Guest Column
by Pat Byington

“How do we make people in Kansas care about the lasting effects from the Gulf oil spill a year, three years, a decade, maybe even longer from now?”

Casi Callaway, the director of Mobile Baykeeper, posed this very question in a recent interview. She knows, all too well, that once the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill is plugged, the national media will pack up their bags, leave for New York City, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, and in the future dutifully file quarterly, perhaps semi- annual stories on the Great Gulf Oil Spill of 2010.

In her own words, she is fearful that the world is going to forget, and frightened how that will impact the future of her two-year-old son, family, home and community.

My older sister, who has been a nurse for more than 30 years, best described to me what is happening to the Gulf. A terrible traumatic event has happened, like a car accident. When you are brought to the hospital, you stop the bleeding. Once that is done, you start to heal. And then the hard part occurs — rehabilitation.

“Therapies” are prescribed. And that, my sister said, can be the loneliest journey. It could be ours in the Gulf if we allow it.

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The House was debating a bill last night that would provide up to $7.4 billion in health care aid to rescue workers who have faced health problems in the wake of the September 11 attacks in New York. The bill ultimately failed to get the needed two-thirds majority, 255-159.

In expressing his outrage about the Republicans show voted against it, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) engaged in a two-miunute tirade, in which he called Republicans “cowardly” for voting against the bill because of “procedure.”

“It’s Republicans wrapping their arms around Republicans, rather than doing the right thing on behalf of the heroes,” Weiner exclaimed.

Weiner attacked those who “stand up and say, ‘Oh, if only we had a different process we’d vote yes’,: he said. :You vote yes if you believe yes! You vote in favor of something if you believe it’s the right thing! If you believe it’s the wrong thing, you vote no!”

“It is a shame,” he said. “A shame!”