Ted, serious this time
Ted and I have a Sunday morning ritual—the political talk shows and then brunch at the kitchen table, with Ted invariably plopping himself down on whatever articles I want to read. Most of the news this week was about the Gulf oil spill. BP’s latest attempt to cap the undersea gusher had failed. Would President Obama’s political standing be hurt by all this? And what about the economic impacts, short-term and long?
I said, “Listen to this, Teddy boy. According to Ed Overton, an environmental scientist at LSU, ‘We’ve got to get more vessels. We don’t need 1,300, we need 10,000. Now’s the time to stop being optimistic and get the assets out there.’”
Then, just a few paragraphs later, I read another expert saying that—in so many words—you ain’t seen nothin’ yet, and that if hurricane season arrives and there’s still all that oil in the water, “You can take a big tar mop and paint the Gulf Coast black.” I was about to tell Ted how I felt about all this but he’d already gone upstairs to the keyboard.
speaking for all of us with fur
speaking for those who have feathers
luscious creatures once
and bivalves and mollusks and crustaceans
let somebody else talk about jobs and politics
till the animals are all dead
c’mon put someone really mad
in charge of this
summon the supertankers call up the
national guard
make believe it was terrorism if that’ll help
okay so we have to hope bp caps the well
but somebody needs to scoop up the oil
like the world was ending right now
this minute
where are the ten thousand vessels?
you can’t wash this stuff off your paws
you can’t bring dead critters back to life and
you can’t clean your conscience
not if you’re not all-in this time
all-in
want me to speak just for cats on couches?
not today
Ted the Cat (1994-present) is a domestic shorthair blogger and vers libre poet. He also enjoys sleeping, eating, and lurking. Ted the Cat co-habits with Kaze,
also a blogger at 317am.net.
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Ted, dear friend,
Neither Bardd Blewyn, nor I could answer here. It made us cry and wonder if soon the beautiful song “Whose Garden Was this?” will become the world’s national anthem.
Whose Garden Was This?
Words and Music by Tom Paxton
Whose garden was this?
It must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I’ve seen pictures of flowers,
And I’d love to have smelled one.
Whose river was this?
You say it ran freely?
Blue was its color?
I’ve seen blue in some pictures,
And I’d love to have been there.
Chorus:
Ah, tell me again I need to know:
The forest had trees, the meadows were green,
The oceans were blue and birds really flew,
Can you swear that was true?
Whose grey sky was this?
Or was it a blue one?
Nights there were breezes?
I’ve heard records of breezes,
And you tell me you’ve felt one?
Whose forest was this?
And why is it empty?
You say there were bird songs?
And squirrels in the branches,
And why is it silent?
(Chorus)
Whose garden was this?
It must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I’ve seen pictures of flowers,
And I’d love to have smelled one.
Thanks, Deborah. A heartbreaker. Here’s the youtube link for people who don’t know the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSb_XAZsrhw
This was a good document as usual comrade