Deepwater Horizon exploded and caught fire on April 20, 2010.
The oil is still boiling up from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists.
Our planet teeters on the brink of annihilation;
dangerous passions of pride,
hatred,
and selfishness are enthroned in our lives;
and men do reverence before false gods of nationalism and materialism.
The saving of our world from pending doom will come,
not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority,
but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
1929-1968
Civil Rights Leader
Every one is a moon,
and has a dark side
which he never shows to anybody.
Mark Twain
1835-1910
Humorist, Writer & Philosopher
It's amazing how people can get so excited
about a rocket to the moon
and not give a damn about smog,
oil leaks,
the devastation of the environment with pesticides,
hunger,
and disease.
When the poor share some of the power
that the affluent now monopolize,
we will give a damn.
Cesar Chavez
1927-1993
Labor Rights Leader
I read in the paper not too long ago,
they picked the first Negro astronaut.
That shows you so much pressure is being put on Washington,
these cats just reach back and they're trying to pacify us real quickly.
A lot of people was happy that they had the first Negro astronaut,
well I'll be honest with you,
not myself.
I was kind of hoping we'd get a Negro airline pilot first.
They didn't give us a Negro airline pilot;
they gave us a Negro astronaut.
You realize that we can jump from back of the bus to the moon?
Dick Gregory
1932-
Activist & Comedian
They leaped like deer on the moon.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high,
but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it.
It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling.
They kissed it.
And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will,
they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling,
and they kissed each other for a long, long time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers,
the Handicapper General,
came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun.
She fired twice,
and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again.
She aimed it at the musicians
and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.
It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George.
But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
1922-2007
Author & Philosopher
In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon
to ward off complicity --
the ordered life our leaders have offered us.
Thin as a knife,
our chance to live depends on such a sign
while others talk
and The Pentagon
from the moon
is bouncing exact commands:
"Forget your faith;
be ready for whatever it takes to win:
we face annihilation
unless all citizens get in line."
I bow and cross my fork and spoon:
somewhere
other citizens more fearfully bow
in a place terrorized by their kind of oppressive state.
Our signs both mean,
"You hostages over there will never be slaughtered by my act."
Our vows cross:
never to kill
and call it fate.
William Stafford
1914-1993
Poet Laureate of Oregon
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