We live here and we are dying. BP and the Obama Administration are killing the Gulf of Mexico and all that live on it, in it and around it, and depend on it for not only work, but for a strong and soaring soul.

What pain and fear does a man have to be in to shoot himself in the head when just 65 days ago his life was seemingly fine? What pain and fear do schools of sharks have to be in before they will ignore their natural prey in search of oxygen instead? What cold hearts does an Administration, a Press Corps or a Congress have to own to play politics with the lives of millions of Americans on the Gulf Coast (and Arizona and other border states) instead of stepping up and doing the job that is required by their oaths of office or creed of conduct?

READ THIS AND WEEP:

Gulf oil spill: Boat captain, despondent over spill, commits suicide

June 23, 2010 | 11:51 am
William Allen Kruse, 55, a charter boat captain recently hired by BP as a vessel of opportunity out of Gulf Shores, Ala., died Wednesday morning before 7:30 a.m. of a gunshot to the head, likely self-inflicted, authorities said.

“He had been quite despondent about the oil crisis,” said Stan Vinson, coroner for Baldwin County, which includes Gulf Shores.

Kruse, who lived with his family in nearby Foley, Ala., reported to work Wednesday morning as usual at the Gulf Shores Marina on Fort Morgan Road in Gulf Shores, Vinson said. He met up with his two deckhands at his boat, The Rookie. One of the deckhands later told Vinson that Kruse seemed his usual self, sending them to fetch ice while he pulled the boat around to the gas pumps.

As the deckhands walked off to get ice, they heard what sounded like a firecracker, Vinson said. They turned around but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. So they proceeded to gather the ice and wait for Kruse at the pumps. “He never showed,” Vinson said.

After waiting a while, the deckhands returned to the boat, which was moored where they had left it, Vinson said. They went aboard and found Kruse at the captain’s bridge above the wheelhouse, Vinson said. He had been shot in the head. A Glock handgun was later recovered from the scene, and investigators do not suspect foul play, Vinson said.

Vinson said Kruse was in good health, did not suffer from any mental illness and was not taking psychotropic medications.

But he said it’s not surprising the oil spill had weighed heavily on his mind, as it has on many local fishermen no longer able to support themselves with deep-sea sport fishing trips for marlin and the like, Vinson said.

“All the waters are closed. There’s no charter business anymore. You go out on some of the beaches now, with the oil, you can’t even get in the water,” Vinson said. “It’s really crippled the tourism and fishing industry here.”

Vinson’s office was to perform an autopsy Wednesday, and the Gulf Shores Police Department is still investigating. Det. Justin Clopton did not return calls.

Kruse’s family was notified by Wednesday afternoon, Vinson said, and his deckhands were sent home for the day.

– Molly Hennessy-Fiske

What other major catastrophe will it take here to have the FULL ATTENTION of the Press and the President of the United States on the efforts to help us survive? Despite the hard work of many, we hear so much about the stupid desk-surfer regulators who fear FUCKING ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE if berms are built to stop the FUCKING OIL THAT IS KILLING US. We sit and watch the BP Video and have not a clue as to what they are doing or when it will stop. If it will EVER stop.

Sophie Knows There Is No Leadership. Read what she is doing to help here.

There is no one site, no daily update, no information portal other than BP’s that Americans can go to to find out about the progress, or lack there of, to get this damn thing stopped.

We hear weeks, months, we hear Christmas, we hear never. We read a growing Tome of scientific speculators and Doomsday scenarios. We long for “Official Word” yet realize that the “Official Word” was compromised long ago for political gain and we realize we are left hanging. We are being lied to, and the reality is, most of the nation has no idea what is happening here.

____________________________________________________________________________

While Mika writes “talking points” and slobbers all over herself; while Barack Obama golfs and clenches his jaw; while Tony Hayward’s British accent has been replaced on the radio by an American-accented BP Spokes-model and while Joy Beahar screams the world is racist, we are left to deal with this crisis in the only ways we know how, or can.

For some, that is death by their own hand – in the wheelhouse of their boats and the fearful, saddened, longing look at the sea – as precious as their loved-ones and as hard to leave as their children. For others, it is death by a deep fear of a sudden explosion of deadly methane gas. It is death by pain of seeing beautiful wild seabirds and ocean animals choke on their own vomit as they struggle to remove the disgusting sludge from their bodies.

And for others still, it is death in knowing that even if this thing were to be stopped tomorrow, we would have years and years of recovery to go – to dig out of the poison, the fouled water, the toxic chemicals, the destroyed evening skies. Our lives will never be the same. America’s life has been unalterably changed. And now, the hurricanes are forming. It is 3am in the Gulf of Mexico, and no one has picked up the phone.

And all Drudge can do is flash a headline that reads “Send in the Clowns”

Don’t worry, Matt. They’re here.

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