I was listening to a commercial on the radio today talking about heroes and it got me to pondering and scanning through my own life looking for my heroes. I scanned back to 1977 and found a man I used to deliver the newspaper to, his name, as I knew it, was Coonie Urschel. He was a mean SOB, never a nice word from this guy and by no means a tip at Christmas time or a thank you when the snow was deep. I really did not like this customer, I was forbidden to walk on his grass, “up the drive, turn right on the sidewalk and deliver the paper in that yellow box under the mail box and then reverse the course”. Those were his exact words, I heard them over and over again, mainly because I seemed unable to comply. That open defiance of authority evidently started early for me. I walked on his yard in defiance, I placed his paper in the mailbox in defiance and when he made me really mad I threw his paper inside the screen door in a way that all the sections came apart. Yes, I was a hellion but he was a mean and nasty old man. As I look back, I would guess him to have been about 50-55 at the time but to a 12 year old, he was just an old man, who was mean.
So why would he be a hero to me you might be asking. Well the event that changed my life happened one day and I bet he never knew he had an impact at all. He would never have guessed that 34 years later I would be writing about him and the positive impact he had on my life. He probably did not even know then that he had a huge impact on my life. Now I have to credit my ability to do anything to my Mom, she told me that as long as I worked hard and gave 100% I could do anything in life. Well without that mean assed Coonie Urschel I may not have developed the unshakable confidence I have in myself and my absolute surety in who I am as a person. Wow, all that from some mean old man I delivered the paper to, yep! At that time, my Mom had recently remarried and we moved away from where we grew up and I was having some adjustment issues. I was shy, not confident and always walked around with my head hanging, looking at my feet. I was a troubled yute, as said by Fred Gwynne playing the judge in My Cousin Vinny. So how in world did it happen? Well what he did might land him in jail today but back then things were different and I never told a soul about it.
So there I was one day, walking through the snow delivering the 115 papers I had to pass out every day and without even seeing him I bumped into him, literally. Well he grabbed my face, hard enough to leave marks and jerked it up. He held my face very close to his, within an inch or two and I could smell the liquor on his breath. He then proceeded to explain to me that I had nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed of and that I should not walk around staring at my feet. I was to walk around with my head held high, no matter what was going on or where I happened to find myself, it was an order. I was not to look at my shoes, other than to ensure they were tied. He was almost screaming this at me while he had a vice grip on my face, holding it right up to his. I was so scared I was frozen into immobility and was unable to even say anything to him. I do not remember everything he said but those words made an impact, he got through to a scared kid who was trying to figure out his new life with a Step-Dad now in the picture.
Well you can imagine the impact of that conversation, I remember once he let go of me running away crying. I had to deliver the rest of the papers though so I continued my route, trying not to be crying when people saw me or came out to get their paper. Over the next hour and half I started contemplating what he had said to me. He was right and many things changed in my life, it was the last time I walked around staring at my feet for sure. It was also when I realized that quiet contemplation is a key component of making it through the days of our life. That is when I started what I call meditating, what I do does not really fit into a category of meditation but that is what it is to me. Another thing I learned from him, just because what I am doing does not fit into an accepted mold does not mean that it is wrong or does not work. Even at that young age, I contemplated the words from that mean old man for hours, days and even months, he had made an impact!
I remember thinking to myself that he does not understand my situation, new head of the house, new city to live in, new rules, new school, new this and new that. I had a lot going on in my young life and who in the hell was he to talk to me like that. Well looking back he got it, he was right and I did not get it, at least not immediately. What I learned is that there is always crap in our lives, how we react to it is the important thing. We could let it beat us down or, like I learned, recognize that our lives are full of hardships, trials and tribulations and the thing we must know is that the effects of that can not be allowed to change who we are at our core. No matter the adversity, I have faced it with my head up, not looking at my shoes. Another advantage of keeping your head up is that you can see what is in front of you, literally and figuratively. Literally so you do not bump into things, such as a mean old man and figuratively you can see the what lies ahead of you, your boundless future. Sometimes I think he would be amazed at where I have come to in my life with his inspiration and sometimes I wonder if he was just pissed that I literally ran into him and he was bitching at me for it. It matters little to me now because whichever reason he decided to grab my face and tell me about it the impact was immediate and long lasting.
