Houston, We (Still) Have (This Engineering) Problem

Something rotten is going on, not in Denmark, but 5,000 at to 8,000 feet under the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico.

I know. I know. Most people think the BP blowout well is capped but the fact is it is not, at least permanently. The capping at the wellhead 5,000 feet below the old Deepwater Horizons platform is a fragile prayer holding on for dear life.

The latest round of delays since July 15 is what engineers are calling a fishing expedition to clean out debris inside the well, recap it with a new blowout preventer at the top before they continue work on the promised final solution by killing it with a relief well in the earth’s crust and near the oil reserves.

You remember the relief well? It was promised to be connected sometime in August. Today is Aug. 28 and it remains feet away from its target and has been sitting there for more than a month. If that fails, a second relief well was dug just to be safe.

So, what’s going on? The only possible reason is that engineers suspect the integrity of the well that was drilled by Deepwater owners is compromised. Perhaps that is a step too far. For now.

For details, read this account from an engineer critic of the BP and government Mickey Mousing around and the huffing and puffing of the government’s blowout incident commander. Note: Retired Adm. Allen sounds not only pissed but worried.

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EPILOGUE

Houston, we have an (engineering) problem. Meanwhile, I feel the compassion for Gulf coast residents trying to restore their lives and their communities where the toxic oils have hit some but not all areas. On Friday night’s nationally televised football exhibition game between the San Diego Chargers and New Orleans Saints in the Superdome, announcers Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorff played Chamber of Commerce spokesmen raving about the great food and night life in the French Quarter. Fine. Two hours earlier news continued to repeat fishermen’s fears of catching contaminated fish, shrimp and oysters that the government says are safe to eat because they passed the “smell” tests. I don’t doubt the veracity of both but God help us if the two shall meet and one of them is wrong.

Glenn Beck And His Messianic Rally

Glenn Beck has found religion and don’t you forget it. On this Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010, he hammered it home as a messiah from heaven.

As I watch live on C-Span his rally “Restoring Honor” to our troops and our country, I honestly am conflicted with mixed emotions.

Is this guy a carnival pitchman, rodeo clown, demagogue dressed in a collared polo shirt or Moses reincarnated .. I do not pretend to know. I am confident of one thing: Beck is a passionate showman. I am not so confident of his definition of U.S. history.

The rally at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial was billed as non political. As I write this Sarah Palin, a scheduled speaker, had yet to address the gathering. On the surface, the speeches were not political in the sense of Democrats vs. Republicans.

But the tone and undercurrents did ring political subtleties that made me cringe — that God is on our side and thereby “we’ are right and “you” are misled.

In the hype leading up to the rally, I was disgusted with the nasty, mean-spirited arrows slung at Beck for his pompous audacity to hold the event on “hallowed” ground several steps from Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech 43 years ago today. Certainly Beck invited such stings from his past public utterances such as President Obama being a racist. But as in all hype such as that leading up to the kickoff of the Super Bowl, it always falls short of the actual game.

It was especially painful for me to listen to Eugene Robinson, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Washington Post, appear on MSNBC Friday night saying a featured speaker at today’s rally was a niece of the Rev. King and described by Robinson as the oddball of the King family. C’mon, folks. I have three brothers of which one is a Tea Party Republican and we don’t consider him what my mother would call a “black sheep.”

Without going to the C-Span website and others for comments from people who watched and attended the rally, I have one independent thought of my own.

That is the rally is a Cecil B. DeMille, a James Cameron version of any patriotic rally one would see at a Fourth of July parade. It was a feel good event. Orchestrated? By all means. Politically subliminal? You betcha.

The rally was an honest peek at how millions of Americans feel about themselves and their country if only they would practice what they preach — faith, hope and charity.

As the days continue before the dust settles, Beck will be ridiculed and honored as a demigod, charlatan, national hero or messiah. While he laughs himself silly as the armored trucks rumble to the banks to deposit the spoils..

(Photo: Alex Bandon/AP courtesy MSNBC.com)