The Pass Is Closed
… and the water is unhealthy according to the Local Puppy Trainer:
Okaloosa County Public Safety Director Dino Villani announced the Destin Pass would be closed Wednesday at 7 p.m. and Coast Guard booms would be deployed across the pass and at the Destin Bridge.
The time was chosen because that’s when the tide is high and water from the gulf is moving into the pass.
…After a new wave of larger tar balls hit Okaloosa Island Wednesday, the county health department advised people to stay out of the water, according to a press release.
People are urged to avoid all contact with the water on Okaloosa Island from Eglin property to the eastern boundary of Beasley Park, the Okaloosa County Health Department release reads. “No wading, swimming, or entering the water.”
People are urged to avoid contact with tar and dead or dying fish. People seeing animals in need of rescue are asked to call 311, option 0.
People are also asked to not fish in oiled waters and avoid harvesting fish that have oily residue or a petroleum odor. People also should not boat through patches oil sheen and tar balls.
The local boats that are part of BP’s Vessel of Opportunity program had to leave their docks and anchor in the Gulf so they wouldn’t be blocked in if they were called to work.
Fortunately the county had already installed a back-up system, because the “official Unified Command” response was late and lacking. Apparently no one learned that centralized control was a bad idea, even after its greatest proponent, the Soviet Union, failed.
4 comments
VESSEL OF OPPORTUNITY???!!!
What genius marketing jackass came up with that? Unbelievable. Did BP hire the same guys who named the Clear Skies Act? Maybe they were thinking “Target of Opportunity” and their tongue slipped.
I can’t be sure of that PJ, but I know the agreement you sign to get into the program is even worse than a Microsoft End-Users-Agreement, with even fewer “rights”.
Most modern corporations have corporate management and a marketing department, everything else is outsourced. This is why they insist on such absurd restrictions on talking to outsiders.
Well yeah, because Marketing is the Only Thing That Matters. Sadly, corporate business models are only a piece of the whole. It’s a dominant philosophy that runs from there, through our politics and into our personal lives, especially since the 80’s, when repellent concepts like “personal branding” and the monetary valuation of absolutely everything became really fashionable.
I’ve been thinking, too, that there’s an intimate connection between corporate domination and all kinds of magical thinking, including the Self-help/Recovery scene, the mental-health industry, American Exceptionalism, Power of Prayer, business “mission statements”, the list goes on and on… It’s a part of U.S. culture that goes way back and is always useful for keeping the hoi-polloi under control. For instance, if “we create our own reality”, then there’s no one else to blame when things go wrong — never mind the occasional oil spill or financial swindle.
Marketing has replaced rational thought. People have been convinced that if they really believe Tinker Bell will live… sorry, every thing will be wonderful. All problems are the result of people not believing, rather than specific defects that could be corrected with some effort. You don’t have to work for anything, just believe that you will get it, and “shazam” it appears.
People keeping looking for “the pony they were promised” and don’t seem to understand that it isn’t coming. When bad things happen it is always to other people, or because some group “hates us for what we have”, which is less and less with every generation. The people at the top take everything and pass out just enough to avoid chaos.