DAN'S PAPERS, June 25, 2010 Page 49 www.danshamptons.com
Twentysomething…By David Lion Rattiner I gotta say, Kevin Costner has kind of sold me. I’m sad. We’re all sad about this oil spill, especially when we’re down at the bay or at the ocean, looking out at the blue waters in awe. But now, when we look out, we can’t help but think about the images that are being presented in the Gulf. The spill is still going, and although I have no scientific knowledge of how much oil is in this well, my instincts are telling me that it’s a big one, and if this thing doesn’t get closed, it will all pour out into the ocean. But watching the response on how to deal with the oil gives me the same feeling I get when I see people who are excited about painting a room in a house or starting a business. It’s that happy- go-lucky, can-do feeling that morons get about doing real work. It’s almost always a spoiled brat too, who has good intentions about life, but 10 minutes after they pick up a paintbrush, they’re on their cell phone calling a painter. Or they leave the job to somebody else in the room, and then talk about how hard they worked all day. I hate these people because I’m always the guy who ends up doing the real work. These are the same people who think farm work is fun and romantic, yet have never spent eight hours straight picking anything in the hot sun, and who always talk about how they want to start a restaurant, but have never washed a
dish, set a table or mopped a kitchen in their entire lives. I’m seeing it now on the news with this oil spill. Cut your hair and then throw it in the ocean, let’s have a hair cutting party! Yay! Let’s spread out 100 yards of floating plastic in the water, that should stop it. Yeee ha. Let’s get together and wash a pelican and take pictures of it and put it up on our Facebook pages and show that we are all good people! Yippity dippity. This oil volcano makes me feel so sad and so hopeless that all I can do is write about it here or turn off the news and put it out of my mind. Everything I’ve seen in terms of a solution to clean up just seems like a joke or a fantasy.
However, if there is one guy who’s the Steve Jobs of this situation, it’s Kevin Costner. I’m sorry but that’s completely true. Years ago, with his own money, Costner built machines that separate oil and water that can be run 24-hours a day. Operated by a worker. this is something that could be a viable way to clean up this spill and spills in the future. What I can’t figure out is why it is being overlooked. Why is the focus on booms and hair and guys in plastic suits with trash bags? When it snows, we plow the roads with giant machines that run all night long and all day long. We don’t have a bunch of guys wearing snowsuits and picking up snow with trash bags. We don’t try to keep the snow out by setting up plastic tents over the roads. We use giant machines, with workers running them, who can do the work for long periods of time systematically and be compensated. There is no volunteer snow pick-up force, citizens don’t go out into the street and clear the roads, beyond shoveling their own driveway. Large machines that separate oil from water should be being built right now, and every fisherman who has lost his job in the Gulf should be getting a good wage to operate them. It makes a lot of sense to me, but what do I know? I’m just some guy up here, totally powerless to do anything that would help prevent what’s gurgling up in the Gulf.
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