I saw this photo on Friday and it took my breath away, this sea bird coated in thick crude, looking almost stonelike and polished. This is what our addiction does to our planet.
Here is the brief text from The Boston Globe explaining the photo and seven others included in the package:
A short entry – AP Photographer Charlie Riedel just filed the following images of seabirds caught in the oil slick on a beach on Louisiana’s East Grand Terre Island. As BP engineers continue their efforts to cap the underwater flow of oil, landfall is becoming more frequent, and the effects more evident.
I have been working on a poem on the spill, our oil culture and the damage that we do. I’ll post it when it’s done.
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Hank Kalet 
These photographs and the reality that they reflect are horrifying, appalling and heart rending. At this rate, the Gulf of Mexico will become a dead zone, a burial ground for all the creatures that used to call this place home. What is going on in the Gulf would be comparable to some giant industrial complex spewing giant clouds of toxins into the atmosphere non-stop, every day for months on end. People would die by the thousands. The oil gushing into the Gulf and the chemicals used to disperse it are deadly toxins that are killing marine life, the birds and the plant life. It's not just the oil on the surface, it's also the huge plumes of oil under the water, plumes that are miles long, miles wide and thousands of feet deep.One can only admire and applaud the many volunteers who are making heroic efforts to clean off the oil soaked birds. But one also has to wonder what about all the oil that these birds have ingested and what effect it will have on the birds. And once the birds are released, will they return to their former breeding grounds only to become oil soaked again?
What oil spill? This from right wing corporate lackey lick-spittle shill Haley Barbour of Mississippi: \”The truth is,\” he said, \”we have had virtually no oil. If you were on the Mississippi Gulf coast anytime in the last 48 days you didn't see any oil at all. We have had a few tar balls but we have had tar balls every year, as a natural product of the Gulf of Mexico. 250,000 to 750,000 barrels of oil seep into the Gulf of Mexico through the floor every year. So, tar balls are no big deal. In fact, I read that Pensacola or the Florida beaches when they have tar balls yesterday didn't even close. They just sent people out to pick them up and throw them in the bag.\” \”The biggest negative impact for us has been the news coverage,\” Barbour added. \”There has been no distinction between Grand Isle and Venice and all the places in Louisiana that we feel so terrible for that have had oil washing up on them. But to the average viewer [of] this show thinks that the whole coast from Florida to Texas is ankle-deep in oil. And of course, it's very, very bad for our tourist season. That is the real economic damage. Our first closure of fisheries in Mississippi waters came just earlier this week after about 45 days. So it may be hard for the viewer to understand, but the worst thing for us has been how our tourist season has been hurt by the misperception of what is going on down here. The Mississippi gulf coast is beautiful. As I tell people, the coast is clear. Come on down!\”Here's another gem from this proto-fascist corporate-hugging reactionary:On CNN’s State of the Union, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) defended Gov. Bob McDonnell’s (R-VA) omission of slavery from his proclamation on Confederate History Month. Barbour told CNN host Candy Crowley that it seems unnecessary to mention slavery because everyone knows that it was a “bad thing” and that people are exaggerating something that “doesn’t matter for diddly.”