The Log in Our Eye

The other day I had a roar (Ante Up or Shut Up) about all the righteous anger regarding the Deepwater Horizon spill. This is not a retraction—I have little patience for the morally superior attitude of everyone who “knew this would happen.”

 

I also, however, feel a great deal of compassion for the people who are being affected by the spill. Just because I think we’re all participating in the industry doesn’t mean that I think fishermen who will lose this year’s livelihood or environmentalists who still drive combustion-engine cars deserve this distress. I don’t. I don’t think the oil company is wholly innocent, though I think that there’s a reason the other oil companies aren’t being forthcoming about their rig designs; my guess is that BP isn’t the only one doing things this way. It’s just the one who caught the bad well/mud/BOP.

 

My frustration is with the blame and scapegoating that are polarizing our country. Everything is adversarial, and this is just the latest example. A couple of years ago, the right claimed victory because increased offshore production means more energy independence, more jobs, and more security. It was right there behind big oil, and the governments of Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana were right onboard (Governor Backs Florida Drilling; Offshore Drilling Alabama’s Coastline; Louisiana touts is its offshore oil drilling). These individuals were the champions of the industry, and the second they were hurt by the industry they jumped ship and shifted blame.

 

In fact, in 2009, 68% of Americans supported increased offshore drilling as part of a suite of energy projects including natural gas and wind turbines (Poll Shows State Residents Support Offshore Drilling; you will note that the New Jersey supported offshore drilling, and that its legislators introduced the legislation to raise the liability cap on oil spill damage). Some (including Crist) argue that they support “environmentally friendly” drilling, but there is no such thing. You can attempt to minimize the impact, but the friendliest thing you can do is not drill. Any kind of drilling is “environmentally acquainted” at best. This spill was not a matter of if—it was a matter of when, and anyone who thought otherwise was an ostrich with his head in the tar sands. The proponents just choose ignorance because later they can behave as though they were deceived, when really they simply deluded themselves and wish to eschew responsibility for the consequences of the actions that they support.

 

The same adversarial relationship exists in education. Rather than working together—politicians, students, parents, teachers—to figure out that maybe there is no single approach that works for every child, and that maybe you need to hire good teachers and then let them teach, the parties attack each other to avoid accepting their own share of responsibility. Politicians are obliged to fund education, but they need a reason to hold that funding hostage during election years, so they talk performance. Students are responsible for working as hard as they can, every day, to get the most of their education because they are responsible for their futures, but if they prefer to slack, or if baseball is more important than Biology, they blame the teachers. Parents are responsible for making sure their children are well-behaved, fed, and supported in their education, but some can’t or won’t, and instead of asking for help they foist the responsibility on teachers and are stunned when teachers resist. Teachers, faced with a desire and responsibility to educate, receive minimal funding, unfunded mandates, inconsistent objectives, unprepared students, parental responsibilities, and rampant animosity, and shoot their frustration right back at all three of the aforementioned groups.

 

Most people in these groups try to work together: a good politician tries to support education, not rule it; a good student does his best and asks for help; a good parent has high expectations of both student and teacher (not just the latter); and a truly good teacher can most of the time take it all in stride and succeed. But the ones that we read about? The obnoxious ones? They’re more invested in assigning blame than in solving problems.

 

Other examples:

• Immigration in Arizona--We have illegal immigrants working in the U.S., businesses who are hiring them, but instead of going after the businesses who underpin both the black market labor and the political system, we go after the immigrants.
• The war in Iraq--Received overwhelming support in Congress that waned almost immediately when we discovered that you can’t invade a country without then occupying that country, unless you simply intend to destroy the country. Regardless of the rationale behind the war (and I admit that the support was the result of bad intelligence and subterfuge), invading a nation is not quick, however justified it may seem, and it was the potential longevity of the situation, rather than the faulty motives, that had many (not all) hawks turning accusatory doves.

The problem is, we can’t even have this conversation. We can’t discuss it civilly unless we’re behind closed doors where no one can see that we can understand the other side a little, and may even be a little wrong ourselves. Everything is adversarial, and I think it stems from guilt. I’m Catholic—I’m an expert on guilt, and the first thing a guilty person does is project blame. We’re ready to call others on it, as the Senate did when BP, Halliburton, and Transocean started playing responsibility hot potato. But then the log in our eye whacks something and hurts: this is the same body that at different stages allowed the rigs in the Gulf in the first place. The press conference kings these days are the same ones who in 2008, when oil prices were sky high, wanted a piece of that action in their districts. This is the same body that refuses to vote on carbon cap and trade, or any real legislation to wean us off the oil tit.