There have been a lot of folks who have had an impact on my life in one way or another but old Coonie Urschel made a BIG splash and he is one of my heroes for doing it!
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The Damn oil spill and the Great Speechifier!!
Sorry I have 2 in a row on the same topic, but I had to get it out of me.
After seeing a post from a friend on Face Book I realized he had a GREAT point - Where are all the “save the gulf” benefit concerts? Where are the celebrities and musicians waxing poetic about this tragedy? Where are the heart felt speeches from the politico’s? I sit, with my friend, in stunning amazement and wonder why? Why would I be surprised by a selective response to this disaster from the famous and powerful. If it is not a pet cause or if it does not provide them with some quantifiable advantage or gain there is usually little said or done. Here is a perfect example of our apathy, and yes I say our apathy. Why us, because we have allowed that behavior to become the norm, acceptable behavior instead of standing up and calling bullshit. I have used that term before and I am POSITIVE that you have heard it before, he’s a bull shitter, that is bullshit and I am going to call bull shit on that, whether you admit it or not I know you have heard it. I have started to examine what, exactly, those terms means and have been quite surprised by my results.
According to Wiki Bullshit is (also bullcrap, bullplop, bullbutter, horseshit, bovine stool) is a common American English expletive which may be shortened to the euphemism bull or the initialism B.S. Wiki goes on to say, As with many expletives, it can be used as an interjection or as many other parts of, and can carry a wide variety of meanings. Most commonly, it is used in connection with incorrect, misleading, or false language and statements. While the word is generally used in a deprecating sense, it may imply a measure of respect for language skills, or frivolity, among various other benign usages. Hummmmm. Anyone who has researched bull shit knows that field received a tremendous boost from the pioneering work of Harry G. Frankfurt, his seminal theses did however open up more questions than they answered. Harry’s essay, “On Bullshit” is an in-depth examination, at the philosophical level, of bullshit and bull shitter’s and the seemingly more bold faced liars and which is more detrimental to our world.
Now there is a follow-up to that 1980’s treatise, it is “Bullshit and Philosophy” and I am reading it right now. In this follow up some of the most highly trained intellects of our time critique old Harry and take the discourse beyond anything he could imagine. Bullshit and Philosophy has new contributions to the conversation that were previously left not there. I did pull one definition of Bullshit that I thought perfect for making my point about this environmental disaster. “Bullshit is commonly used to describe statements made by people more concerned with the response of the audience than in truth and accuracy, such as goal-oriented statements made in the field of politics or advertising”. There are several key points I find in that. Statements made by folks more concerned with the response of the audience than in truth and accuracy. I think I might prefer to be bold faced lied to than sold a freakin song and dance, I have more respect for a liar because he at least cares about the truth – cares that we do not find it. A Bullshitter does not care about the truth at all, they just sling whatever….. Bullshit they need to in order to advance their cause or issue. And, as the definition indicates, goal oriented statements that are being advertised to us. We are being treated like automatons by the powers to be, we are expected to buy into the line of bullshit we are being feed, just as we are to believe if we do not buy a particular toothpaste our teeth will fall out.
I am fascinated by bullshit, not just because I enjoy picking out the bullshitter amongst us but when you start to analyze bullshit at a philosophical level the conversation sparks a great interest for me. So, back to the oil spill, in my opinion bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. Does that seem the least bit clear in recent times, say the last since April 22nd? I have heard nothing but bullshit from everyone trying to protect the hole, from BP, from the government, from the pundits, who think they know anything at all. It has been a continuous line of BS, they obviously are doing damage control, to protect themselves and their interests and I do not believe any of it has been true. Not the estimated number of barrels to the fact they told us the leak could not be stopped when they meant to say, we cant stop the leak with out loosing our investment in the hole. Over time the rules governing their end of the conversation have quietly been changing so that claims about truth and falsity are minimized to the point of irrelevancy.
