20 June 2010 | The Outrage, the Outrage!

Okay, so, everyone is outraged at BP, and the latest insult from Tony Hayword is that he went on vacation for a yacht race. It's yet another slap in the face at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Gulf.

Well, actually, I don't call it a humanitarian crisis even though I am sympathetic to the people who are being affected down there. But our Media Glitterati has seen fit to put this on par with the disastrous earthquake in Haiti (remember that?) and even President Obama invoked 9/11 when describing the spill in his televised speech. 

My question really is this: why are we still pretending that BP actually gives a shit? Why are we outraged? Why are we thinking that Tony Hayword or anyone else in his industry is going to suddenly change their personal natures? I think it's because of the strong, Protestant trait we've retained in this country of public shame and repentance. We need Tony Hayword to be repentant, just as the media fucks were needing the president to become deeply emotional and cry his head off or explode as the problem unfolded early. Honestly, I don't know what it's supposed to solve, but in the media narrative, it's supposed to Mean Something.

Along those lines, when it was revealed by BP that Mr. Hayword was taking a respite from his daily on-camera fuck-ups to have a little family time, I actually saw two CNN dopes try to make the case that *they're* still on the job, why isn't Mr. Hayword? After all, crafting a blitz of images and creating a sense of ongoing horror and tragedy is a trying task: you don't see any of our Media Glitterati taking vacation time. They've got a story to beat us with!

The bottom line is this: BP doesn't care, and it's not going to care. It will not be repentant of what it's done, and it will spend years in the courts trying to limit its liability, abetted by Republican fucks whose true backing came to light with Senator Joe Barton's wrenching apology to the oil corp. Its owners and daily operations are not going to beg for forgiveness in any meaningful way, so maybe we should stop letting our Media Glitterati define this problem for us in those emotional terms and pressure the government to make its case that it really can solve problems (a whole other ball of wax.)