 

The same people funding support of the Arizona immigration bill are the ones who buy cheap strawberries picked by migrant laborers and don’t worry about the cleaning lady’s status when they pay her in cash at the end of the week. Some teachers are just bad, and they’re the first ones to spout off about parents (seriously—the good teachers lose their patience with parents every once in a while, but they are also often the first to defend parents who are doing their best to raise kids in a tough economy and meaner society than it used to be. They’re the first to try to coach parents about dealing with behavior issues because, let’s face it: the average parent trains 3 kids in a lifetime. The average teacher? 300+. There’s some expertise there. And they’re the first ones to give up evenings, weekends, and good nights’ sleep for the students who need them).

 

I am not without compassion. I do not, however, feel that sympathizing with those in distress means that we have to ignore all fault, or eschew it. We keep trying to make sweeping reforms of health care, of environmental policy, of education, of immigration—but those things only work from the top if the people on the bottom start participating as well. You want lower health care costs? Stop using insurance to pay for recreational massage—that’s not what it’s for, and you know it. You want a cleaner environment? Turn off the lights/computer/air conditioner in your house, stop buying bottled water, buy local produce, walk wherever you can and live closer to work/stores/entertainment. Accept that less oil production means higher gas prices.

 

You want a better education system? Stop finding someone to blame and start volunteering—be a mentor, a tutor, an advocate of public libraries. Talk to teachers, rather than at or about them. If you want to reduce illegal immigration, punish companies that hire illegal immigrants, as well as the immigrants themselves—both are equally criminal. Accept that it may mean Americans have to do their own manual labor—and in a tough job market, that may mean that you or I have to scrub someone else’s floor, pick their fruit, mow their lawn, or clear their dishes, and do it for the wages that illegal immigrants will accept. Or, alternately, accept that those businesses will no longer be able to charge what they do now, or even stay afloat.

 

I am frustrated because we have the power to change the world, and we have abandoned that power. We have given it away to governments and lawyers instead of claiming it. All I have to do to change the world is to change my own life, a little at a time, slowly creeping toward my ideal. But that requires real work, and that requires me to accept my fault when I fail: to live with the consequences both of my failures and my successes. That is the most American ideal that we have: we, through our own actions in our own lives, have the power to determine our own destinies. We are choosing not to do so because it’s hard—better to let government or the economy or anyone other than us mandate it, then blame them when it fails. It’s just sad, and I’m just as guilty as anyone else. The difference? I know there’s a log in my eye, and I’m trying, little by little, to pull it free so I can see a little clearer. There are others out there (many, actually, who read this blog) doing the same, and maybe, little by little, we can change the timbre of national discourse to one of respect, that acknowledges equal responsibility for our nation’s failures and its successes.

Stockholming, Week 7 and Moving

This one's short, because I don't want to forget it again (actually, I didn't forget Week 6, the post was just so short that you missed it) and I'm going to go crazy packing tonight.

Last week was horrible (food/exercise-wise...life was good otherwise). I ate one of everything, and sometimes two. Ugh. And let me tell you--Brie mac and cheese? Yes. Oh, Lord, yes. Calories inherent in that dish? NOOOOOO. Get thee behind me, Brie-tan. I do believe I have had my first, second, third, fourth, and LAST helpings of that particular delicacy. No more Brie in the house for...quite some time.  Sorry, honey.

On the upside of last week, though: 1) it' over and this week is new. 2) This weekend was moving, and it definitely counts as exercise. I know, because all of my magic muscles (the ones that disappear until you use them) have reappeared, and are grousing about being abused. 3) I did not make or eat cake for the first time in months. 4) Yesterday, at the beginning of the new week? I had ONE piece of pizza and a couple of wings with beer. One piece. And we did not get fast food for lunch. We had a sandwich and some apples with peanut butter. So I enter this week, for the first time in a month, having NOT eaten all my bonus points on Sunday and then having to starve, overeat, or overexercise to remain even close to my weakly points.

