Saturday, July 31, 2010

The Millimum Plus-10 Gulf Oil Gusher

-
USA Today 7-28-10, Pg 1: Oil and tourists skip Gulf beaches even though majority of vacation spots declared OK
-
Roanoke Times, 7-31-10, Pg 5: Focus changing in spill cleanup.
-
Remember the Millimum Bug? The media “shouted” that our entire modern society including all infrastructures was destined to self-destruct midnight New Years Eve 1999/2000.
But it didn’t! Businesses, industries, utilities and government all worked diligently in 1999 and very few problems occurred. Was a lesson learned?
-
Fast forward to 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. A mile deep oil well blow-out, killed 12 drilling system workers (not a big issue in the major media) and then the escape of 94 to184 million gallons of raw crude flowed into the Gulf.
-
So here we are on July 28 (100 days later) and the USA Today states: “the oil spill has NOT fouled the vast majority of the area’s beaches” and vacationers should come-on-down! We haven’t even had tar balls or anything with hundreds of miles of our beaches” said D.T. Minch of Visit St. Petersburg tourism authority. (Earlier media predicted oil would flow into the Atlantic and foul beaches as far north as Myrtle Beach!)
In Mississippi (A as in one) beach was closed for a week in Hancock County, but others have remained open, some with advisories.
Few beach warnings have been issued in Alabama and Florida and none in Texas.
-
The Roanoke Times Pg 5 story update: A new analysis by the NOAA showed most surface oil in the Gulf had degraded to a thin sheen and beaches in Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle will likely not have significant problems.
About 70% of Louisiana waters (the most affected areas) are now open to commercial fishing.
-
The Gulf oil spill is indeed a major issue. Has it been blown out of context? Have millions of dollars in tourist and vacation revenue been scared away unnecessarily?
Is there a lesson here? As Ron Emanuel, Obama’s Chicago main man, has said “let’s not waste a serious crisis”!
However in this crisis case Obama’s got tar-balls on his hands.
http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2010/06/obamanation-continues.html
-
Perhaps having major media “news” 24x7 with an insatiable appetite for ratings will someday become passé. Perhaps the “news” media can trade-down their “anchors” with the fashion looks and miniskirts for news we can believe in.
Perhaps not; Perhaps we get what we tolerate.
-
http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2010/05/obamas-gulf-oil-actions-of-ill-repute.html
-

No comments:

Post a Comment