For some time now, we have seen images of monsters
emerging from the sea, close to the Gulf of Mexico. These teratological
phenomena seem to be the bastard children of Earth´s fluids, mass production,
consumption & media, sociotechnical systems, biology, and human guilt.
As I prepared to teach my course, Technological
Catastrophes, in the Summer II session, I was faced with an all too familiar
problem – how to incorporate in the course the latest such catastrophe, in this
case the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of
Mexico.
The former FEMA director under George W. Bush’s administration in times of the Katrina crisis,
Michael Brown, claimed a few days ago in an interview he granted to Fox News that President Obama is using BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of
Mexico as an excuse to take political advantage of the disaster.
The politics of the current gulf oil spill come
down to knowledge and action. Who knew what, when, and what have they
been doing about it? Most of the media focus is on national politics – is
this oil spill Obama's hurricane Katrina?