 Oh, yeah--did I mention that 5) we rode to work on Friday, aka National Bike to Work Day?  Rode bicycles to work. And I only got a little really pissy when I was informed that the reason I almost passed out and wanted to puke after a really short though steepish hill was because I was in the hardest gear possible. Apparently, the same motion that downshifts when I use my right hand upshifts when I do it on the left...something to do with the way the gears line up or other such biking alchemy. So now, not only are the stationary bikes lying to me, but the real bike has also decided to make my life harder. On the other side, I am learning to appreciate the payoff.

Okay, not as short as it should have been, but I'll be back when the packing is done.

Ante Up or Shut Up

I am tired of smug environmentalists. I am tired of self-pitying business owners. And I am tired of self-righteous, Teflon politicians. Yes, the spill in the Gulf is horrific. Yes, it was caused by one of the three companies. And yes, there should have been worst-case scenario spill plan that was slightly more comprehensive than running around crying,“oh crap, oh crap” with arms flailing.

Maybe MMS was too tight with the oil industry. Maybe the EPA should be the one permitting offshore drilling. Maybe this is the result of gross negligence, or a corporate culture of safety second (which, in all honesty, is not what I have experienced working for that company in Alaska in the last three years…the millions that the company spends to make things like walking from the bus to the building safer, and the fact that everyone has to put out a kiddie pool under their vehicle to prevent spills, have convinced me that at least BPXA is all about the safety, even if it’s only for reputational reasons ).

There is one truth here, however, that all the finger pointers in the tourism industry, and in the fishing industry, and in the environmental lobby, and at the coffee shops, water coolers, and Congress keep trying to deny: we are all complicit.

If you drive a car in this country, you are complicit in this spill. If you run a fishing boat on gasoline, you are complicit in this spill. If tourists fly to your state on airliners and you ferry them around in buses, you are complicit. If your legislator—your elected official—approves of or advocates for or even doesn’t actively fight against offshore drilling, you are complicit. If you thought domestic production would solve our terrorism worries, you are complicit. If you live in a community that receives funding from oil or gas royalties, or that is still afloat because of jobs in the oil and gas industry or its supporting industries, you are complicit. If you have rubber on your bike tires, use Vaseline for chapped lips, like plastic to-go containers, or don’t live a life completely free of petroleum and its byproducts, which are almost as ubiquitous as corn syrup, you support the oil industry and YOU ARE COMPLICIT IN THIS SPILL.

There is no piece of equipment on this earth that can guarantee this kind of spill won’t happen, because all equipment, however genius, is designed and operated by fallible human beings. There is no prevention or cleanup plan that will have a designated response to every catastrophe because there isn’t enough paper or digital space to store a plan so comprehensive that it addresses each potential change in line pressure, current, wind speed, or combination thereof. There is no way to engineer or plan for every single possible risk, because we can’t think of them all. Just when we think we have, something else will happen that we never saw coming, because we are neither—despite our best attempts to prove otherwise—omniscient nor omnipotent. The only way to avoid a similar catastrophe is to ban offshore drilling. Stop the rigs drilling now, keep all fields closed to development in the future, and compensate the oil companies for reneging on the profits we deny them by shutting down the leases that they purchased.

Are we willing to do that?

If we Americans, through our greed and reliance on petroleum, its jobs, and its tax revenues, allow offshore drilling, then we are all complicit in these environmental tragedies when they occur. If it weren’t profitable, Big Oil wouldn’t exist. So we have two choices: give up the oil, or give up the façade of innocence. For once, America, cowboy up and admit that part of this is our fault, too. Then we can decide whether we like that feeling, or whether it’s time to try something different.

Mother's Day Overdone

First, before I forget: Stockholming, Week 5.  See what I mean about the pencil skirt?  I knew you would. The blouse is a size too large (and wouldn't have been at Christmas, so yay there), but you can tell I was feeling pretty sassy.  And to my brother: while I may have larger-than-average calves, there is absolutely a clear transition/narrowing from calves to ankles. I reject the notion that I possess cankles. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there you go.

