We are all watching

as oil continues to spill into the gulf with no plan in place to make it stop. What I can't help but think is that we have a case of leaking pipes, in which case we ought to call a plumber with a PhD in physics - someone who knows how to work one mile under the sea, with large volumes and extreme pressure. Isn't it a physics problem? Am I missing something? Or at the very least, can't we use a very large bucket? I have one under my sink if anyone's looking for a donation.

I keep thinking about the eureka! discovery of petroleum as a rich source of energy and it's popularization due to the internal combustion engine. We needed to go places, we needed to go there fast, and this magical material was going to get us there.

It must have been a natural progression of farming to think that energy, like our food, ought to come from the earth. In this way, someone at sometime must have thought they were doing something right, despite oil being this thick, black, smelly and dangerous shit that is toxic when consumed and highly combustible.

Our ancestors were stuck with their noses in the dirt, the Sun scarring red lines into their backs, pleading: "You're looking in the wrong place. Look up."