May 23, 2010

A historic dump on American shores

"The unfolding disaster is not even prompting a reconsideration of the 75th annual Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival. “All systems are go,” said Lee Delaune, the festival’s director, sitting in his cluttered office in a historic house known as Cypress Manor. “We will honor the two industries as we always do,” Mr. Delaune said. “More so probably in grand style, because it’s our diamond jubilee. ' Louisiana is an oil state, though and through. A gushing leak off of its coast has not, apparently, changed that" — NYT

Watching this disaster unfold is providing me with one of those stranger-in-a-strange-land moments I get every now again (other reliables: gun control, Twinkies, WWF wrestling). Imagine the situation were reversed. If a company called American Petroleum were disgorging thousands of gallons of oil onto the coast of Normandy, the French would be hauling the Bastille back into fashion. If it reached the British coast, there would be uproar. Newspapers would spontaneously combust. Governments would fall. But such is America's obeisanse to oil companies that everyone is simply sitting back, gazing at the spill going: huh. Well ain't that something. Doesn't anyone care that a foreign company — British no less — has just taken a historic dump on America's beaches? A small boycott would be nice. What we get instead is Rand Paul saying Obama's (extremely mild) criticism of BP is "UnAmerican." Unfathomable. Hilarious even.

4 comments:

  1. Interesting.
    The media I've been reading here IS reporting on considerable American anger,especially at governmental level, towards BP, with particular focus on the reparations that will have to be made.
    On a slightly different note, it was reported today that GB is yet again the "dirty man" of Europe, this time with numerous sewage outflows contaminating the water around the coasts.
    Talk about sh*****g in your own back yard. Yeuch.

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  2. Sorry, off on a total tangent, but since I'm here - thought I'd mention that I saw I am Love, which I know you listed yonks ago as a must see film of 2010.
    Just to say, you're right, and, it is.
    Absolutely stunning, with just one caveat which I'll wait until you blog on it to share.

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  3. There is some anger — amongst liberals — but everyone else is weirdly supine

    Can't wait for I Am Love

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  4. Shit happens, Tom. Americans know not to fret about it unlike you pesky Europeans.

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