Troubled Waters; Furrowed Brow

I know this blog is not as timely as it could have been. It’s just that I don’t want to do a whole lot of whining on here; or bitch at or bully an audience who might not give a hoot about the subject at hand. But this one has gotten to me and I had better get it out of my system or sink into a slough of despond, dragging those about me down into the dark and dreadful with my own tortured soul. Well, I guess I could shut up and bash my head against the wall.

But, well, ahem…

Last week the container ship Cosco Busan bashed into the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and spilled an estimated 58,000 gallons of “bunker” fuel into San Francisco bay which then, as is the nature of oil spills, began its insidious spread across the troubled waters.

Environmentalists have been on the case of bunker fuel for decades because it’s literally a bottom-of-the-barrel type of oil that is 1,000 times dirtier than the diesel oil used in trucks and buses and is an “asphalt-like” substance that pollutes the air, endangers marine life and threatens human health. Although a clean-up effort is in the works, it is likely that this poison will remain in the Bay for many years.

Of course, the usual scenario, everybody is pointing fingers at everybody else and the legal profession has already jumped to the rescue, laying a defensive bank of rhetorical fog over the entire tragedy. Although I agree that placing blame is important in the scheme of things (yes, I vindictively want somebody to fork over a whole lot of money and maybe even go to jail); but a lot of good that does the dead and dying birds, animals and plants in the path of this spill.

I guess I’m especially incensed because I’ve recently been tempting the fates by writing paeans of appreciation to the bay area beaches, including Crissy Field, Cronkite (Rodeo) Beach, Ocean Beach and, last year, Stinson Beach, all of which are included in the list of 25 beaches that have been closed to the public because of this tragedy. Praising something to the gods, even on a blog, only seems to rile ‘em up. I think there are words for when you question this phenomenon. Oh, yeah, I remember: “Because you piss me off!”