Okay--to Mother's Day. I was listening to NPR, as I am wont to do, on Monday, the day after Mother's Day, and I heard Michel Martin deliver a monologue thanking all the mothers without children (Can I Just Tell You?). Normally I love Martin's monologues, and I often agree with the points that she makes, but this one got me on the negative. I don't mean to be a pill, or a horribly insensitive woman, but Mother's Day is for mothers. Period.  Michele writes:

"I'm thinking about your girl pal who shows up with a latte and takes your kids to the park just when you can't take one more sibling squabble or when that big report is due. I am thinking about the women who take nieces and nephews on college tours and on camping trips and, sometimes, go all in and take kids home, for a month or a year or forever, when the men and women who created those children just cannot do what they are supposed to do."
In the last half of the last sentence--those women who mother a child because a parent is gone, the foster mothers and guardians and grandmothers and surrogate mothers, who take on the life of a child for the entirety of both of their lives--I will agree that those women deserve recognition as mothers, because they do what mothers do. They go all in--money, time, heart, all of it. They become, despite biology to the contrary, parents and mothers.

But take note: if you give the child back, you're not its mother. The girl pal helping you out for an hour or two? She's not being a coparent, and she's not doing it for your kids. She's being a friend, because she loves you, and she will return your children when they drive her crazy. The female relatives who do the college visits, or host your kids for the summer, or take them camping because you hate camping, are being aunts and grandmothers and cousins--they're being family, but at the end of the day, they're not paying the emotional, physical, and financial check of parenthood. They're good people, and they deserve recognition, but I'm sorry: they're not mothers. In fact, "the aunt who buys you graduation shoes when your parents can't afford them" or the women who help you when your parents can't or won't--that aunt's undermining the parents if she's not getting the parents in on those gifts. There may be a lesson she's negating in the not-having and the not-paying or the not-helping. If she were a parent, she would hate that behavior.

I may never be a mother, though I pray all the time that's not the case. But it's a potential reality that I accept. I feel for all the women on the discussion board at NPR who feel that they're being left behind on Mother's Day, that they're hurt by the fact that they desired to be mothers and couldn't. But why is it a condemnation of those who can't mother to celebrate those who have? Has Mother's Day really become so important socially that it makes more people feel badly about not being mothers than feel good because they are mothers? Or are we just being too damned sensitive? FYI, I don't get upset on Admin's Day that I don't get flowers--I'm not an admin, despite all the things I do that are administrative. I don't flip out on Teacher Appreciation Day because I don't get flowers for teaching Confirmation. While I played it up for comic effect, because it was expected, I never actually had any desire on Valentine's Day to eat my weight in B&J's or to wear black because I wasn't in a relationship.

When I think about these kinds of things, the idea of participation trophies and everyone-is-special days, I am saddened by just how envious we're becoming, and how unsatisfied we are with all we've been given. Not being a mother doesn't diminish your womanhood, and a society that thinks it does can go eff itself. Not being a mother gives a woman a unique opportunities to do the things that mothers don't have time, money, or energy to do. It gives her time to volunteer. It gives her money to travel. It gives her the opportunity to ignore all kids if she simply doesn't like them. It gives her an opportunity to be either selfish or selfless in a way that mothers just can't be. Celebrating mothers, or architects, or priests, or engineers, or nurses, or teachers, or fathers does not invalidate the contributions of all the people who are not those things. Accept who you are, and and others for who the are, rather than envying them for being what you are not. Their success does not reflect on you, and recognizing them doesn't demean you: if that's what you're feeling, you're doing it to yourself.

Am I completely wrong, O Reader?

All Hail the Pencil Skirt!

I know that it's a Stockholming Monday, and I will do that as soon as I can get to a not-hideous mirror. But I'm so in love with this outfit that I can't wait to share it with you. It's what my coworker called "pure spring": pastel plaid peasant top, dark denim pencil skirt, and teal peep-toes with cork wedges. And--and--no hose. I am baring my legs from the knee down with no hose, thereby embracing my gleaming alabaster legs. The contrast with the skirt is slightly stunning in the nonstandard way, but mostly I just feel good today.

