“…a roiling, alligator-filled wall of flame.”

In the “laughing to keep from crying” category, today’s xkcd comic takes a tongue-in-cheek look at ways we might find for making the oil spill more exciting.
Only it’s not as “tongue-in-cheek” as one might expect (or want):
The Gulf is drowning in oil; a “titanic” solution is needed. Enter director James Cameron.

As the government scrambles to find any viable solution to the massive oil spill flooding the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, officials hope Cameron, director of big budget adventures such as “Avatar” and “Titanic,” can generate an answer.

Cameron joined a group of more than 20 scientists and engineers Tuesday who met to discuss solutions.

That’s an almost absurdly-easy target, and blog posts throughout the blogosphere have been busy taking shots at it for most of the day. But in fairness to Cameron, he’s not the only celebrity involved. Nor is he as unqualified as one might expect from a man famous for very little else besides making enormous amounts of money for Hollywood. Cameron’s well-documented tribulations making TitanicThe Abyss, and perhaps most relevantly, Ghosts of the Abyss — combined with one of the most exacting and obsessive personalities in the industry — have resulted in an expertise on deep-sea diving and remote-control aquatic devices that seems more than a bit legitimate, no matter how much I would like to post something snarky on his involvement.

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Besides, the Kevin Costner/Waterworld jokes are even easier.

Author

  • Joseph Susanka

    Joseph Susanka has been doing development work for institutions of Catholic higher education since his graduation from Thomas Aquinas College in 1999. Currently residing in Lander, Wyoming — “where Stetsons meet Birkenstocks” — he is a columnist for Crisis Magazine and the Patheos Catholic portal.

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