Bullshit does not necessarily have to be a complete fabrication all the time, with only basic knowledge about a topic, bullshit is often used to make the audience believe that they know far more about the topic by feigning total certainty or making probable predictions. It is all filler, fodder and nonsense that is being spoon fed to us, waiting and hungry for a tidbit. I believe no matter how well the relevancies are explained or however relevant they may appear, they are still without data and intelligence and that kind of dialog is the quintessential definition of the verb "to bullshit”. They are all (my opinion) feigning concern and conviction that just through simple observation are bullshit on so many levels, this is what I like to call the industrial strength, commercial grade bullshit. It never ceased to amaze me the words coming out of the mouths of BP, the government and most talking heads, why are not many more of us calling BULLSHIT on them? I did read a funny little story on the onion that was pretty funny in one way and scary as hell in another way, here is a link to that story - http://www.theonion.com/articles/massive-flow-of-bullshit-continues-to-gush-from-bp,17564/
So that leads me to another question, why do we allow bull shitters to live among us? Why do we allow and in most cases condone the behavior? I at one time considered myself a master bull shitter but I really do not want that title anymore. I try to live my life being honest above all else, mainly because I am not smart enough to remember lies. I do not want to be lumped into the group of people who are perpetrating, what is see, as the LARGEST scam in the name of the black nectar we all need to survive. The only person I have heard on television mention our involvement in this catastrophe was Jimmy Buffet. I can not remember his exact words but he admitted we are all over consumers of the black gold and BP is out there because of our wants. I later learned he has a hotel he just opened on Pensacola Beach so his being out there with my dipshit governor (my opinion) telling folks to come on down and enjoy the beaches may have been motivated by other interests. Could my man Jimmy be a bull shitter, God I pray not and I will not investigate any further on him, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt on it.
So almost 2 months in we are starting to get the huge outswell of support for the area by way of our President, this calamity is going to wind up being more devastating than Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti and any of the other natural disasters of recent memory. The only difference, this was caused by someone other than Mother Nature, who is exempt from prosecution. There is and are folks who are responsible and I am told they will be held to task, I hope and pray they are held accountable for the GROSS NEGLIGENCE. Meanwhile we need to do something to support the folks whose livelihood has been completely stopped. And I mean now, not when BP or the Government get around to paying out, I mean NOW! Call your state representatives now and raise hell, be a bull shitter if you must to force the mechanisms of big business and Government into action to help the folks that are hurting right now. Here is a link to all their phone numbers and email addresses http://conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm
Will our Presidents righteous indignation and best effort, 2 months late or not, make a difference, I hope and pray he can make that difference but I fear he too may just be a master bullshitter.
After seeing a post from a friend on Face Book I realized he had a GREAT point - Where are all the “save the gulf” benefit concerts? Where are the celebrities and musicians waxing poetic about this tragedy? Where are the heart felt speeches from the politico’s? I sit, with my friend, in stunning amazement and wonder why? Why would I be surprised by a selective response to this disaster from the famous and powerful. If it is not a pet cause or if it does not provide them with some quantifiable advantage or gain there is usually little said or done. Here is a perfect example of our apathy, and yes I say our apathy. Why us, because we have allowed that behavior to become the norm, acceptable behavior instead of standing up and calling bullshit. I have used that term before and I am POSITIVE that you have heard it before, he’s a bull shitter, that is bullshit and I am going to call bull shit on that, whether you admit it or not I know you have heard it. I have started to examine what, exactly, those terms means and have been quite surprised by my results.