In all honesty, I have no idea how I survived without pencil skirts. They hit at exactly the right place, hug all the right spots, and are so comfortable as to be ridiculous. They're both fun and professional, and I need about a dozen more. The other good part about today is that, despite the massive feasting that happened to celebrate the meeting of Redsox/Yankees baseball and Mother's day, and despite the evil weighing maching cackling at my gain last night (I think, though, that the number's a false one due to the sheer quantity of salty food yesterday, and will be reweighing tonight), today is the first time that I have been able to zip this skirt without the aid of those wonderful shapers we discussed last time. Not only that, but it's comfortably zipped--I don't feel like I'm being garrotted by my own attire! Rejoice with me, Internet!  Rejoice!  For now we will ignore that I take such good care of this skirt that it doesn't need to be washed very often, and is comfortably stretched out--simply rejoice in the lack of pinching!

Oh, yes, Internet--today victory is mine. Mine and the Pencil Skirt's. All hail the Pencil Skirt!  Hail it!

Oh, Mah Achin' Mmmhmm.

Here it is: my 100th entry, and it's neither political nor inherently snarky. AND it only took, what, four years of intermittent blogging to make it happen? That averages out to a post every other month, and I think that's something that we can all be happy about. You haven't gotten bored with overposting, I haven't become annoyed by the need to write. It works. We'll just ignore the whole binge-and-purge bulimic blogger reality that it's five posts in a week and then three years off. That bit's irrelevant.

So my only resolution for 2010 was this: choose health. I reiterated that during Lent: make healthy choices. It's not so much about losing weight, though that's a great side effect. It's not about getting in shape for the wedding, though that's a good one, too. It's about the way I feel when I'm eating better or working out. My whole spirit is lifted. It's about not spending my life trapped in stationary hobbies because, much as I'd like to hike or run or play with my kids, I can't because I'm too big or out of shape. It's about someday being able to bear healthy children. It's about not losing a single moment with Jeremiah--about saving even one more day of my life to spend with him. I want them all--I'm greedy for them.

This has been an amazing year, too--Jeremiah gave me a gift of health in the form of a membership to a gym. and I've been really good about making it to the gym or doing something at least three times a week. It's actually getting to the point that I notice the days that I don't go more than the days that I do--case in point, I was thinking that I only went twice this week, checking, and noticing that I went to the gym twice and biking once. And therein lies the ache.

Jeremiah took me bike riding last week, and it was the first time I've been on a bike that actually moves (vs. the stationary ones at the gym) in probably five years. No lie. It may even have been longer. And I am here to tell you that they bike at the gym is a liar. "Let's do a hills workout," it says. "Sure," you say, convincing yourself that it's actually getting harder the more bars show up on the screen. "I must be pedalling up K2," you think, sweat rolling down your forehead. You huff and puff to the summit, and 45 minutes later leave satisfied that you could totally ride a trail for 45 minutes with no problems.

HAH! Lying stationary bikes with your lying stationary bars.

We borrowed my dad's old bike for me and drove up this killer hill (huge, huge hill--literally climbing out of a river valley in 50 or so yards) to park at the dump and ride a wonderful bike trail along the "highway" (big for us, but it's really only 3 lanes each way). Riding wet was great--going with traffic and the wind, pedal pedal pedal, get used to having to balance and look and what is this hard thing on my head?  It was a lot of fun, and we rode 6ish miles to the Ft. Richardson exit. Then Jeremiah gave me some BS about how we have to ride back. Excuse me? I mean, I knew that when we started, but you want to talk inconvenient truth? That was it. Because now we're riding back to Eagle River against the wind and against traffic, which is creating bonus wind. That's right--bonus wind. Wind in addition to the stuff that's down the mountains and along this lovely man made wind tunnel.

On the way back, I had to learn about this thing called "gearing down." It's where you click some stuff and pedal like you're fleeing the Devil himself, while in actuality you're moving slightly faster than a geriatric sloth and barely fast enough to stay upright. The faster you pedal, the more the quads burn, and yet you're still moving practically backwards. (I'm not just being a wuss; we were going 2mph slower on the way back than on the way out, and I was pedaling faster. I know. I told Jeremiah and he didn't argue. That's almost like agreeing.) In the end, I had to send Jeremiah the last 500 feet alone, because my legs just weren't going to make it.

