The Gulf in Our Humanity

(Ed Coletti-"Dead Fish - watercolor)

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Practically every environmental problem we have can be traced to our addiction to fossil fuels, primarily oil.
Dennis Weaver

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun. (ed, I would add "Yet.")
Ralph Nader

“I think the devil will not have (you) damned, lest the oil that's in (you) should set hell on fire."
William Shakespeare

It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas.
George W. Bush

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Ed's June 22d Letter to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Mixed Cartoons

EDITOR: It irks me that The Press Democrat feels the need to please everybody, and therefore nobody, by providing conflicting political cartoons. I miss the days of the great newspapers (e.g. the Washington Post) which took a principled stand and stuck to it. But the Press Democrat appears to want to provide something called “balance.” While this concept may be appropriate for reportage, it's not the case with editorial opinion.

So along comes the Monday political cartoon apparently objecting to government spending to save the planet. I conclude that this must be one of those days when the PD steps to the right while figuring that tomorrow, it'll move left. However, the “balance” bromide fails horribly here. What is the balance to saving the planet? Is it “not saving the planet”?

Perhaps I expect too much. But I do long for a newspaper which, in the grand tradition, takes a strong editorial position on issues local, national, international, and, yes, even planetary.

ED COLETTI

Santa Rosa

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I wrote the following poem quite a few years ago, and long before the Gulf horror. Just goes to show you. Oil long has been about the worst thing in our world. What was the name of that recent movie? Oh yeah, "There Will Be Blood."

This Barrel of Oil Addresses
An American Slave

They call me black gold
but like a dollar bill
I ain’t worth a spatter
'cept they use me for something
believe me they do
but I don’t need to tell you
the way they used you
some of them knowing better
were the worst for the knowing
not doing anything about it.

They pretend I’m not even there
while I’m all that’s there and you
your existence made their heaven
planted on the bottom line
with no price for labor
anywhere above,
the difference between us being
you had children,
that alone made it so you couldn’t hide
their misery or your wife’s
or that man place inside you
where you knew hot rage
with nowhere to go.

So me I’m just a metaphor,
something they use and use and take
away from under what was never theirs.
The people who try to live nearest me
who don’t own a dram of me,
they get used the same as you and everyone else
gets used a bit like you, and only you
really know just how very used
the people of this earth are
used and used
and used to being used.

(Published at In Our Own Words (Fall 2008)

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