WASHING THE PELICANS

Water, water everywhere ... And oil, oil, oil ...

How did this happen? Why? Who's to blame. How do we make sure this never, never happens again? Why doesn't Obama do something? Is it the government's fault or BP's? Why isn't BP being fined, punished, taken over by the Feds?

This globby, sticky bla-bla-bla, like the oil, oil, oil, goes on and on.

Solutions are mentioned. This sounds feasible. No, this will make things worse! What about that? What about the thirty ideas from the world's best experts? Or those five gigantic super tankers someone mentioned -- tankers that could slurp up the oil? But each solution comes with ramifications, drawbacks, dangers that have to be evaluated.

Meanwhile, the gushing oil is dooming the fishing industry, the resort businesses, wetlands, beaches in more and more states, threatening other coastal areas to the east -- to the south, to the north -- maybe even west. And hurricanes, rainstorms, winds can spread the oil, who knows where?

It's a life and death situation -- globs have already appeared in the water off the panhandle of Florida.

What can I do? What can you do? What should we do? We're seeing on TV the despair, tears -- seeing hopelessness in the faces of people, while we're waiting for the next news alert about what's happened -- didn't happen today, what might be happening tomorrow, and who's planning what -- what's next, and when, when ...when?

It's a frightening, helpless feeling -- not knowing what anyone is doing --not knowing what to hope for.

Having been in a life and death situation, I learned to watch the second hand on the clock, waiting for the painkiller I got every three hours -- inventing different ways of counting, inventing questions to ask the nurse that would lead to conversations, that would take my mind off me.

All you can do is brace yourself, take a deep breath, pull yourself together, so that when the time comes to take an action, you can do it.

Do what ? Collect money -- make a list of possible helping hands -- join a group to pick up the globs of goo on the beaches? Send money -- phone despairing workers, give them courage to start from scratch -- tell them "You can do it, take it one step at a time, we'll be phoning, cheering you on."

We are fighting a war in Afghanistan, a war I hate and feel we should be ending.. Remember how we lost Health Care reform, and got it back after umpteen Obama negotiations behind the scenes?

If the President had to explain, sell us the solution, as well as sell his advisers and experts with whom he's figuring out what to do -- finding the right solutions tor ending the war, ending the oil spill will take longer -- it could take months.

We can pray, and not distract him or anyone who's working on trying to stop the oil, oil, oil. And yes -- form a group of cleaner-uppers, and be ready to pick up globs and wash the birds and turtles, and the pelicans.