Perspectives: The Gulf Disaster.

There have been many victims of the ongoing British Petroleum oil spill. Among the most prominent: people who work in and around the Gulf region.

To assess the impact the disaster has had on their lives and livelihood, we convened this roundtable.

THE EDITOR: We know this has been a tough time for you.  So I'd like to thank you in advance for agreeing to speak with us via iPhone's Interview Economic Victims of the BP Catastrophe app.

I want to start with you - Ronnie Hedgewood. Tell us your story.

RONNIE HEDGEWOOD: Well, I'm a commercial fisherman. So this thing has been nothing but bad for me. I don't know how these corporations think they can just come in here and screw things up for people like me, and not have to pay a penalty. It's outrageous. If you ask me, these BP oil heads should be in jail.

THE EDITOR: Well, that's a perspective many share.

What about you, Derek Bridges? What has the spill done to your business?

DEREK BRIDGES: Well, you could say it's taken away my whole reason for being.

THE EDITOR: That's tragic. What is it you do?

DEREK BRIDGES: I'm a duck-oiler.

THE EDITOR: A duck-oiler?

DEREK BRIDGES: Yes, someone comes to me, they want gasoline poured on a duck, I do it for them - no questions asked. Now, with the spill, who needs me, huh? I might as well just disappear.

THE EDITOR: That's interesting. And is this a lucrative occupation?

DEREK BRIDGES: It pays the rent.

THE EDITOR: Do ever get complaints?

DEREK BRIDGES: No, I'm very good at what I do.

THE EDITOR: I mean from animal lovers.

DEREK BRIDGES: Well, that's one positive here - I get a lot less of these Greenpeace types complaining about me with BP in the docket. But still, I feel like I've been big-footed. Who looks out of the Derek Bridges of the world?

THE EDITOR: Very good question.

Moving along ... "Roger Petrie" - that's not your real name. You're also wearing a suit and dark glasses, and this not being filmed - why the secrecy? Does your job put you in contact with BP, and do you perhaps fear speaking out against them?

"ROGER PETRIE": No, not really. But my work does require a great deal of discretion.

THE EDITOR: That work being ...?

"ROGER PETRIE": I'm a whale-assassin.

THE EDITOR: I see. But why?

"ROGER PETRIE": Well, it's our belief that whales - like their cousin the dolphin - have an intellectual capacity that may rival or surpass Homo sapiens. My job is to take them out of the game before we all end up worthless peasant rubble at the flippered feet of their blubbery aristocracy.

THE EDITOR: I see. And I suppose there is, as with the duck-oiling, less of a need for you now?

"ROGER PETRIE": Yes, absolutely. I've called some of my past clients and they won't even pick up the phone. And it's been just as bad for my brother, who is a seal hitman.

THE EDITOR: Interesting that the ramifications of this cut across entire families.

Now our last individual is ... well, tell us about yourself.

ULYSSES: I'm twenty-eight-years old, I live in the Bayou and I'm a merman.

THE EDITOR: A merman - that is, a male mermaid?

ULYSSES: Uh no ... just a merman. No qualification necessary.

THE EDITOR: But aren't you mythological?

ULYSSES: Well, I will be if they don't get a handle on this spill. It's ruined my whole summer.

THE EDITOR: And what is it you do as a merman?

ULYSSES: I'm an exotic dancer.

THE EDITOR: Uh huh. At gay clubs?

ULYSSES: It's just a job.

THE EDITOR: Well, how has that affected your career though? I would think there would be some sympathy for you as a half-man, half-fish.

ULYSSES: Well, sympathy does not work in the clubs. People see me as a figure of pity. When I'm dancing onstage, people just kind of shudder and scurry out the room.

I tell you, things have gotten so bad I've actually had to take a second job.

THE EDITOR: Doing what?

ULYSSES: I'm a shrimp-blaster. I hide dynamite under shrimp. And that is not working out either.

THE EDITOR:  Sorry to hear that.

Well, thank you all for talking to us. I feel that you've really put a human - and merman - face on this tragedy. Perhaps next time we can talk on Chat Roulette?