American society suffers from attention deficit disorder. We get bored easily. We want to move on to the next big thing before the old big thing is resolved. We like to interpret facts in a way that suits our beliefs and we generally don't dig too deeply when forming opinions about anything. If a Google search can't provide the answer, well, it's probably not worth pursuing.
Furthermore, if you believe that life on this planet is trending in a positive direction, then you're likely to believe that things like giant oil spills are nothing more than small speed bumps on the way to a better existence for all of mankind. Conversely, if you think that human beings will eventually do themselves in, there is plenty of evidence to back that opinion, too. Either opinion can be supported by data. Numbers, scientific polls, statistical trends can be interpreted however one sees fit.
Itseems news consumers really don't want to dwell too long on any one major societal or environmental problem. It's like we have a collective overflow valve that shuts off and allows us to stick our heads in the sand whenever reality gets a tad too real or is contrary to our overall beliefs, causing us to kind of short circuit. Not dwelling on negative things could be a survival mechanism in human beings. It could also lead to our extinction. After all, we need to pay attention at times, even when it's not fun or doesn't suit our world view. Yes, worrying alone won't solve anything but nor will ignorance.
Yup, we either blow events out of proportion that have virtually no impact on society or the planet (see any Lindsay Lohan story) or embrace denial and/or unrealistic optimism when it comes to known, widespread problems like famine, genocide and unjust wars. A lot of innocent people and species perish because, well, we just didn't want to acknowledge our roles in their fate. Didn't want to accept any responsibility. Couldn't bother to watch 15 minutes of news a couple times a week in order to stay somewhat informed or vote once a year. It's easier to be entertained by things that don't really touch our lives, like Lohan's escapades. These distractions pull our collective attention away from the things that should matter more. They require no emotional or intellectual investment. Concern for oil-stained pelicans takes more humanity, the good kind, than obsessing about American Idol. It requires that we pay attention for more than 30 minutes and read something other than People.
So it is with the Gulf of Mexico and the BP oil spill disaster. As soon as the oil stopped flowing, it was like the spill never occurred in the eyes of many Americans, mostly those from outside the Gulf region, of course. Even while the oil was gushing, many people showed very little interest or concern. We are a society where if it doesn't happen in our backyard or impact our checking account, we're just not that interested. And if it drags on for too long we are certainly going to get bored and turn away. We are becoming a culture where sticking with something, seeing it through, just isn't fashionable.
Let's think positive thoughts about where all the missing oil went. Maybe an oil fairy flew down from the heavens and cleaned the sea. Heck, the president is telling people it's safe to eat seafood from the Gulf, even before the scientists have confirmed that. Do you think Mr. Obama will take responsibility for anyone who gets sick as a result of eating tainted fish now or five years from today? Why the rush to declare Gulf seafood as safe? Why rush, period? Everything except the things that are most important to our survival and evolution seem to take priority in our new, superficial culture. Stopping oil from gushing in the Gulf? No rush there. It took over three months to resolve. Getting people back to work? Nope. No urgency or sense of focus over that as bickering about nonsense now occupies most politicians' time. Yet, we keep electing childish leaders because voters aren't paying attention. We have a wealthy mayor in New York City who seemingly has forgotten about 9/11. That's another post for another day.
But there is good news. We can get a quick fix for our iPhone4's. We have EZ-Passes to get us through road tolls quickly. The prices on laptops are way down. There are energy drinks and blue pills that create all sorts of illusions to distract us from some core issues that deserve more attention. Unfortunately, none of those things will restore the Gulf of Mexico. That will take some awareness and a lengthy attention span that we no longer possess.
Meanwhile, impatient Chambers of Commerce are telling would-be tourists to come on down, the waters are fine, even as experts grapple with what impact the chemicals used to control the oil might have on the environment. Many objective scientists and scholars are saying it will be decades before it can be determined how the biggest oil spill in history has altered the Gulf. Yes, I said the biggest oil spill in history. You would think that alone would mean that folks would want to pay more a attention for a little bit longer. But no. It's on to the next big thing. The next special, self-serving interest.
Hey, the well is plugged. All is grand. While we're at it, why not call off the Congressional investigation and allow BP to get out of its agreement to pay $20 billion in claims to Gulf residents and businesses? Let's not fix anything or hold anyone accountable. Do you think the American public is really going to pay attention to a lengthy investigation of BP? Let's just get back to eating shrimp. Turn off CNN. Put down the newspaper. Those faraway wars will end, and even if they don't, who cares? Ninety percent of Americans are employed. Most people don't know a single soldier. That global warming thing is probably a silly hoax, too. So some ice melts and a few polar bears drown. Why all the worry? We'll probably have bigger waves to surf in the future. There's a positive to come out of global warming. No need to be grumpy. The economy will magically get better because...well, just because. Go on, have another Louisiana oyster.
Tar balls have washed up on Cocoa Beach, Fla., according to newspaper reports. Whether they are from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico remains to be seen.
Cocoa Beach is well up the eastern Atlantic Coast of the Sunshine State, near Cape Canaveral. The BP gusher is in the Gulf of Mexico, far to the west. Until now, only parts of the Florida panhandle, along with the coastal areas of other Gulf states, have been directly impacted by the oil. However, experts have theorized that the oil might get caught in warm-water currents that could move it around the southern Florida Keys and up the East Coast.
If the Cocoa Beach tar balls are from the Gulf, that would be catastrophic news for all of Florida. As it is, restaurants are feeling the shortages of available seafood from Miami to Jacksonville.
Meanwhile, the latest from BP is that the potential relief-well fix is ahead of schedule. Plugging the leak could begin as early as the end of July. Of course, virtually nothing BP has predicted has turned out to be accurate, so today's news is taken with a large grain of salt. Read more about the Cocoa Beach tar balls.
There isn't any snow to shovel or worse traffic jams than usual to contend with.
So I am not going to complain about the record-breaking heat we're experiencing in the East this week.
Yeah, it's hot. Real hot. It's also sunny and humid, which makes it feel worse. When the temperature hits 100-plus degrees, it's hard to ignore it. But if given a choice between this and the kind of winter we had six months ago, I will take scorching days every time.
