“The time has come, the walrus said . . .” (thanks Tara! Be safe!) June 12, 2010

My daughter Bo was often sick when she was a child, to the point of being on intravenous antibiotics for osteomyalitis for a month. This meant lots and lots of needles, but she was a brave child, and she squeezed her eyes tightly closed and chanted, “If I can’t see it, it won’t hurt me.” This is an excellent strategy for a child, but for an adult . . . not so much.

Kirk Varner at WTNH just published an online editorial about where the TV station stands on showing pictures of what is happening to the animals in the Gulf as a result of the oil spill. Apparently, people are complaining about being forced to actually see these images as they are very disturbing. Believe me, I have to avert my eyes, as well. Varner, however, says in his piece, “. . . there is nothing about this situation that should be ignored or left on the editing room floor.” And I agree.

As human beings, we outdo the ostrich, burying our heads in the sand about things that disturb us, that seem too huge to be within our ability to control or change. The AIDS epidemic in Africa? Avert your eyes, change the channel and it’s gone. Genocide in Somalia? Click! Gone . . . no longer a part of our sphere of reality. Images of factory farming, most of them far worse than what you see coming at you from the Gulf? I dare you to try to watch them – God knows, I can’t. And yet, as disturbing as it all is, it is what Al Gore refers to as, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

AIDS in Africa or anyplace else touches us, factory farming inflicts enormous pain on animals and provides humans with a tainted and potentially fatal food source, and whether we look at the pictures or not, human beings are killing each other for such twisted and egotistical reasons it’s unbearable to contemplate . . . so we don’t. We change the channel and ignore it, don’t contact our politicians and demand something be done, don’t donate to organizations dedicated to attacking the problems. We blithely forge onward with our day-to-day lives. Even Al Gore, with all his impassioned pontification about global warming, ignores the well-documented fact that the meat industry is responsible for the production of more greenhouse gasses than all automobiles combined and refuses to give up steak because he just plain likes it. Damn, now that IS an inconvenient truth . . . and I voted for him!

But back to the pictures on the news. Can I look at them over and over again? Hell, I have to look away from the footage of the millions of gallons of oil spewing underwater, never mind the dying pelicans. But this is a disaster that is happening every day, it affects the residents of the Gulf, both animal and human, and will affect the planet long after my great grandchildren have passed on (and our oldest grandchild isn’t yet five.) This oil spill is symbolic of how Big Business has been allowed to conduct their business in the name of “PROFIT” with little regard for the its influence on the planet, humanity and yes, the pelicans and other living denizens of the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere.

In the end, why is it so hard to look at these incredibly graphic photos in the news? I believe it’s because no matter how hard we try to pretend we are separate and far above every horrible thing that happens in the world, our souls recognize that we are all connected, intertwined with the same spirit, and whatever happens to, for example, the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti and children enslaved in the sex trade, is on some level happening to all of us. Don’t buy my argument? Then go ahead, look at those pictures and walk away unaffected – I dare you!

But even if we don’t look, that needle is still stabbing us in the arm and we feel the pain. And it’s going to keep coming back to stab us again, so we might as well be REALLY brave and take a hard look at it to understand what’s happening to us, and then, maybe even do something about it . . .

To start, I will not buy gas from BP. And with the 11 miles to the gallon my farm truck guzzles down, that’s 75 bucks every two weeks. What are you going to do to make sure this never happens again?

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