According to Wiki Bullshit is (also bullcrap, bullplop, bullbutter, horseshit, bovine stool) is a common American English expletive which may be shortened to the euphemism bull or the initialism B.S. Wiki goes on to say, As with many expletives, it can be used as an interjection or as many other parts of, and can carry a wide variety of meanings. Most commonly, it is used in connection with incorrect, misleading, or false language and statements. While the word is generally used in a deprecating sense, it may imply a measure of respect for language skills, or frivolity, among various other benign usages. Hummmmm. Anyone who has researched bull shit knows that field received a tremendous boost from the pioneering work of Harry G. Frankfurt, his seminal theses did however open up more questions than they answered. Harry’s essay, “On Bullshit” is an in-depth examination, at the philosophical level, of bullshit and bull shitter’s and the seemingly more bold faced liars and which is more detrimental to our world.
Now there is a follow-up to that 1980’s treatise, it is “Bullshit and Philosophy” and I am reading it right now. In this follow up some of the most highly trained intellects of our time critique old Harry and take the discourse beyond anything he could imagine. Bullshit and Philosophy has new contributions to the conversation that were previously left not there. I did pull one definition of Bullshit that I thought perfect for making my point about this environmental disaster. “Bullshit is commonly used to describe statements made by people more concerned with the response of the audience than in truth and accuracy, such as goal-oriented statements made in the field of politics or advertising”. There are several key points I find in that. Statements made by folks more concerned with the response of the audience than in truth and accuracy. I think I might prefer to be bold faced lied to than sold a freakin song and dance, I have more respect for a liar because he at least cares about the truth – cares that we do not find it. A Bullshitter does not care about the truth at all, they just sling whatever….. Bullshit they need to in order to advance their cause or issue. And, as the definition indicates, goal oriented statements that are being advertised to us. We are being treated like automatons by the powers to be, we are expected to buy into the line of bullshit we are being feed, just as we are to believe if we do not buy a particular toothpaste our teeth will fall out.
I am fascinated by bullshit, not just because I enjoy picking out the bullshitter amongst us but when you start to analyze bullshit at a philosophical level the conversation sparks a great interest for me. So, back to the oil spill, in my opinion bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. Does that seem the least bit clear in recent times, say the last since April 22nd? I have heard nothing but bullshit from everyone trying to protect the hole, from BP, from the government, from the pundits, who think they know anything at all. It has been a continuous line of BS, they obviously are doing damage control, to protect themselves and their interests and I do not believe any of it has been true. Not the estimated number of barrels to the fact they told us the leak could not be stopped when they meant to say, we cant stop the leak with out loosing our investment in the hole. Over time the rules governing their end of the conversation have quietly been changing so that claims about truth and falsity are minimized to the point of irrelevancy.
Bullshit does not necessarily have to be a complete fabrication all the time, with only basic knowledge about a topic, bullshit is often used to make the audience believe that they know far more about the topic by feigning total certainty or making probable predictions. It is all filler, fodder and nonsense that is being spoon fed to us, waiting and hungry for a tidbit. I believe no matter how well the relevancies are explained or however relevant they may appear, they are still without data and intelligence and that kind of dialog is the quintessential definition of the verb "to bullshit”. They are all (my opinion) feigning concern and conviction that just through simple observation are bullshit on so many levels, this is what I like to call the industrial strength, commercial grade bullshit. It never ceased to amaze me the words coming out of the mouths of BP, the government and most talking heads, why are not many more of us calling BULLSHIT on them? I did read a funny little story on the onion that was pretty funny in one way and scary as hell in another way, here is a link to that story - http://www.theonion.com/articles/massive-flow-of-bullshit-continues-to-gush-from-bp,17564/
So that leads me to another question, why do we allow bull shitters to live among us? Why do we allow and in most cases condone the behavior? I at one time considered myself a master bull shitter but I really do not want that title anymore. I try to live my life being honest above all else, mainly because I am not smart enough to remember lies. I do not want to be lumped into the group of people who are perpetrating, what is see, as the LARGEST scam in the name of the black nectar we all need to survive. The only person I have heard on television mention our involvement in this catastrophe was Jimmy Buffet. I can not remember his exact words but he admitted we are all over consumers of the black gold and BP is out there because of our wants. I later learned he has a hotel he just opened on Pensacola Beach so his being out there with my dipshit governor (my opinion) telling folks to come on down and enjoy the beaches may have been motivated by other interests. Could my man Jimmy be a bull shitter, God I pray not and I will not investigate any further on him, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt on it.