The heat doesn't cripple the D.C. area like the snowstorms of 2010 did. We're all functioning relatively well. And compared with what is going on in the Gulf of Mexico, I really don't feel the urge to whine about the weather. We should not forget about the suffering taking place to the south as BP's oil continues to gush.
It's summer. Most folks have air conditioning. We'll get through this.
The HBO series, Treme, wrapped up its debut season last week. The series is about post-Katrina New Orleans, particularly the Treme section of the city, and has been renewed for a second season. That's good news for people who appreciate quality television dramas with something smart and meaningful to say about life, death and everything in between.
The series had a lot of texture. Producers cast known and not-so-known musicians for various roles. Treme is almost as much about music as it is the struggles of New Orleans. But make no mistake about it, Treme gets up close and personal in developing all characters and story lines. It goes well beyond the music. While some folks triumph over the odds, others face a more tragic end. The character played by John Goodman, a writer who couldn't cope with losing the essence of his beloved city, was particularly profound.
In the middle are all the people with uncertain futures. They tend to deal with their lives one day at a time. Some leave the city, some stay. A few regain some sense of normalcy, while others don't. The fictionalized stories are both moving and educational. There are aspects of post-Katrina life in New Orleans that I had never thought about until watching Treme. And I'm a guy who read a lot of news accounts of the real-life events before, during and after the hurricane while I was working at USA Today.
It wouldn't surprise me if in five or 10 years, HBO does a post-BP oil spill series. There are certain stories that can't quite be told through the national news media. Journalists are good at getting the daily news and sometimes digging deeper and presenting well-formed analysis or human interest pieces. But events on the scale of Katrina, and now the BP oil spill, are rich with numerous angles and ripe story-telling perspectives -- positives, negatives and everything in between. Sometimes "creative non-fiction" is the best vehicle to convey certain hardships and challenges.
Treme was the right show at the right time. With the oil still flowing, and more lives being destroyed so soon after Katrina, one can't help but wonder how people along the Gulf Coast can endure this latest onslaught. While one disaster was man-made and the other was caused by a force of nature, in the end, it doesn't really matter why or how the catastrophes arrived if you're a resident of that part of the world.
This is 55-year-old Allen Kruse. He was a fisherman from Alabama who recently transitioned into a job cleaning up oil for BP. A regular guy with a good work ethic.
Kruse shot and killed himself on Wednesday.
No one knows why he did this. There was no suicide note. But his friends say the father of four was stressed by the oil disaster ruining his business and the life that he loved.
There are all types of victims as a result of the man-made disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The people on the front lines, with the most to lose, are feeling the greatest pressure. Some are getting sick from exposure to the oil. Others are breaking down mentally and emotionally.
Obviously, only a small percentage of people will commit suicide. That doesn't mean the disaster won't lead to other serious personal and societal problems. As the recession has shown us in the last two years, unemployment is a major trigger for all kinds of personal and societal problems. The oil spill on top of the recession has already put thousands of Gulf residents out of work.
But the oil spill is causing something more than just a loss of income. It's a dark cloud hanging over the entire country -- a nation that has been under the darkest of clouds with wars and economic collapses.
It appears Mr. Kruse felt there was no hope -- not in his potential lifetime. He could no longer see the blue water. Not now, not in his future.
The handling of this spill to this point sure doesn't inspire much confidence that it will stop anytime soon. It gets progressively worse by the day, as the arguing and political battles rage on. Meanwhile, as always, the regular folks are paying the most profound price.
"Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. 'It was a 10-minute photo-op,' says an adviser to McChrystal. 'Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his f-ing war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.'"
- Excerpt from a Rolling Stone magazine profile on Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan
President Obama is under fire again. Conservatives are using an article set to appear in Rolling Stone as evidence of Obama's incompetence. Coming amidst weeks of criticism over his dealing with the Gulf of Mexico oil crisis, the timing of this article couldn't be worse.
However, it's a recent New York Times/CBS News poll that reveals one of Obama's biggest problems. Most people (54 percent) don't believe that Obama has a clear plan for creating jobs. That lack of confidence in such a personal and crucial area of people's lives is bad news for the young president.
As I have said many times in this blog, jobs are the key to everything from economic recovery to support for incumbents. Jobs are what get people out of bed in the morning and contribute to the tax base. Jobs are what pay for new schools. police and roads. Working people support big and small vendors, which in turn fuels the overall economy. Without good jobs, accessible to anyone who is qualified and willing to work, Obama is going to continue to slide in popularity polls.
Why is that important? Because Obama has some good ideas that are going to die on the drawing board as long as his political clout continues to decline. Given time to grow into the job, Obama might actually do some good for this country and for the planet. But time is about to run out and Obama has to take some of the blame for that.
Job security allows people to take vacations, buy things and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Obama has underestimated how bad the job market really is and is now paying a price. Because of his unwillingness to immerse himself fully in the quest to improve the economy, people are questioning whether he's up to other tasks of the presidency. Military leaders are apparently having similar doubts about Obama as are job seekers and environmentalists. We don't hear more negative comments about Obama from animal-rights activists because, frankly, the alternative (Republicans) is so much worse. But make no mistake about it, Obama is beginning to appear to a wide variety of Americans as a president who is out of touch. A smart guy without a plan.
The McChrystal flap will be used against Obama by the usual suspects, the right wingers. Unemployed folks of all political persuasions are not seeing any signs of things getting better under this Democratic president or his leadership party. And while Obama did get BP to set aside $20 billion for oil-spill victims, he has not been able to stop the leak. He personally claims to have organized the best and brightest scientists to address the problem, but where is the evidence that those people have done anything to cap the well? Who are these government experts Obama has talked to? It appears to most people that BP is running the whole show.
Yes, there is a pictured being painted that Obama is in over his head and/or doesn't have the right people working for him. The campaign charges against him, about never having been a manager of anything, seem to be more valid as time goes on and each crack in his armor gets a little bigger. Good managers don't let those cracks get too large. They fix them. But if you've never managed anything, well, you might not have an intuitive sense of how to deal with a crisis. This is why experience matters in all walks of life.
