A black tide of death is ebbing its way from the far depths of the ocean and sloshing along the shores of the southern United States. The oil envelops all things and kills the living in a slow choking fate of grease. The destruction is far beyond a single creature or species – it swallows whole ecosystems and its disruptions will echo across the entire country financially and politically.

The profit-driven catastrophe began in a baptism of human blood April 20 when 11 oil rig workers were burned, blown or drowned to death in the initial fiery explosion.

The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank 5,000 beneath the gulf as a number of Coast Guard ships attempted to quell the natural gas and oil fed fire.

The rig suspended a long metal pipe from the sea floor and when it sank, this engineering thread buckled alongside it, resting in a heap on the ocean’s floor. It now rests at a depth too great for even modern man to tread and the entire recovery/repair operation must be done with remote controlled robot submarines. It all sounds like the start to modern science fiction thriller.

Just a side note, but 40 years ago our country sent three astronauts to the moon on Apollo 11 for more than 21 hours in a four-day round trip back to Earth.