How much is a dragonfly worth?
Occasionally (okay, constantly) I find something that I get passionate about. This happened to me in April when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank, spewing over 206 million gallons of oil along our Gulf Coast. We simply take for granted the comforts and conveniences in our lives, myself included, and when a tragedy strikes we watch the news, make the appropriate comments, [shed a tear or two] then turn off the TV and go about our lives. Yet do we ever stop and truly think about what has happened, make a genuine effort to help, do we really understand what hangs in the balance? Only five months after the initial explosion and sinking of the oil rig, the apathy towards this catastrophe is very disheartening...while in the days following the spill, the media was full of stories about it, I'm wondering why now I have to search to find any information. As the media ignores the atrocities in the Gulf {maybe not quite, but you know} and moves on to more important issues {Lady Gaga's the big winner at the VMAs and is Jesse James' girlfriend pregnant} there are still massive amounts of oil on the Gulf beaches. Absolutely, there are the dedicated handful still trying to figure out a way to help the people and wildlife of the Gulf, but it seems as though clean up efforts have been scaled back to minimal effort. I would further venture to guess that there is more oil on the beaches now then there ever was before and the problem only gets worse each day.
I just looked through all the pictures on the Boston site again and of course it is heartbreaking, I look at them several times a week, they haunt me, I feel heart sick when I see them, but I just can't forget, I can't not look at them. I still feel such pain, anger and disappointment...but most of all, I feel immensely sad. So, of course the questions remain...how has it come to this, how can we so recklessly rip resources from our earth that with one careless slip an entire ecosystem can be wiped out? Does our government still intend to hold anyone responsible and does the responsible party (BP I'm talking to you) still intend to clean up the mess and compensate for the damages? And speaking of compensation, how does one compensate for a human life, or that of a young heron dying amidst oil splattering underneath the mangroves on an island impacted by oil, a pool of salt water full of life, a dead Northern Gannet covered in oil, a reddish egret trying to fly with its legs and tail feathers coated with oil, oil stained pelicans, gulls and roseated spoonbills, oil covered crabs crawling on the beach past blobs of oil...
or a dragonfly cleaning oil off it's wings. Dragonflies and damselflies belong to the order of insects called Odonata, I love these beautiful dancing critters, they have been around in one form or another since the Jurassic era, more than a hundred million years ago. It breaks my heart that it has come to this, I cant get this picture out of my mind, are they just considered worthless insects to the likes of BP and Monsanto, does their destruction and that of our environments not matter? Oh my, I know. (sigh)
A dragonfly tries to clean itself as it is stuck to marsh grass covered in oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in Garden Island Bay on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana near Venice on Tuesday, May 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
......so, tell me BP, how do you even start to compensate for the life of a dragonfly?
...... just how much is a dragonfly worth?
Studio 2091 "Project Water" is an international effort to get artists from around the world to submit decorated tiles expressing what they believe the essence of water to be. Participants can paint, paste, write, sculpt, weld or create anything on a 6x6 hangable tile (supplied by Studio 2091) They must be submitted by ...9.27 and will be part of an online and in-house gallery show at Studio 2091 in October and November and will be on sale, with all profits going to wildlife and water reclamation in the Gulf Coast. Participants receive a tax-deductible receipt from the sale of their art work from the Nature Conservancy. Studio 2091 check it out!
Saute of Crawfish Over Fried Green Tomatoes with a Warm Remoulade Sauce
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