With the announcement from Adm. Thad Allen last week that the fucking oil leak in the Gulf is "effectively dead", whatever that means, there is no doubt that the news media has moved on. Make no mistake, they aren't going to say jack about the oil still in the water.
Whatever. We here at Daily Kos need to remind ourselves how lucky we were to have around a kossack by the name of motherfuckin Fishgrease, who took us to school on the oil industry, oil wells, and importantly, booming.
When Fishgrease wrote his first edition of DKos Booming School back in May, I was absolutely in awe right at the introduction:
Hello, Boomer. I'm Fishgrease. I'm known, mostly, for my comments on any number of diaries about the recent Gulf of Mexico Oil Leak/Volcano/Apocalypse. Before that, I was known here at DKos for writing bland, confusing, useless, sometimes insulting diaries. Look at my UID number. I've been here a long fucking time and I've never had a diary on the rec list. Which is fine with me because I hate writing diaries. If this one makes the rec list, I might write another. But I doubt it. I'm a much better commenter than a diarist and I'm not that great a commenter.
Fishgrease is a fantastic diarist, mainly because it became completely clear that he absolutely knows what the he's talking about. After noting his 30 years in the oil and gas business, his big money salary, and his superior usefulness over the Almighty, Fishgrease went on to make himself far more than a diarist, but a teacher. A teacher who can break complex things down into very simply and understandable things.
Who among us has this diagram burned into our memories?
I certainly do.
I'm no environmentalist, to say the least. But the things I learned from that diary, and all the following ones from Fishgrease made me change my position on offshore drilling. More importantly, I many others around here learned an important lesson about what good "fucking boom" looks like. And we weren't the only ones. Rachel Maddow herself recognized Fishgrease on her blog, and reported on the matter with the expertise of Fishgrease in her quiver.
I remember reading this:
Stylish Boom Tending
First. Before anything else, that hard hat they gave you? Throw on the bank. Is there anything out here that can possibly hit you in the head? No. There's not. You're not building a skyscraper. You're booming. Don't throw it too far, because if you're stretching boom or a very few other tasks, you'll want to put it back on. Otherwise, screw hard hats. Got your insect repellent? You need that. Tenders work opposite 12-hour shifts (there's ALWAYS someone tending!). I am personally not afraid of oil and I don't mind having some on me until the end of my shift when I can wash off -- but that's me. If you want to wear the suffocating full-body coveralls they gave you, the rubber gloves, the goggles, the goofy rubber boots, that's up to you. Unless its cold out, I'm in cutoff jeans and cheap cloth sneakers and I'm shirtless. Biker's head-scarf. Sunglasses. Tan. I make this shit look good. Take off your wristwatch, your necklace, rings, all that. You're going to be working with rope and anything that can get caught in the rope WILL hurt you. That's why I wear as little clothing as possible. I would rather have a rope burn than have a loop grab my sleeve and take me under and drown me. Same with the floatation device. I can swim and unless the water is very cold or very nasty, I don't wear one.
I remember thinking "I shouldn't be sitting at this fucking desk. I should be out booming! Real men BOOM!"
Anyway, I can't thank Fishgrease enough for his thoroughly informative diaries and accessible style of writing. I can't speak for Daily Kos, but I will say this front pager very much appreciates the knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence of kossack Fishgrease. If ever anything remotely close to the BP oil spill happens again, we are fortunate to know exactly who to turn to for understanding.