Fish Story

On July 22, we saw the Gulf of Mexico oil spill reach its 3-month birthday.

Since its inception, we have had a live, twenty-four-hour, streaming, watch-it-as-it's-happening, judge-it-if-you-must, judge-it-again, denounce-and-drive-less, boycott-BP view of the oil spill (trans)action(s). We have also had twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week, malleable, variable, variously-incongruous streams of news, of misinformation, of new news to correct old news, of information to amend missed information, of it-must-be-someone-else's-fault-because-it-is-not-mine/ours/theirs/yours/his/hers blame-games, of someone-must-have-missed-this-story-so-it-must-be-real stories. Upside-inside-downside-out. What a world. What a world.

Can humor be the catch to a reality that is stubbornly and irreversibly a fish story?

Kurt Vonnegut, excerpt, Happy Birthday, Wanda June, applicable:

Penelope. I will not be scrogged. I remember one time I saw you wrench a hook from the throat of a fish with a pair of pliers, and you promised me that the fish couldn't feel.

Harold. It couldn't!

Penelope. I'd like to have the expert opinion of the fish--along with yours.

Harold. (Shaking his head) Fish can't feel.

Penelope. Well, I can. Some injuries, spiritual or physical, can be excruciating to me. I'm not a silly carhop any more. (An unexpected, minor insight.) Maybe you're wrong about fish. When I was a carhop, I didn't feel much more than a fish would. But I've been sensitized. I have ideas now--and solid information. I know a lot more now....

What do we know?

From BP?



From History?



From Vonnegut?

"...just as a fish flopping on a riverbank knows it belongs in the water."

From "America's Finest News Source"?

"Massive Flow of Bullshit Continues To Gush From BP Headquarters."

Photo Credits: Pat Bagley; Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Big Fish Eat Little Fish, 1556.