I was rooting for Obama and still am because his failure won't do me or the country any good. But I am having serious doubts about the man's management abilities. I thought he'd stay off the golf course and be a nose-to-the-grindstone president with vast intellectual skills to solve or at least understand key issues. Even McChrystal said he voted for Obama, only to be disappointed later on. Obama's management abilities don't seem to be up to par with his values or analytical abilities, rendering him as essentially ineffective. Management abilities and hands-on political skills (like giving speeches) are two different things. The world needs good managers because hands-on skillful people don't always know how to keep the trains running on time.
Most of this wave of negativity could be turned around if Obama would do what he said he was going to do. Focus on job creation. Real jobs. Not temporary Census Bureau jobs. Not low-level jobs that result in the underemployment of professional and educated people. If people are employed in relatively satisfying jobs, a lot of this negativism would disappear. Americans tend to vote with their wallets. They also assess a president on a variety of topics based in large part on their bank accounts. If Obama wants to sell clean energy, he needs to get people back to work. No one is going to focus on solar panels if they are in foreclosure. People worried about their jobs aren't going to learn about or support Obama's loftier ideas. Regular folks just want to eat and pay their bills. If they can do that relatively securely, then maybe they'll pay attention to broader issues. But until that job security returns, Obama is going to continue to get stuck in the mud.
The Obama honeymoon is over. The opportunities for advancements in clean-energy initiatives and fine-tuning of health-care reform have to be tabled for now. Generals are blasting Obama and so are some liberals. It's no longer just a right-wing radio show assault. And my gut feeling is that it's all made worse by the administration short-shrifting job creation and the economy. Fix the economy and everything else would fall into place. Many of those folks who aren't working because of the current moratorium on deep-water oil rigs might be able to find employment elsewhere if the economy would return to some sort of normal state. But with most industries struggling, there are few opportunities for anyone to transition into other fields. The ultimate answer isn't to keep risky rigs running in the Gulf of Mexico so that people can have jobs. The solution is to create a country and an economy where workers have options, where if one industry collapses for whatever reason, unemployed people wouldn't be left to rot.
It's hard to come to the defense of a president when you've been out of work for the entire time he's been in office. It's difficult to believe this is a president who wants to protect the environment when just a few months ago he was talking about drilling for oil off the coast of Virginia. He is a president who parades around golf courses while wildlife is caked in oil. Perceptions mean a lot, and if one is going to blast BP's Tony Hayward, the CEO of the oil giant, for participating in a yachting competition last weekend while the oil continues to flow, then raising an eyebrow over Obama's golf outings seems like fair play.
Simply put, Obama needs to clean up his act. That doesn't mean silencing generals. It means he has to stop giving people legitimate reasons to question his actions and lack of actions.
I can't fully support a president who has taken his eye off the ball -- the ball being jobs, and now an oil disaster. Until Obama's actions match his campaign promises -- until he rolls up his sleeves and gives up a vacation or two -- I don't really see much of a difference in Obama as compared with George W. Bush. We're still at war. Unemployment and underemployment aren't getting significantly better. The rich are still getting richer, often at the expense of the poor and middle class. Can one man solve these issues alone? No. But he can set the proper tone. He did it with health care, why isn't he doing it with other issues?
Unfortunately, the alternatives to Obama are in many ways worse. The Republicans not only wouldn't stop the oil, they would probably offer BP tax incentives to clean up the spill and make you and I pay for the bulk of the mess. They wouldn't produce jobs, but instead would create more millionaires at the top of large corporations. They'd cut off unemployment benefits and potentially get us into another war with either Iran or North Korea. Sorry, Tea Party people. But those are pretty much facts. I leaned Republican at one time in my life, but no more.
We have a leadership problem more than a political problem in this country. It can be seen in the White House and in the private sector. It's been getting worse for years. Lowering the unemployment rate will at least create the illusion of things getting better so that other issues can be addressed, but I fear the basic principles of leadership are lost.
We tend to rally around illusions and marketing campaigns more than truth and values. A candidate, like Obama was in 2008, becomes a product, not a man. Then when the product fails to work as advertised, we get upset with it. What we should be doing is getting angry with ourselves for not demanding more of everyone and anyone in leadership positions, from teachers to presidents and generals. From the owners of a small businesses on up to the CEO of oil companies, we need better, brighter and more principled people running the show. Mediocrity can't continue to rise to the top of businesses and government. What qualities and criteria a person must posses in order to be promoted must change. That's on voters, boards of directors and others with the power to elect or appoint leaders.
By all accounts, Gen. McChrystal is far better than mediocre, and not some political hack. That is why his criticism of Obama is getting so much attention today. The people in charge of damage control in the White House are probably going nuts this afternoon, trying to spin this situation into something more less negative for the evening news and morning papers.
A pattern is emerging with Obama. It appears he isn't as engaged as his eloquent speeches would have people believe. I think his intentions are good, but I also am beginning to wonder if he has the capability to relate to average Americans or a thick enough skin to be a great leader. How strong is his commitment to lead? Obama might be a skilled intellectual and have some smart political handlers, but is he a general? From what McChrystal, certain polls and some folks in the Gulf states are saying, the answer is no.
More bad news for the president. Obama's deep-water oil-drilling moratorium is overturned by a judge. Read more.
The new Meadowlands Stadium, home of the New York Giants and Jets, cost about $1.5 billion to build.
British Petroleum will set aside $20 billion for the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico, which it is currently destroying, and for the folks impacted by the oil catastrophe.
So for $20 billion, or the cost of about 13 football stadiums, BP will satisfy President Obama's demand made in a meeting today with company executives.
Why do I feel BP got off easy?
If one fisherman, who invested $100,000 in a boat and who was clearing $50,000 in profits each year, lost his job because fish in the Gulf of Mexico won't be suitable for harvesting for the next 10 years, that means that single fisherman will be out a minimum of $600,000. Does that fisherman get reimbursed from the BP fund? If so, how many thousands of fishermen will have similar claims?
Now take the mom-and-pop beach restaurant that cleared enough for the family to barely get by in good times, and figure that its profits sink 50 percent for several years as a result of the spill. Think this business will survive? And if not, how much was the business worth and will BP fully compensate its owners?
