Image of oil spewing enthralls and repels

[n2doc]

By Bob Greene, CNN Contributor
June 27, 2010 8:35 a.m. EDT



Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose books include "Late Edition: A Love Story" and "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War."
(CNN) -- It's beginning to feel like this has been with us forever.

And harder for us to believe that one of these days, or months, or years, it will be gone.

It's the live video feed from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. When BP engineers lowered those cameras in the first place, you can bet they never imagined that the resulting pictures would be watched by hundreds of millions of infuriated people around the world.

No wonder the BP executives at first fought off requests that the television pictures from the Gulf floor be made available to the public. Think back to the early days of the spill. Experts were theorizing about how much oil was billowing, but BP had a little built-in breathing room. They were seeing how bad the leak was, but as long as the rest of the world wasn't, there was a chance to keep things relatively calm.

more

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/06/27/greene.oil.gush.feed/index.html

We're watching the slow death of our planet...

[obxhead]

1. I would say we a seeing the rapidly accelerating death of our

planet, but that's jmo.

[lunatica]

2. That video is meaningless against photos of the destruction

[alsame]

3. I can no longer watch, it literally makes me

nauseous now. I think I've internalized everything I've heard about the smell and texture, because I have a physical reaction to the video even though I'm nowhere near the Gulf.

As for all the video of wildlife, it just makes me cry. I couldn't even read the story here about the baby dolphin who was crying as it died - the headline alone brought me to tears.

[n2doc]

4. kick n/t