I didn't realize that my legs weren't the only sore bits until Tuesday, when I went to the gym to lecture the stationary bike about the evils of lying. I got on the seat and almost hopped off--bum bruising! What is up with that? And the same thing happened yesterday--Jeremiah showed me the best route to to work last night so that I can bike to work on (what else?) Bike to Work Day and I had so much fun (no wind resistance!)  but dang! My rear is still sore, and that's not good when you sit at a desk all day.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that my butt hurts but it's worth it--so worth it. I had a ton of fun. I conquered a couple of hills and my fears of moving quickly down a hill (I'll get to "fast" next week). I even started speeding up to go over some culvert humps, and coming off the seat. All those bike-riding things started coming back. More than that, though, I did it anyway, even though it wasn't entirely comfortable, because I need to do it. And I wanted to do it. Because the other choice was to sit on the couch and watch TV or blog, and for the first time in a long time that was less attractive than doing something active. This weekend: another bike ride. Next weekend, maybe a hike in Hatcher Pass. I've always had those ideas, but I've never actually done it. And now we're doing it.

Yeah. We. There's the difference, and it's the whole world.

Ok. I'm good. You can go puke now. I won't look. I know it's jealous puke, and that's ok, too. ;)

Changing the Rules When You Lose the Game

In the interests of full disclosure, you should know that I work for a company that has contracts with BP, and that I've been an embedded contractor at a BP office for the last 2-1/2 years.


That said, I'm not any happier about the situation in the Gulf of Mexico than anyone else is. I'm not a "drill at will" person, any more than I think that we should shut down oil production altogether. We're not ready for either one of those things. I'm praying for the families of those who died on the Deepwater Horizon, and for those who make their living on the shores and in the waters of the Gulf.

What gets my goat is what's happening in Congress right now. Currrent law (Oil Pollution Act of 1990) caps an oil company's spill liability at $75 million dollars. That's not even close to the potential cost of cleaning up the spill in the Gulf. However, that law, enacted after the Valdez spill of 1989, is the law that was in place when the Deepwater project received its permits. That was the law that was in place at the time of the well blowout two weeks ago. It is the law under which all parties involved were operating, quite content that it was sufficiently stringent.

Now this: House To Take Up Bill Increasing Oil-Spill Liability Cap To $10 Billion. That's right: Congress is upping the ante to $10 billion dollars, and honestly--that's its prerogative. We know that the more "efficient" these operations get (more oil, less infrastructure) the more catastrophic these spills have the potential to be. My issue is with this key point (emphasis mine): "Pelosi's announcement marks the beginning of an effort by Democrats to ensure that BP Plc (BP) pays for environmental damages caused by last month's oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico."

Wait a second--since when is a law allowed to be retroactive? Regulations, sure--happens all the time. But the law? I'm fairly certain there's a clause against that in the Constitution (and, as it turns out, I'm not the only one who noticed that: CBS Political Hotsheet.).

The 1990 law was fine for 20 years, even after the biggest spill in recorded history to that point. That tells me that in 20 years we haven't had any issue of this size. In the past 20 years, the United States has been sufficiently comfortable with the ability of the oil companies to handle spills that it has allowed offshore drilling. In the past 20 years, the United States, by permitting the drilling and accepting the mountains of tax dollars and benefits of domestic production, accepted the risk associated with offshore drilling.

No oil company ever claimed that a spill of this size would be impossible, and anyone who claims otherwise is a fool. There's always the possibility of catastrophe--it was just improbable. Both the oil company and permitting agencies knew that the consequence of an incident like this would be catastrophic, but that the likelihood of its occurence was miniscule, and was therefore, by all parties, an acceptable risk for the potential return. Both sides assumed that risk, proof of the rarity of these incidents is that a blowout of this kind has never happened before. In the last 20 years, there has been no incident like this in U.S. waters.

Now, however, the rarity of this kind of incident is no longer relevant. Americans are not prepared to pay for it with lost production and environmental damage, so BP will, and has actually said that it will pay all legitimate claims anyway, irrespective of the $75MM cap. I thought that was pretty good. Apparently, though, it wasn't good enough for the Obama administration, who is pushing the legislation even while seeming to claim that in this case it isn't needed because "'the cap is not in place if somebody is found to be either grossly negligent... involved in willful misconduct, or in violation of federal regulations,' [according to presidential spokesman Robert] Gibbs at his daily press briefing yesterday" (CBS).

