? We don’t know, but people have to choose between catching and selling these shrimp or starving themselves. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation for them. And it’s causing tension in the community.

With the embargo on offshore drilling now lifted, it’s only a matter of time before the next such disaster, but by then our attention will have been drawn so far away that we might even forget that this ever happened…just like the last time.

Well, not really, but this Washington Post article from Saturday does a good job of summing up the current state of affairs with the use of RFID tags, including the significant privacy and identity theft issues that have yet to be well-addressed in the policy sphere. Regular BKO readers have read me spouting off about RFID for years, but newcomers and drive-bys might benefit from reading this. There are many valid and even desirable uses for RFID tags — after a false start several years ago, Wal-Mart is compelling ALL of their suppliers to tag every case and pallet they ship and that will ripple through the entire retail sector — but there are just as many, if not more, poorly conceived and downright shady schemes that are going to be upon us. Better awareness now will be well-used later.

Former commandant of the United States Marine Corps Charles Krulak and former CENTCOM commander Joseph Hoar have written this editorial in today’s Washington Post. It addresses the Bush Administration’s policies on the use of torture, recognizing from personal experience with combat that torture is next to worthless as a method of intelligence gathering and serves only as a method of terrorism itself. While it might create a level of “security theater” designed to assuage a panicky public, it creates a whole new set of problems: not only does counterterrorism seem to embolden and strengthen the resolve of the insurgents, it all but guarantees that these same methods will be used against our troops now and forever.

Sadly, 43% of Americans approve of the use of torture (scroll for it; it’s a long way down the page), and, as my post below discusses, collectively we are deliberately ignorant about the things we do, deliberately in denial about the reality of the situations that confront us, easily spooked into panic-drive over-response, and able to gin up our own fantasies and mythologies to justify that.

Comments:
Bravo! I just wrote a small piece about the American People’s ignorance and lack of ability to think for themselves.

It’s good to see you blogging again, Brian!
Posted by Sarah [URL] on 05/17/07

Yesterday’s Washington Post reported that functional illiteracy in the District of Columbia hovers around 36%. In other parts of the United States, functional illiteracy among teenagers is estimated to be as high as 50%. (via MetaFilter)