A spokesman from Congressman Gene Taylor's office (the most useless man in Washington D.C.) said about the oil mess "This is not Katrina, it is not Armageddon", even as the oil slick menaces Chandaleur Island. A resident of the Coast said the wind blown fumes off the crude oil has a pungent acrid petroleum smell. 34 endangered sea turtles had washed ashore by Tuesday. The politicians et al with Big Daddy attitudes seem to think all the public needs is a pat on the head, to be told it's all right, don't you worry about a thing, we'll take care of everything and y'all shut up.

Some ridiculous proposals from citizens have been put forth--one man is going around collecting hair scraps from salons to use to soak up the oil.. Another idea is to use pillows tied together to use as oil booms to contain the spill. No wonder Big Daddy sees people as brainless nincompoops. Speaking of nincompoops, Bill Maher says that Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh are making idiotic comments like "oil is a natural substance, how can it harm the environment?" That leaves me speechless. Bill said of these brain dead morons, "Mercury is a natural substance too, but you don't put in on your Cheerios."

But, as always, life goes on in unexpected and beautiful ways. The red roses by the carport all bloomed at once this year; the trellis hung heavy with flowers. Last night, the wind blew rose petals all over the carport, and when I went outside, I walked on a thick carpet of rose petals as if I were a bride or a queen, and tracked rose petals into the house. The smell of honeysuckle perfumed the air. My resident pair of mockingbirds are here and one sang to me as I sat in the swing.

Mockingbirds are territorial--I had a small braided rug hanging on the clothesline and the wind had blown it over on itself. A pair of brown thrashers started building a nest up inside the rug. When the mockingbirds saw that, they started to perch on the clothesline by the rug, to challenge and run away the competition. But the thrashers would sit on bushes nearby, and as soon as the mockingbirds would fly away for a moment, they went right back to nest building. Meanwhile, a red headed woodpecker drummed on a pine tree in the field. That means the tree is half dead, bad news for me, good for the bird.

It nature that feeds my soul. Hope you have a soul food source to nourish you, too, something that puts oil spills and the "Flash Crash of Wall Street" into perspective. Manmade ills of Earth may come and go, but nature will survive in one form or another.

susil