Gotten  goat number 2: That kind of statement from the White House implies that an investigation will find BP grossly negligent, involved in willful misconduct, or in violation of federal regulations, when we haven't had time to investigate anything because everyone is focussing on stopping the oil spread. The Administration has assigned guilt, when the only people with time to investigate are the media. From what I've been able to read, even in more liberal media sources, none of that's true. BP used industry-proven technology properly and made every effort to assure the quality of both its contractors and equipment--even if a faulty BOV slipped through, that's human error, not gross negligence. I haven't heard anything about misconduct, and the only violation of regulation that anyone's proposed is the lack of a site-specific spill plan, and in that case MMS permitted the project anyway because according to its interpretation of the regulation, Deepwater was covered by the GoM spill plan.

And just in case BP is found not to be negligent, has conducted itself properly, and didn't violate any federal regulation, and has already publicly committed to paying for the cleanup, the Administration and Congress will force them to pay anyway by retroactively lifting the ceiling on liability. Criminal or not, BP's going to pay, and that's pretty much the sentiment forwarded by the bill's author, Sen. Robert Mendez (Rep., NJ): "This is about making Big Oil responsible for its excesses."

Which excesses are those? Excess risk? Not so much, because the goverment is okay with risk as long as it turns out tax dollars and domestic energy, jobs and political capital. Excess arrogance? Not really, because every time a car drips on a gravel pad Congress drags an oil exec in front of a special committee for a pillory and a lecture on C-Span, and the execs keep taking it. No, Big Oil has to be responsible for its excess profits. For making money when the economy's weak. Big Oil has to be responsible for being one of the few viable industries in a country that hates itself for being so oil dependent that we can't say no to a $110 barrel, that preaches renewable energy while rejecting all attempts to actually make it happen (we'll spend $5 on a gallon of gas, but don't dare spend tax dollars upgrading the grid for wind power or the rail system to replace planes with highspeed rail).

Honestly? I'm fine with the U.S. deciding that we no longer want offshore drilling because, however rare, we cannot afford or recover from these kinds of disasters. I'm fine with the U.S. deciding that we're going to ditch fossil fuels altogether, because that might be a challenge with some merit to it. But a Congress that has spent the last year being pissed beyond reason at a financial system that hedged its bets on the mortgage market cannot then turn around and try, after a crash, to offload the risk that the country took in saying yes to offshore drilling. I'm tired of hearing a bunch of wealthy politicians berating wealthy people and companies for seeking wealth--politicians do the same thing, only they call it reelection.

We wanted oil, and we risked an ecosystem to do get it. We wanted tax dollars, and so we enabled one of the largest taxpaying industries in the country to do what it does best, and all was fine until we got caught by what is, in all likelyhood, an accident. A one-in-a-million happening. (Or, for the conspiracy theorists, an act of war by North Korea or an act of domestic terrorism by environmentalists reacting to the President's claim, a week before the spill, that the risk from production is not the rigs, but the refineries.)

Well, friends, this is the price of doing business. Congress made the rules. Now the country has to play by them. Suck it up.

Stockholming, Week 4, and Some Talk of Underthings

I knew I should have Stockholmed yesterday. I gotta be honest--yesterday I looked (IMO) hot, and I very rarely think I look hot. It was a pretty simple outfit, with a black sparkly pencil skirt from Torrid, a white cardy as a blouse, nude hose, and some cutout black suede slingbacks with a stacked heel and python patent detail. Hot. But today is not bad.

Last week, though? Last week was bad. Look at this. Just look!

Yeah, it's not pretty. Flat hair, pale makeup, bad collar, red bathroom. Overall ugh. I promise that most of the week was better.  But seriously--puffed cap sleeves that cut off above the widest part of my arm and are too big for the arm when the rest of the shirt is too small for me. Ugh. Damned Old Navy sales, seducing me into bad fashion choices with the lure of $10 shirts. I just have to learn to pass up cheap for quality (at least once I reach goal weight; until then, it's like short-selling on stocks).

Today's outfit's ok...the cardigan is missing a button, which means that it closes just above the widest part of my waist, and the hairs a little wonky, but overall I'm in a pretty good state of mind about my clothing choices. 