So almost 2 months in we are starting to get the huge outswell of support for the area by way of our President, this calamity is going to wind up being more devastating than Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti and any of the other natural disasters of recent memory. The only difference, this was caused by someone other than Mother Nature, who is exempt from prosecution. There is and are folks who are responsible and I am told they will be held to task, I hope and pray they are held accountable for the GROSS NEGLIGENCE. Meanwhile we need to do something to support the folks whose livelihood has been completely stopped. And I mean now, not when BP or the Government get around to paying out, I mean NOW! Call your state representatives now and raise hell, be a bull shitter if you must to force the mechanisms of big business and Government into action to help the folks that are hurting right now. Here is a link to all their phone numbers and email addresses http://conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm
Will our Presidents righteous indignation and best effort, 2 months late or not, make a difference, I hope and pray he can make that difference but I fear he too may just be a master bullshitter.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Boycott BP – yeah, like that will help? The Government is in control – yeah right why it is all bullshit and who is REALLY to blame!
Well, I can tell you right now that you and I are to blame, WHAT you might be saying but it is indeed you and I. We have found it very easy to blame British Petroleum and the Government and the folks who leased the rig that sank and the manufacturers of the broken blowout preventer and any other list of folks, EASY to blame them BUT………….. I ask that we back up a couple of steps first. What do you suppose they were doing out there in the first place? Why is there a company called BP? Why do we have an insatiable thirst for the black gold? Why, why and why. Well I am here to tell you why. It is because we want this and we want that and to manufacture this and that takes oil. I am not just talking about the obvious culprits such as gas and diesel, although transportation does takes the lions share, 66% of all oil goes to transportation of some kind. Another 25% goes to industry, to make things. The other 4%, 2% and 3% goes to residential, commercial and for electrical power generation. It is all about our hedonistic consumerism and that is why BP is out there – we want our goodies. We want the perfumes, the hand lotions and sanitizers, the bottled water and the Glade thingies that make the room smell good. We want the surgical gloves and the car tires, we want the synthetic fibers for clothes that breath and wick away moisture. We want it all AND these are the consequences of our self-indulgent ways and it has lead us to where we are now - an oil slick, literally the size of the gulf of Mexico.
Somehow, we can sit in righteous indignation that they have not stopped the leak, and there is enough of blame gaming everywhere ya look but never once have I heard a conversation about our addition to oil. In my opinion, it is short termed thinking by shortsighted people. We want that oil leak stopped but instead of filling that hole with cement to stop it we keep playing games with it, trying desperately to save the hole that provides the nectar that runs our country. It seems unfathomable to me that we are trying one thing at a time and waiting for it to fail before we pre-stage the plan B. If I were running that show I would have plan A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M and freaking N all moving at the same time. There would be no waiting ANOTHER week after another potential solution that failed magnificently before the next plan was in place, that would take minutes to go to the next plan. But NO we somehow are relying on BP and the Government to fix this, both of which have a HUGE vested interest in having that hole returned to usability. It would be akin to the turning over to the bullet manufacturers and the hunting license bureaus to stop hunting all together nationewide. They would be coming up with reason after reason and idea after idea to keep the hunters hunting while trying to bullshit rational people into believing they can not control the situation. They would have NO reason to stop and actual they would be de-incentivized to actually do so. You can begin to see how crazy this disaster is and how they are not really trying to stop the leak, they are trying to save the investment in the hole.
Who knows how many barrels of oil have spilled out, they do not have a clue and even amongst the “experts” they are only speculating. And really does it matter? It is REALLY bad and they need to get it under control now, whatever the costs – period. They should also be held accountable, to the families of the people who died and for all the people who lost their livelihood due to this disaster. They should reimburse municipalities for their loss and they should be reimburse the businesses that have been devastated by their GROSS negligence. One more thing that I do not care about is this, I do not care how much BP is paying to clean their mess up, I just don’t. I do not care today, I will not care tomorrow. It is their mess and if they go bankrupt cleaning up their mess so be it, oh wait a minute - are they going to be one of those companies that is too big to fail? Will the government bail them out, will they take them over? I hope the answer to both is NO. Why should they do either, well we are talking about oil so I would not be surprised to see it happen.