How about the boardwalk snow cone shop and t-shirt stand owners? Do they get paid? Does the local parks department get reimbursed for hiring 100 new employees to help with the cleanup? What about the scuba equipment or dolphin-watching businesses? A drop in tourism will surely impact those folks. Maybe even send them into bankruptcy.
If a hurricane hits the region this summer, then what? The BP fund could be exhausted by September. Will the oil giants open their wallets wider to the folks on the Gulf Coast?
You can see how this can add up and how many people might not be fairly compensated by BP. Even before a single marsh is decontaminated or new sand is paid for and brought in to restore a beach, BP's obligations will be massive. Will $20 billion cover what needs to be done over the next decade or two? Will BP pay oil rig workers while there is a moratorium on deep-water drilling? One of BP's top officials said his company will pay employees impacted by the moratorium. Does that include non-BP employees?
There are medical costs to consider. People are going to get sick working on the cleanup.
What happens if oil-friendly Republicans return to power? I am guessing they won't be as hard on BP and could ease the financial pain for the company by reducing the payout.
We're not talking football stadiums here. We're talking human lives and livelihoods, as well as an ongoing ecological disaster that gets bigger by the hour. Cleaning the water and wildlife-breeding grounds alone will probably cost more than Obama got BP to cough up. There is a domino effect to all of this, one that may not even be understood for decades. I don't know how Obama and BP arrived at a specific figure this early in the game. They say it's not capped, but does anyone expect BP to double or triple the fund over time?
While $20 billion sounds like a lot, it really falls short of what this giant oil company owes America and residents of the Gulf states. It is a sum that might sound good politically in the moment, but in reality, it's not going to get the job done. I applaud Obama for finally doing something tangible and saving taxpayers from at least some portion of the funding that it will take to clean up this mess, but I am afraid it is too little too late.
A few other related comments...
What is it about the moratorium on deep-water drilling that people don't get? It seems like slam-dunk logic to stop doing whatever it is that led to the accident until we have a better understanding of what went wrong. I credit Obama for this action. Yet, there are people, even in the Gulf states, who say that jobs are more important than the potential dangers that might result from risky drilling.
As someone who profoundly and personally understands the need for jobs, I am not willing to sacrifice the planet for them. Nor am I willing to let child pornographers run Internet businesses because we need more folks on a payroll. I am not in favor of drug lords expanding their empires because street pushers need an income. And I am not in favor of sketchy oil companies possibly blowing up more rigs because people need the work.
I understand the fear of losing one's job, but it's no excuse for not comprehending the bigger issue at hand. Those jobs will return, but it's going to take a little time and some precautionary studies before that can happen. Just as certain commercial planes are grounded when a defect is discovered, these rigs are going to have to sit idle for awhile.
President Obama's speech Tuesday night left me flat. I don't know how he plans on restoring the Gulf of Mexico to pre-oil spill conditions, but it was one of several lofty claims he made. The future of the region seems to be more in the hands of Mother Nature, in my humble opinion. As human beings we can help the healing process, but this disaster is so large that it will take more than BP's money or Obama's rhetoric to make it right. His speech gave no details of how or when the flow will stop. And while he is correct that we need to get off of our oil dependency, he shouldn't have spent half the speech on that issue.
Incredibly, there are people who still think regulations are bad things. They see no link between the government not having enough oversight and BP's dangerous actions that led to this disaster. What will it take for these extremists, mostly on the far right, to understand that corporations need boundaries? Just as society needs laws and police to help maintain relative order, risky businesses must play by the rules and be accountable to a more impartial authorities than just shareholders. Oil companies need to be watched. So do nuclear power plant operators. Would you like to fly on a commercial airliner that follows no rules or have your tap water unregulated? Would you like to work for a company where your retirement account isn't safe?
This is a vacuum tube. In England, it's called a valve. It has nothing to do with cleaning the carpet.
Regardless of what you call this electronic device, it helps power guitar amplifiers in a way that professional musicians prefer over modern, solid-state components.
The tube glows. It gets scorching hot. There are usually several tubes in each amplifier. Tube-based amps are extremely heavy and expensive compared to their cool-running, lean, solid-state cousins. The tubes are glass and very delicate. They need to be replaced every so often. Most parts in a solid-state amp last for as long as a person might own the unit.
So why is it that the more technically advanced amplifiers haven't replaced these tube dinosaurs yet? Well, despite solid state amps having been around and refined for a few decades, the older tube amps simply sound better. Even with all of the drawbacks, the tubes produce a warmer, more musical sound.
There was a time when the average home stereo also contained these types of tubes. But those days are long gone, although there are still tube stereos available for astronomical prices. For playing back records, CDs or over-the-air radio broadcasts, modern transistors work better than tubes for the average listener. Yet, for musicians powering their electric guitars, ancient tube technology remains the preferred choice among pros and some amateurs such as myself.
Why am I telling you this?
With all of the technological advances coming at us at the speed of light, it's sometimes good to reflect on old technologies that still do the best job. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's better.
Oil officials have been talking a lot about the advancements that make drilling safer than ever. Yet, the worst accident in the history of off-shore drilling just occurred and apparently can't be stopped by any technological wizardry.
The other day, it was discovered that iPads could be easily breached by hackers. Apple scrambled to make the fix, but one has to wonder how this could have happened.
I still can't hear people as well on my cellphone as I can over a land line in my house.
So while it's factual that many modern inventions are far better than earlier versions, it is also true that change for the sake of change isn't always a good or workable thing. Change might be marketable, but it doesn't make it better, which explains why tube amps have survived.
I read a lot of news online and for some reason see far more mistakes, mostly typos, on my screen than I ever did in newsprint. Is reading news online more convenient? Most of the time, yes. But so far the trade off seems to be sloppier editing. Many long-time editors swear that it is easier to catch typos on paper than it is on a monitor. I tend to agree. I don't know why this phenomenon exists, but it does.
My four-year-old Jeep has power windows. Now that technology has been around a long time. You would think all the bugs would have been worked out by now. Yet, two of my windows have collapsed and broken because of a faulty motor mechanism. A third window is about to go.I don't like power windows, but that's a standard feature in most cars nowadays. Rolling up the windows with a crank has never struck me as overly taxing. It is also a highly reliable system compared with power windows. If one of my old cars with hand-cranked windows would have gone into a lake, I could have still rolled down a window even after the electronics were short-circuited by the water.