Looking at the pictures, though, brings to mind one thing (guys, stop reading here): appropriate undergarments. It actually came to me yesterday at the gym, listening to a cute new HS grad talking about her dress. Apparently she couldn't wear her sundress with anything but nude underwear because the underwear shows through the thin, white, cotton dress. I was aghast. I wanted to ask if she had ever heard of a slip, because really? The thought of wearing a white skirt without a slip brings back viciously fun memories of a horrid bridesmaid in just such a dress, posing for photos in front of a picture window--her flowered thong was quite lovely in the pics, I'm sure. But I wouldn't wish that on this little girl. Standing in the locker room, I couldn't see the underwear but I could see where the red tank she was wearing under the sundress ended, and it was so uncute. I felt bad for her, and all it would take is a slip.

I guess it's always about the right undergear. My issue is that, as I lose weight, I feel better and fitter, and think I look better (concurrence received from friends and intended), some outfits--like the ones above--show that without the right undergarment, losing the weight in some areas just highlights how much there is to lose other places. More-defined muscles seem to highlight the chubbed areas more than when the whole was chub. So, I guess, until I hit goal, it's time to learn from Steel Magnolias.

Clairee: "Looks like two pigs, fightin' under a blanket!"
Truvy: "I haven't left the house without Lycra on these thighs since I was fourteen."
Clairee: "You were brought up right."

Sigh. One more motivation to reach goal.

Fauxmenism: Lady Pants

You should probably know that I consider myself a feminist. I do. I tend to be a rather conservative feminist, though. My brand of feminism is one that thinks that legally, men and women are equal. In general terms (because let's face it, there are exceptions to every rule) men and women are socially, physically, psychologically, and emotionally complementary. I don't have to do--or even be able to do--everything that men can do to be a man's equal, any more than he has to want/be able to do everything I can to be equal. My brand of feminism is one that is pro-woman, not anti-man; I think women can be womanly and strong instead of wannabemanly. I distrust a feminism that:

• thinks I have to be proabortion to be a proper feminist
• disdains stay-at-home-mothers
• disdains career women who also have families
• thinks all men are out to get all women
• thinks that everything is hunky dory and that all gender-based inequality has been resolved
• tells me what to believe rather than demanding that I figure out what I believe and giving me the tools to do so
• tells me that I can have it all without making any sacrifices: there are opportunity costs for everything
• thinks that simply being a female qualifies any woman to do something well (e.g., a woman president will automatically be better thank a male)
• thinks that being female doesn't change what said woman brings to the table (life experience is always influenced by gender, race, age, and ability--your experience is what you bring to the table, and people who dismiss that are are either delusional or just stupid)

That said, I acknowledge that people who believe any or all of those things believe themselves to be feminists, and more power to them (unless they support Sarah Palin, in which case, no. Just no.). They are not examples of fauxmenists.

Fauxmenism is what I call anything that is lady-specific but not really worth arguing about at all. It's the kind of thing that you can blow up to be gender-bias, but really is just stupid, and that's what I'll be hitting on for Fauxmenism entries.

The first one: Lady Pants. As those of you who have worn or removed lady pants know, lady pants (and shirts, for that matter) open left.  As in, you use your left hand. But not jeans. No, jeans zip up on the right. Because they started out as menswear, and men have traditionally dressed themselves while women dressed each other, due to the cumbersome nature of women's clothing throughout history. (Really, though, wealthy men were just as likely to have someone else dress them, so it should be a class thing, not a gender thing.) I've heard the arguement about shirts, that it's so guy, who traditionally escort girls on the right, can't peek through the gaposis, but I think that's more a side effect than a goal.

I guess my point here, though, is that most women dress themselves these days, even if some should really let someone else pull the outfits together. So why is it that there's still a difference between the closures? Why, at the very least, don't we have some consistency on the closure front? Because I have to be honest...I have, in the past, forgotten to zip the Lady Pants altogether (only one pair, and I'm pretty sure it's because they have a wide waistband that has 4 buttons itself, and I thinking I'm done once the buttons are done. All I'm asking is for some consistency.

The real reason, though, that this is an issue that every fauxmenist should take up is this, which I found while doing exhaustive research on the Internets. When asked why women's and men's clothing closures were different, this was the response:

Men's clothes button from the right because most men are right-handed.
And most women's clothes button from the left is because most men are right-handed.

Uhuh.  I knew you'd feel me. Let the rage ensue.