Is there really anyway to guarantee, 100% of the time, that the technology will never fail? I have been in the repair business for my whole life and there is one constant I have seen time and time again, without fail, is that everything will fail eventually. Let me say that again, EVERYTHING will fail eventually. There is absolutely no way that every single contingency can be covered, because there is no way to guarantee that the man made devices will work, every time all the time, it is a statistical impossibility - no damn way! So no matter how many contingency plans we build into any off shore drilling there will always be a chance of an accident, it is the whole risk versus reward thing and oil will win every time. The accident would not be on purpose, it would be an accident, but at that point it matters little, the freaking oil is gushing into our environment. The other down side of building in plans to cover all the known contingencies is that it will increase the costs of gas right along with the cost of all the things made with petroleum products and I do not know about you but I got no budge in my budget at all to cover those additional costs. You think we are pissed about the costs of gas now, imagine if each oil hole in the future has to have millions upon millions of dollars worth of equipment to prevent some litany of potential possible incidents. The oil companies are NOT going to eat that cost, we will - in the increased cost of the stuff we want to buy.
We can go on about they shoulda, they were supposed to and even the other folks were supposed to ensure this or that and it still matters little for the thousands of barrels of oil that have spewed into the Gulf of Mexico. We want our stuff and the government wants their stuff and the drillers want their stuff. We all want different things and we all have different reasons but it still boils down to everyone wanting stuff. Hell we even want our toothpaste to be sweet tasting so we add glycerin to get the taste – petroleum product. Our dependence on oil is INSANE. It dominates every part of our lives, every single part! Have we started car pooling more – NO, have we shifted to baking soda for cleaning our teeth – NO. We, as a society, have done NOTHING significant that would lead to removing our addiction to oil – NOTHING. What have we, as consumers, really done to cut our addition to oil, better yet what have you done, yeah – YOU? I am ashamed to admit that I myself have done little in this regard but this spill in the gulf has me evaluating and reevaluating the way I live my life and my actual impact on the world around me. Not in some superficial way, carbon footprints and the carbon trading seems to me a veiled attempt by an entire industry to scare us and make us feel bad about our usage of the earth’s resources. I am talking about meaningful change and that is hard for everyone.
We have to get control folks and I am not sure what that means anymore but I think it has to start with understanding what impact oil has on our lives and then we need to start looking at alternatives that require less dependence on any oil, let alone foreign oil. It will not be easy, our world revolves around being able to have everything we want, wherever we want it and whenever we want it. It will require personal sacrifice, not someone else but YOU and ME too. I don’t know what the answers are but doing nothing is no longer going to work for me. I do not know what the answer is, but boycotting BP is not it. That is, in my opinion, nothing but symbolism over substance and it will in the long run make NO difference, even if they go bankrupt some other oil company will buy them and the game will continue, boycotting is not the answer friends – controlling our appetites is what will bring an end to this craziness.
Somehow, we can sit in righteous indignation that they have not stopped the leak, and there is enough of blame gaming everywhere ya look but never once have I heard a conversation about our addition to oil. In my opinion, it is short termed thinking by shortsighted people. We want that oil leak stopped but instead of filling that hole with cement to stop it we keep playing games with it, trying desperately to save the hole that provides the nectar that runs our country. It seems unfathomable to me that we are trying one thing at a time and waiting for it to fail before we pre-stage the plan B. If I were running that show I would have plan A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M and freaking N all moving at the same time. There would be no waiting ANOTHER week after another potential solution that failed magnificently before the next plan was in place, that would take minutes to go to the next plan. But NO we somehow are relying on BP and the Government to fix this, both of which have a HUGE vested interest in having that hole returned to usability. It would be akin to the turning over to the bullet manufacturers and the hunting license bureaus to stop hunting all together nationewide. They would be coming up with reason after reason and idea after idea to keep the hunters hunting while trying to bullshit rational people into believing they can not control the situation. They would have NO reason to stop and actual they would be de-incentivized to actually do so. You can begin to see how crazy this disaster is and how they are not really trying to stop the leak, they are trying to save the investment in the hole.