In college, a roommate of mine had a hot dog zapper. This revolutionary appliance was suppose to electrocute the meat until it was cooked. Sounds yummy, huh? You would have to put each end of the hot dog onto a metal stud. Then it was just a matter of hitting the switch and waiting about 60 seconds. Well, the hot dogs tasted like crap and I never saw one of these cookers again. To my taste buds, a frank cooked on a charcoal grill is still the best technology for the task.
Some cars actually got better gas mileage 25 years ago than they do now. Some approached 50 mpg. To get that kind of mileage these days, you'd need to move up to a pricey hybrid. With all of the advancements in cars, why can't engineers improve upon fuel efficiency? Why are advertisement campaigns bragging about cars that get 28 mpg? It's all an illusion. A sales pitch.
This is not to say that I am anti-gadgets or stuck in past technologies. I like my digital TV. I think it's cool that some people still have the vision to invent things that improve our quality of life -- things that work. I have no desire to go back to IBM typewriters -- the ones with the little metal ball with the letters on it.
But with all of these advancements in the last 10 years, we also seem to take a step backwards at times. Perhaps this particular type of oil spill wouldn't have happened a couple decades ago. Maybe the rush of today's society and the illusion that everything new is better, safer, more efficient is making our world more dangerous. Identity theft is off the charts and medical care is on the decline, according to most people old enough to remember when doctors made house calls and had something called bed-side manners.
As long as vacuum tubes are sold and telephone land lines still exist, I won't be rushing to get the latest digital amplifier or smart phone -- not because I am old or stubborn -- but because tubes and land lines still sound the better than trendy alternatives.
Because of the fact that virtually nothing BP has tried or said has worked or proven to be truthful, I wonder if some government agency is making worst-case contingency plans to stop the oil? Who is to say that relief wells, the alleged ultimate fix scheduled for later this summer, will solve the problem in the Gulf of Mexico?
Here is something to ponder. If approximately 32 percent of the Gulf of Mexico has already been closed to fishing in just under two months, wouldn't that mean that after six months the gulf will be more or less destroyed by the crude oil? Logic tells me that the oil will begin to work its way into the Caribbean and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean. In a year, most of the eastern waterways, including fresh-water rivers, bays and inlets, will have been contaminated by BP's spill.
There is enough oil in Deepwater Horizon well to flow for decades
Extend the doomsday scenario out to the end of, oh, say 2012, and most of the planet will have been impacted by this gusher. Clean water will become a rare commodity. Economies will collapse, particularly in small countries like the Dominican Republic, which rely heavily on tourism. Many animals will go extinct and human beings will get sick or die from exposure to the oil. It's not too far-fetched to believe that wars will ignite in the quest for clean water, something that has been suggested even before this latest environmental disaster.
Is it too far-fetched to believe in a snow-balling effect that will lead us to the brink? What evidence is there to lead anyone to think that this gusher will be capped this summer or even this year? If the technology existed to stop it, wouldn't it have been sealed by now?
The relief well (there are actually two being drilled, one as a backup) is just another theory of how to stop the flow. But it's never been proven at this depth. It's not a guaranteed end, despite what BP claims.
Our government seems to be placing too much faith in BP.
Our founding fathers warned of the dangers of corporations having too much power within our democracy. They saw large corporations as potential threats to our country, and many of the causes of our economic woes are certainly proof that the founders were correct. I bet, however, they never envisioned a corporation having the power to destroy the planet as we know it.
Check out this website for more oil spill news from CNN's Anderson Cooper.
It's nice to see celebrities putting their fame to good use by doing videos like this. The Cove is a 2010 Oscar-winning film (Best Documentary Feature) that I've written about before in this blog. It documents the horrendous slaughter of dolphins in Japan. Dolphins are highly intelligent marine mammals that are also dying in the Gulf of Mexico because of the ongoing BP oil spill.
Click here to learn more about what you can do to help dolphins.
BP is taking a lot of hits for painting a rosy picture for the public at almost every juncture in the current Gulf of Mexico oil crisis. Time and time again, those rosy pictures have proven to be false.
Why are we surprised or even that angered by this? Isn't this exactly what corporations do -- especially large public ones with lots of shareholders? BP doesn't know how to be open and truthful with the public because it probably has never been frank with its own employees. Bending or concealing the truth can become so common that liars actually convince themselves they are telling the truth.
As worker ants, we have all been in meetings where we were blatantly lied to, allegedly for some greater good for the company, I guess. Except in the work environment, it's not called lying. It's called "being positive" or being a "team player." Openness and skepticism are often seen as threats instead of assets by those at the top. In some businesses, like journalism, skepticism should be a prerequisite for landing a job because that's how important stories get uncovered. In other business, skeptics and red-flag raisers can save lives. A culture of honesty without penalty can prevent disasters of all kinds, and, oh by the way, improve employee morale. Generally, people want to feel that they work for honest and communicative bosses.
Unfortunately, telling the truth isn't always a good way to keep your job. Even when we're given permission to speak up in the workplace, to identify and repair certain wrongs, how many folks will actually stand up and weigh in? Not many. Why? Because we've all seen what happens to people who appear to be going against the grain, even when the grain is obviously wrong or unethical.
I understand why people are angry at image-minded BP for allegedly lying. Yet, the lack of public transparency is part of the corporate culture because that's what the norm is inside the four walls of many massive public companies like BP. It's what we now accept in exchange for receiving a paycheck or a big dividend or getting mortgage that we eventually discover we can't afford. Heck, car dealerships teach their sales people how to lie and no one is demanding they be charged with crimes. Let's not even get into politicians and their chronic lying.
The unwillingness of consumers and company insiders to demand the truth during all business transactions, no matter how routine, is why lies are so entrenched in our culture these days. It's why BP keeps painting rosy pictures without fear of accountability when they are proven wrong. It's why folks inside of Toyota remained quiet when certain corners were being cut. We've simply lost our right to be constructively skeptical or to tell the truth 100 percent of the time. Companies want to control everything, how business internally and externally is spun. And in doing so, they only create a more toxic, mistrustful environment.
