5-28-10 Richard Crowson’s Commentary

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I was going to do another commentary today about British Petroleum’s oil massacre of the Gulf of Mexico. But when I sat down to write it and began thinking about the leak which is a mile below the surface of the water, my thoughts were interrupted by a BP official who burst into my brain and quickly waved me away from the scene.


“You can’t consider this at all,” he ordered. “This entire area of thought is off-limits to anyone except employees of BP. Cease all mental cogitation on this subject immediately.”


“Wait a minute,” I protested. “This is my brain and I have the right to use it any way I want to.”


“No, you don’t,” said the BP guy inside my head. “We blocked CBS News from covering the damaged beaches, we’ve stopped countless others from going to pollution sites and, by God, we can stop a puny thing like your brain from going there as well.” Then he leaned back on one of my brain’s lobes, arched one eyebrow arrogantly and lit a big fat cigar with a burning hundred dollar bill.


“When did the ocean and America’s beaches become the property of British Petroleum?” I asked.


“ We struck a deal years ago,” he said dismissively between puffs on his stogie. “ Don’t you remember? We get the ocean and the beaches and you get plentiful oil for your Hummers and GTOs.”


I replied to him that Hummer and Pontiac went out of business. “Well, British Petroleum did not go out of business,” he said. “And we’re shutting down your thought processes about the oil leak. No more discussion.” Then he used yellow tape to block off those areas of my brain that had been considering the leak.


“Please, no!” I shrieked.


“Cry me a river,” he said. “But remember, I can slick that up as well.”


For KMUW, I’m Richard Crowson.