Who knows how many barrels of oil have spilled out, they do not have a clue and even amongst the “experts” they are only speculating. And really does it matter? It is REALLY bad and they need to get it under control now, whatever the costs – period. They should also be held accountable, to the families of the people who died and for all the people who lost their livelihood due to this disaster. They should reimburse municipalities for their loss and they should be reimburse the businesses that have been devastated by their GROSS negligence. One more thing that I do not care about is this, I do not care how much BP is paying to clean their mess up, I just don’t. I do not care today, I will not care tomorrow. It is their mess and if they go bankrupt cleaning up their mess so be it, oh wait a minute - are they going to be one of those companies that is too big to fail? Will the government bail them out, will they take them over? I hope the answer to both is NO. Why should they do either, well we are talking about oil so I would not be surprised to see it happen.
Is there really anyway to guarantee, 100% of the time, that the technology will never fail? I have been in the repair business for my whole life and there is one constant I have seen time and time again, without fail, is that everything will fail eventually. Let me say that again, EVERYTHING will fail eventually. There is absolutely no way that every single contingency can be covered, because there is no way to guarantee that the man made devices will work, every time all the time, it is a statistical impossibility - no damn way! So no matter how many contingency plans we build into any off shore drilling there will always be a chance of an accident, it is the whole risk versus reward thing and oil will win every time. The accident would not be on purpose, it would be an accident, but at that point it matters little, the freaking oil is gushing into our environment. The other down side of building in plans to cover all the known contingencies is that it will increase the costs of gas right along with the cost of all the things made with petroleum products and I do not know about you but I got no budge in my budget at all to cover those additional costs. You think we are pissed about the costs of gas now, imagine if each oil hole in the future has to have millions upon millions of dollars worth of equipment to prevent some litany of potential possible incidents. The oil companies are NOT going to eat that cost, we will - in the increased cost of the stuff we want to buy.
We can go on about they shoulda, they were supposed to and even the other folks were supposed to ensure this or that and it still matters little for the thousands of barrels of oil that have spewed into the Gulf of Mexico. We want our stuff and the government wants their stuff and the drillers want their stuff. We all want different things and we all have different reasons but it still boils down to everyone wanting stuff. Hell we even want our toothpaste to be sweet tasting so we add glycerin to get the taste – petroleum product. Our dependence on oil is INSANE. It dominates every part of our lives, every single part! Have we started car pooling more – NO, have we shifted to baking soda for cleaning our teeth – NO. We, as a society, have done NOTHING significant that would lead to removing our addiction to oil – NOTHING. What have we, as consumers, really done to cut our addition to oil, better yet what have you done, yeah – YOU? I am ashamed to admit that I myself have done little in this regard but this spill in the gulf has me evaluating and reevaluating the way I live my life and my actual impact on the world around me. Not in some superficial way, carbon footprints and the carbon trading seems to me a veiled attempt by an entire industry to scare us and make us feel bad about our usage of the earth’s resources. I am talking about meaningful change and that is hard for everyone.
We have to get control folks and I am not sure what that means anymore but I think it has to start with understanding what impact oil has on our lives and then we need to start looking at alternatives that require less dependence on any oil, let alone foreign oil. It will not be easy, our world revolves around being able to have everything we want, wherever we want it and whenever we want it. It will require personal sacrifice, not someone else but YOU and ME too. I don’t know what the answers are but doing nothing is no longer going to work for me. I do not know what the answer is, but boycotting BP is not it. That is, in my opinion, nothing but symbolism over substance and it will in the long run make NO difference, even if they go bankrupt some other oil company will buy them and the game will continue, boycotting is not the answer friends – controlling our appetites is what will bring an end to this craziness.
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