Until lying goes back to being seen as unacceptable behavior it will be difficult to get the truth out of companies like BP, especially in crisis situations with so much on the line. Lying and the mainstream acceptance of lies, even white lies, are distorting how we conduct business, how we resolve problems and even how we interact with each other. We talk in code and smile in the face of looming disasters so that stock prices remain high.
Taking cover under lies or trying to manipulate the mood of shareholders, employees or customers with rosy pictures might work some of the time, but eventually the lies catch up, sometimes in catastrophic ways. Sometimes too late to right the ship.
CNN is reporting tonight that BP is spending $50 million on an advertising campaign to smooth things over with the American public. Whether that's accurate or not, I am beyond words to describe this company -- an oil giant that seems more worried about its image than the profound job at hand or the damage already done. Note to BP: Your reputation is ruined forever. In fact, it will probably worsen as all the facts come to light about the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Save yourself the money or, better yet, put it to good use and save some birds and marine life from your oil. Open up some rescue and rehabilitation centers.
The latest computer models are showing the potential for the oil to make its way up the Atlantic Coast and head well out into the ocean. Some say it's not out of the question that the oil could reach Europe, where BP is headquartered.
This is becoming the story of the century. We can bounce back from hurricanes and even wars. But we can't live without water. What's incredible is that we've done this to ourselves. It didn't take an asteroid strike or a bunch of terrorists with nuclear bombs to threaten life as we know it. All it took was a culture (and government) that allows sketchy companies like BP to operate freely, a dose of greed and a thirst for more and more energy. We turn a blind eye to all sorts of bad behavior when we are benefiting from it. And this is the result. We want big SUVs powered by relatively cheap gas. We leave lights and televisions on when we're not in the room. We don't speak up when we see our employers dangerously cutting corners. We don't demand enough from our elected officials or ourselves.
We are, in some ways, all to blame for this disaster. Read more about BP's problematic CEO, Tony Hayward.
I wasn't going to do this. I didn't want to be part of the madness. But the insanity of the coverage of the Sandra Bullock-Jesse James breakup is just too much for me not to comment.
Why does anyone outside of their families and friends care about this couple? Their split should have been a brief in the newspaper, a mention at the end of some celebrity-oriented show, a blurb on the Yahoo news home page. That's it.
But here we are, several weeks into the breakup and now we learn that Bullock is going to make an appearance at The MTV Movie Awards on June 6 in Los Angeles. Oh, my God! Stop the presses. Get those CNN reporters out of Louisiana and send them to Hollywood.
I've had it with this story. Not one more minute of any legitimate journalist's time should be spent on it. Unless the mediocre-at-best actress sets herself on fire at the awards or the biker-turned-drama queen figures out a way to stop the oil leak in the gulf, I don't want to hear or read another word about them, their marriage, their childhood traumas or anything else. In fact, I am getting ready to burn my West Coast Choppers t-shirt when I am done with this post.
Lighter news is sometimes a necessary evil in a celebrity-obsessed society such as ours. Media companies need to stay in business. I get it. But the breakup of these two morons doesn't even rise to the level of the Gore separation. Get off of it already.
While on the subject of media coverage, I am glad to see newsman Anderson Cooper of CNN doing a good job on the oil story each night at 10 p.m. ET. While some other major media have pulled back a bit, CNN seems to be intensifying its coverage of the environmental disaster. This is literally a story that gets worse by the day and deserves smart coverage, which Cooper seems to be providing.
The oil spill story, not the Bullock-James ordeal, is one that needs to remain above the fold for many weeks, if not months to come. It's a story that impacts us all in ways we might not have ever seen, while the divorce of two celebrities means relatively nothing.
Dennis Hopper died over the weekend. Being that the actor was 20 years older than me, I can't really call him a contemporary of mine. But he was one of the first cool guys I saw on the silver screen at an impressionable age. He was Peter Fonda's sidekick in Easy Rider. He was more rebellious than Fonda. More anti-establishment, in my opinion, both in the movies and in real life. He didn't have the Fonda lineage and was more self-made. Through all his troubles, there was something authentic about Hopper, just as there is something authentic about Sean Penn, Robert Downey Jr. and the reborn Mickey Rourke. Authenticity can often get you in trouble, but at least it's honest.
There have been a few celebrity deaths in recent days, including Ali-Ollie Woodson, the one-time lead singer of The Temptations. Woodson was 58, a bit closer to my age. He died of cancer, the same disease that took my father in his mid 50s. Whenever I hear of someone dying of cancer at midlife, I cringe just a bit.
Gary Coleman, who I didn't really care much for as a performer, also passed away in recent days. He was 42. Chris Haney, a journalist and co-creator of Trivial Pursuit, died at 59 on Monday. His game always made me feel intellectually inferior.
I suspect some bigger names will be moving on soon -- actors, musicians, politicians, cultural icons who did have some influence in my life, at least more so than Hopper, Woodson, Haney and Coleman.
Today we are made aware of another ending. The end of the Al and Tipper Gore marriage after 40 years. Here they are early in their lives, when everything was in front of them -- presidential campaigns, environmental causes and so forth. Don't we all have photos like this stuffed in a forgotten box? Apparently, the couple grew apart. One has to wonder how that happens after four decades. Yet, it's not exactly a rarity because we all change so much over a lifetime. Most just grow apart much sooner.
A former colleague of mine just ended what he calls the "best year of his life." He quit his job last year and did a lot of the things he couldn't do while working. He traveled for pleasure, started a blog, spent more time with his wife, took walks, reconnected with simple but important stuff. He took a huge risk in giving up a well-paying job at the height of the recession. He's about my age. It's been ironic that his year off from work as been the best year of his life while mine has been one of the worst. Of course, my year off hasn't been a voluntary one. We all like to have some say about important things in our lives, like when to end our careers. It kind of changes how you view things when someone or something makes important decisions for you.
People in the Gulf of Mexico are talking about the end. The end of a way of life. With about a third of the gulf now closed to fishing because of the BP oil spill, lives are being permanently altered and some marine creatures are facing a dreadful conclusion.
