*And it's high time ...
 | One of us has been on HER soapbox in the past on our other blog, but now it's time for you to hear from the male vacationer represented by this blog. |
It's not often that I get on my soapbox, but today is one of those days. Here are a few thoughts I'm having today.
First, it’s the heat wave I keep hearing about on TV and reading about on the internet. Down here in my part of Dixie, (Lower Alabama) halfway between Fairhope and Foley, it’s just the opposite — no heat wave at all. In fact the high temperature on July the 4th was in the high 80’s. Yesterday the high was in the mid 80’s and the forecast for the next 6 or 7 days is for the high temperature to be no more than 92° — not too bad for this time of the year.
The next thing on my mind, and almost everyone down here, is the oil spill. The main industry down here in South Baldwin County is Tourism. With the oil spill the tourists have stopped coming. Lots of people here are losing income. What is it now, day 78 or 79? BP gets on TV and says they are going to clean up everything. My question, is How can BP clean something up that they can't stop?
I haven’t been down to the beaches in the last few days, maybe a week or more, but the last time we went to Gulf Shores the beaches were still the beautiful sugar white sand they were this time last year, but that was before the last Gulf storm that did bring oil into our area. In fact the Gulf was so rough and choppy all of the boats that had been out skimming oil had to come in to port. The sea was just too tough for their small crafts.
Now the news is that we have this big skimmer called the Whale out there and it can gather more oil than the spill is spewing out each day. Why did we wait over 70 days to start using this boat?
From what I’m hearing down here, several countries have offered to help us clean up this mess and stop the leaking, but we have not accepted their offer. WHY?
While I’m on my soapbox I have another thing that peeves me. BP has hired a lot of people to keep the beaches clean. Now get this, and it figures in with the cooler than normal temperatures we are having, the workers are being paid $25 an hour, but OSHA will not let them work longer that 20 minutes each hour. The other time they are sitting under cooling tents. These tents are equipped with electrical generators so they can run electric fans and air conditioners. I wonder what the construction workers in the Southwest and up the East Coast think about this?
— WDS
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