Necessary Reprint

From the Camp Fire:  What Price Pelican

WE, NOT BP, ARE RESPONSIBLE
Yes, some human greed and error within British Petroleum played a role in this disaster. But from the vantage point of why we are getting our fuel from 20,000 feet below the oceans surface in the first place, BP, Transocean, Cameron etc. play very small roles. Everyone in the developed world is partially responsible for whats happening in the Gulf because of our insatiable demand for more (energy, stuff, experiences, growth). It is the fault of a society so dependent on liquid yeyo that we now have to dig deeper, farther and in more environmentally sensitive areas with each passing year.
The oil industry, just like the computer industry or the food industry, has the best and the brightest turning natural resources into products that people buy and in doing so turn a profit. The fact that the product that BP (and others) procures is equivalent to societal pixie dust, with one barrel of oil having 5,700,000 BTU (the amount of energy/work it would take me several years to generate) is not their fault. They are providing a service that we want. The problem is that we have taken this service, all that in entails, and the power that it offers, for granted. The Beverly Hillbilly-just-under-the-surface yeyo is gone and it may require some ecological shock and awe to alert us to this fact.
If you are a vegetarian, off the gridder who walks everywhere and doesn’t buy anything via corporations, then YOU have the ability/right to complain about your share of the commons that is being impacted by this tragedy. Everyone else, and some more than others, bears responsiblity for this situation and as such shouldn't only be casting stones at BP. And the United States, who uses 1 of every 4 barrels of oil produced worldwide, is more responsible than anyone else. Yes BP screwed up. But I think our society should understand that as the fossil energy frontier continues to close, environmental complications are going to increase from the search for the lower quality fossil fuel crumbs. The most unacknowledged point in our debt-laden, over-consumptive culture of entitlement is that our consumption relative to what is sustainable is too high not by 10 or 15% but by a factor of 4 or 5.

Get Over It

This week's Take This Tune is the Eagles "Get Over It".  That choice was semi inspired by Willie Nelson's, There's Nothing I can Do About It Now., and both were chosen as a reflection on life that is summed up with some version of "Stuff Happens".  I am the first to admit that I have no patience with "No Whine served before its time". Give me a break. Do you want to compare horror stories? Sorry about that I win and what's more I don't care that I won. If we ever get into a game of "Truth or Dare", you may know all. In the mean time, I live by my motto of "It's never tooo late to have a happy childhood!" and I've been giggling ever since adopting that as a way of life. Bring on the swings and jungle gyms..

There is one type of TV show that I will not watch from the instant someone starts whinging and whining about some injustice, slight, or tragedy ... not because I'm unsympathetic with trials and tribulations, but because I know that hanging on to the baggage is harder on you than it will ever be on anyone who may have done you wrong.  Now if it is regret over something you have done, take responsibility, then make amends as well as you can.  Clean up as much of the spilled milk as possibile and then try your best to learn from the error of your ways while finding some new sin to commit rather than repeating yourself.

With two disasters happening recently with the flood in Tennessee that wiped out the homes and history of thousands of people and musicians and the British Petroleum oil spew, it is easy to see the difference.  In Tennessee people were helping people clean up while the famous got together for a telethon to provide as much money and support as possible.  Some tears but no whine.  Just rolling up their sleeves and getting it done.  Then there were the gazillionaire BP execs pointing fingers at anybody and everybody they could name and whining about why it wasn't their fault and why is everyone so mad at them, just look at all the oil they produced before things went very very wrong and why should they pay more than "all legitimate claims".  My attitude towards them is not only should they be paying reparations for decades, but that they should consider themselves lucky if they don't end up behind bars.

Maybe they need to take a lesson from Warren Zevon on how to face up to horrible and laugh about it because life isn't for sissies.  It was included on his last album, "Enjoy Every Sandwich", while he knew he was dying from Mesothelioma. and still laughing by including "Poor Pitiful Me"