People often talk about life being a series of changes. But in my view, life is more about endings. The end of a career, friendships, hobbies, health, etc., that steer those changes. Those losses are sometimes substituted with new things (good and bad), but more often than not, endings are just that -- the end.
Well, a quick scan of the news shows that nothing much has changed in the four days since my last post. The oil is still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The Senate turned its back on jobless Americans again by going into recess without freeing up funding for emergency unemployment benefits. Guess they needed to get out of town for the holiday weekend and couldn't be bothered. Hewlett-Packard's announcement today that it is laying off 9,000 employees is further evidence that the unemployment crisis is not getting better.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was on the radio this morning talking to ultra-conservative host Laura Ingraham -- one of the most grating voices in the media. Seems the Republican governor is joining other conservatives in their newly found concerns related to the the environmental destruction in the Gulf of Mexico. This is a man who still wants off-shore drilling along the Virginia coast. Yup, just can't wait to start scarring the Atlantic so that the state can bring in a few bucks.
McDonnell needs to start paying more attention to obtaining jobs now for the state -- jobs that don't involve living in a rig 50 miles off Virginia Beach and endangering one's life for a paycheck that is barely above minimum wage.
McDonnell, like Ingraham and others on the far right, isn't going to pass up an opportunity to blast President Obama for his handling of the oil spill. So if it means they temporarily need to act like tree-hugging liberals to score some political points, then that's what they'll do.
It's a farce.
I have lived on this planet for 52 years and never once heard a right-winger speak eloquently about the environment, nature or the need to protect the planet. Now they want us to believe they are concerned about the gulf region? They want us to believe they would have forced BP to have this resolved by now? C'mon. The right wing is pro big oil, pro big business, pro big everything. To portray themselves as guardians of the land and seas is comical. BP would be under less pressure to fix the damn leak if Rush Limbaugh clones were in power.
It's not even 11 a.m. and I am pretty exhausted from what I am reading and hearing in the news today. The hypocrisy alone is at an epidemic level and is part of the reason why the news hasn't improved over the holiday weekend. A quick glance at the help-wanted ads tells me that job openings are drying up again. Tensions with one of our closest allies, Israel, are increasing. The list goes on.
So rather than rant about it all, I am going to take a step back and just accept that things are probably going to get a lot worse in every regard before they get better. My gut is telling me we have got a long way to go before we truly hit bottom -- perhaps years.
I find it very strange from a news judgment perspective that the USA Today (my former employer) home front is leading with the gays in the military story tonight while virtually every other major news web site and television broadcast is all over the oil spill events of the day. PBS, for instance, spent half of its newscast on the spill. Furthermore, as I drilled down into the USA Today site, I noticed the coverage hasn't been nearly as comprehensive as other major media sites have been in the last few weeks. Being that stories like this spill were what that national newspaper lived for in the past, I am baffled by USA Today's lack of coverage.
Here are a few observations about this ongoing story:
- CNN called out President Obama and BP for an entire hour on Anderson Cooper 360 tonight. It was startling to see what many right-wingers consider a liberal news organization catching Obama in several "gotcha" moments, as if Obama's middle initial was W. Cooper asked good questions and raised many excellent points about Obama and BP's failings in the last few weeks.
- Obama's press conference on Thursday was a bad performance. He didn't seem to have a firm grasp on the details like he usually does. He often contradicted himself. And the story about his daughter asking him about the oil leak while he was shaving was simply cheap and sappy. It was like he was groping for something to deflect the heat. I was disappointed in Obama's sense of command and I began to wonder for the first time whether Obama might be better at long-range, big-picture thinking, but not so good at dealing with a serious and immediate crisis. The lack of urgency he showed about addressing unemployment in his first year in office was inexcusable, but in that case he might have thought he had time to work on it. There was and continues to be no time to be wasted in this current environmental disaster. Not a single minute. Of course, some of the criticism Obama is taking is nothing more than political payback for the heat President Bush took for the feds' slow response to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. So it's important to consider the source of the attacks on the current president.
- Is this oil spill going to ruin the Obama presidency? Everyone thought the health-care battle would jeopardize Obama's remaining years in the White House. The ongoing economic woes are certainly a major threat. But the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has the potential to turn even the most liberal people against Obama. It's beginning to look like a botched operation, and that's not sitting well with environmental groups like the Sierra Club. With Obama taking full responsibility for the operation to stop the leak, I am not so sure how forgiving people are going to be.
This situation is bound to get worse. We don't even know a fraction of the damage that has been done yet. This could linger well into the remaining years of Obama's first and maybe last term. His enemies are salivating over a chance to pin real blame on him for showing a lack of leadership. Of course, Republicans aren't exactly champions of environmental causes, so it's kind of ridiculous to hear conservatives all of a sudden worried about the deaths of brown pelicans and sea turtles. It is important to remember that these are the "drill baby drill" people.
It's also important for the media to do its job and stay on this story in the most objective and thorough way it can.
British Petroleum apparently took risks with the oil well that eventually exploded and has been leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico for over a month. This shouldn't surprise anyone. This is what big businesses do. They push deadlines and search for materials and shortcuts that will save money. They take calculated risks in the quest for bigger profits and maneuver around weak government regulations while hoping for the best. When it doesn't work out, consumers die in runaway Toyotas and fall to their deaths from exploding oil rigs.
It appears that BP, like Toyota, gambled and lost. Unfortunately, their loss cost lives and has destroyed unprecedented amounts of natural habitat, which in turn will ripple through our already ailing economy and create further mistrust of big oil.
What is adding insult to injury is BP's continuing inability to stop the oil and to safeguard sensitive areas along the Louisiana coast. (See the above video.) The company suits talk a lot about the thousands of workers employed to handle the emergency, but it's clearly not enough.
As a report on 60 Minutes recently documented, and this New York Timesarticle details, this wasn't just one of those unavoidable accidents. There will be plenty of blame to go around and hopefully some criminal charges. But in the meantime, BP has to stop this leak and contain what oil is already in the gulf.
It's becoming more difficult to believe that BP is doing everything it can to solve this crisis. Is BP following the same playbook that caused this catastrophe -- cutting corners, trying to find the most cost-effective way out of this mess? Sure, the millions of dollars BP is spending sounds like a lot of money, but to a giant oil company, it's a drop in the bucket. It seems they want us to believe that they are sparing no expense, but common sense tells me that really smart people should have been able to plug this leak by now.
BP has wanted us to believe a lot of things, including that drilling is safe, that backup systems would prevent this sort of disaster and that the rate of the leak was far less than what it now appears to be. I think the company's credibility is shot.
The federal government claims to have a boot on the neck of BP, but that boot appears to be a fuzzy slipper at best. The feds probably can't fix the well, but they can determine whether BP is doing all it can. So far, the Obama administration has failed to apply an effective amount of pressure on the oil company. Again, this should be no surprise. Large corporations run America. It was one of the fears of our founding fathers. In the last few decades we have been watching those fears play out, taking down our economy and destroying our environment.
One has to wonder whether BP is searching for a financially feasible way of conducting operations and exaggerating their efforts to contain the oil for public relations purposes. Do they want the oil leak fixed? Absolutely. Do they want to bankrupt the company to do so? Probably not. So the trick for the BP brain trust is to find a way to deal with the leak and cleanup without going broke. I suspect that is what is causing the delay and why folks, like those in the above video, aren't seeing enough BP workers in the waters and marshes.
When the leak is finally fixed, BP will have an opportunity to clean up. It might take many years. Whether or not the company finds it financially feasible to stick around long enough to do the job properly remains to be seen.
These kinds of polls often throw me because there is always some small group of people who either live in blissful ignorance or just want to defy logic when answering questions. This poll was conducted by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation. I've illustrated one particular question that caught my eye. What baffles me is this: Who are the people in the 16 percent -- the ones who don't think they or anyone close to them will be impacted by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico -- and why do they feel immune from such a disaster? Even if you're living off the grid in the wilds of Montana or are a fanatical follower of Rush Limbaugh (who is not concerned about the gulf situation), this spill will impact you, at least indirectly. I can explain the ways it might do this but I suspect it would be a waste of time. Fortunately, 84 percent of Americans get it. Click to read the entire poll.
Frustration and anger are building as BP continues to fail in its attempts to stop the massive oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar blasted the oil company this weekend for missing deadlines. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is upset with the poor response time from BP. And some are saying that President Obama should issue an order for the federal government to take over operations from BP.
Over 60 miles of the Louisiana coast have been severely impacted by the oil that has been flowing for over a month. Many more miles of coastline and islands are expected to be severely impacted. Large areas of the gulf are now off limits for fishermen and tourist areas have suffered a major economic hit as the summer season is about to begin. And no one really knows what damage is occurring on the ocean floor.
Meanwhile, the debate continues over how much oil is pouring into the gulf. Most scientists and scholars have calculated estimates far higher than what BP is stating. Worries continue that the oil will eventually make its way into the loop current and begin to move around the southern tip of Florida and up the Atlantic coast.
The controversy over the chemical dispersant is growing, as some have said the chemical is worse for the environment than the actual oil. Yet, BP continues to use the chemical.
There are some who fear BP isn't doing all it can do because it doesn't want to permanently seal the well. They are alleging that the well could still be a money-maker for the company once the crisis is resolved.
This oil spill shows how helpless we've become. Solving tough problems just doesn't seem to be something we do very well anymore. It's not a Republican or Democrat trait. While politics play a role in almost everything, it seems there is something more at work that is preventing us from fixing what's broken. Maybe we've gotten too big, too bureaucratic, too soft or too corrupt. Or maybe the smart people aren't in the power positions where they could make a positive difference.
So will all this frustration and anger lead to a solution to stop the oil from killing everything within its reach? Probably not. This crisis, like the economic collapse, was predicted by people in-the-know. And like the great recession, this environmental disaster is just going to have to play out, taking with it tens of thousands of victims -- from pelicans to entire industries and livelihoods. BP will pay for the cleanup with a mere fraction of its profits and go back to business as usual.
I can't help thinking what people would be saying if President Bush were in office right now, watching this event unfold for this many weeks. President Obama's response to the oil spill is making the prior president's actions after Hurricane Katrina seem swift and decisive.
It took three weeks before Obama showed any sense of urgency about the spill in the tone of his voice. Now entering the fifth week of the oil rig disaster, he's talking tougher but still not taking any significant action to help fix the problem. Just as he didn't seem to have a sense of urgency about the unemployment problem in his first year in office, Obama and the feds seem to be late to the party again.
I really can't stand this man. Unfortunately, I have to acknowledge that he has a large following. So when he says something like he did today on his syndicated radio show, that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is no threat to Florida, I can only hope that his listeners take statements like that with a grain of salt.
Rush Limbaugh has become more radical and less compassionate over the years. Essentially, he's a shock jock -- a wealthy showman with a destructive, selfish agenda. I recall listening to him in the late 1980s when I was living in Connecticut. He was entertaining. He didn't spew hatred towards groups doing good work -- like the Sierra Club -- the way he does now. I worked with a guy who was a borderline communist, and even he listened to Rush for amusement in the early days.
But I am not laughing anymore. I hope Limbaugh's followers realize that much of what he says is probably scripted to boost ratings, similar to the way professional wrestlers script matches for maximum dramatic effect. If the majority of Limbaugh's listeners actually believe and support what the radio talk show host says, we're in pretty bad shape.
Rush, stop denying the facts. The longer this oil continues to leak, the more Florida and other states are at risk. You don't have to be a scientist to understand that concept. You're showing that you have lost all objectivity if you think this environmental catastrophe is being exaggerated for political purposes. Waving the flag via your microphone isn't going to stop the leak or clean up the gulf.
elieve that life on this planet is trending in a positive direction, then you're likely to believe that things like giant oil spills are nothing more than small speed bumps on the way to a better existence for all of mankind. Conversely, if you think that human beings will eventually do themselves in, there is plenty of evidence to back that opinion, too. Either opinion can be supported by data. Numbers, scientific polls, statistical trends can be interpreted however one sees fit.
