Lost in Translation: The BP Oil Spill

June 17th, 2010 Bud Brewer
Bud Brewer

As soon as I heard the words come off the lips of the Swedish Chairman of BP, I knew there would be a … firestorm of blog and cable news activity and coverage. Essentially what the poor man said was, “We care about the small people.”  Sigh. 

He’d done everything right up until that moment. He’d agreed to the President’s demand that a $20 billion fund be set up outside the management of BP to help those most deeply and immediately in need following the BP-caused devastation in the Gulf of Mexico. He apologized, which in American culture means, he took responsibility and set his company up for more litigation than any coal mine disaster or errant gas pedal might ever produce. But then he said, “We care about the small people.” 

I think he meant to say, “We care about the people affected who operate and work in the thousands of small and family businesses along the Gulf Coast.” But he called them “small people,” and most of them are probably not small, or, for sure, don’t wish to be thought of as small, or little, or any other descriptive that portrays them as anything less than normal, typical, average people. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not attempting to wash away any of BP’s responsibility in this awful matter, but we really need to focus on the substance of things and not get all caught up in a misspoken phrase by a man who clearly isn’t fluent in the nuances of the English language. I think he’s doing the right things, but he’s communicating his extremely important messages in the wrong way.   

If we’re to use the experience of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, Alaska twenty-one years ago as any point of reference, we’re going to be living with the effects of the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf for decades. Getting the situations of the people affected repaired, cleaning up the mess, making sure it never happens again and addressing all of the primary, secondary and even tertiary costs involved is difficult enough for the best and the brightest among us. 

We really don’t need to be focusing on a couple of unfortunate words at the expense of the substantive issues involved in the BP affair.

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Tweeting from 200 Years Ago

June 9th, 2010 Sultana Ali
Sultana Ali

As per my usual habit, I spent a few minutes crawling my Twitter feed after lunch today to see what interesting topics people (my tweeps) might be discussing. Unsurprisingly, Guy Kawasaki had a topic that immediately perked my ears – “200-year-old ‘tweets’ found in diaries.” 

After reconciling the lack of a digital age in the pre-industrial times and the use of the word “tweets” in my mind, I proceeded to the article on AllTop, home to Guy’s aggregator of information. The article revealed the result of examination by a Cornell University researcher of primarily women’s diary entries from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The diaries were filled with “Twitter-style records about what was happening in daily life” including meals, funerals, weddings, meetings and more. Sample: 

April 7. Mr. Fiske Buried.

April 27. Made Mead. At the assembly

(from the 1770 diary of Mary Vial Holyoke of Salem, Mass.)

Our new ways of communicating, it turns out, aren’t as new as we thought. “We tend to think of new media as entirely new and different,” said Lee Humphreys, Cornell University assistant professor of communication. “But often we see people using new media for old problems that people have always had to think about and engage with.”

So, to the people who are Twitter averse, attesting they don’t need to know if someone is drinking a cup of coffee, you have now been informed; people were, perhaps unnecessarily, being informed of everything down to menial daily tasks as long as 200 years ago, and they didn’t need a catchy name like “tweets” in order to do it.

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Criminal Justice

May 21st, 2010 Bud Brewer
Bud Brewer

T-Shirt Design by Mother Falcon Clothing

A news item involved the attack by an alligator on a human swimmer in a Central Florida lake. Game and wildlife officials captured the 11.5 foot offender in this case and put the reptile down.  

Now, this is a serious matter, of course, but I couldn’t help but wonder what would have been the outcome had the alligator been given due process before his sentence was “executed.” 

“Court will come to order,” said Judge Faron Imparshal. “Is the prosecution ready?” 

“We are, your honor,” said prosecutor Gettum Noles. 

“And for the defense?” asked the judge. 

“Wim Webow, your honor, speaking for all fans of all gators, regardless of bite pattern.” 

“The defendant did certainly bite a human being, your honor,” said Noles. “And in these parts, that’s a big deal.” 

“Your honor, the defense stipulates that the events in question took place,” said Webow.  “But the only true charge that should be leveled against this glorious creature is that he behaved exactly and precisely like any good gator.” 

“Explain yourself, Mr. Webow.” 

“Gators are known for attacking and overpowering, your honor,” said Wim Webow.  “The only thing he’s guilty of … is being a gator.” 

“But your honor,” interrupted Gettum Noles. 

“Objection overruled,” said the Judge. “My decision is that the gator in question should be personally introduced to that ridiculous little bulldog in Georgia and that annoying little rooster in South Carolina. Case dismissed!” 

“But your honor,” said the prosecutor. 

“And one more thing, Mr. Webow,” said the judge. “Could you please sign this football for me?”

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The Awesome Power of Even Little Words

May 19th, 2010 Bud Brewer
Bud Brewer

Ours is officially a very unforgiving society, especially and specifically when it comes to the words uttered by those in whom we entrust public office. 

In Connecticut, the sitting Attorney General, who is also a candidate for the United States Senate, found himself in the situation of having been on record as saying one thing when the record revealed something else. I’m sympathetic to his point but I’m more sympathetic to the point made by his critics.  

I served in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War. In fact, of the four years in which I served my country, we were involved in Vietnam in one way or another during all four of them. I did not, however serve IN Vietnam. Never even got close, and to be sure, there is a huge difference in having served during the war and in having served, as Vietnam vets put it, “in country.”  

Richard Blumenthal says he “misspoke” when he referenced having served IN Vietnam during the war. Maybe, but I doubt it.  

What he likely meant to say, had he truly misspoken, was that he served in the military while the Vietnam War was being fought, as I did. He apparently thinks this is a minor point on which his opponents are making political hay. 

It is not. And in my opinion, one doesn’t “misspeak” about something like this.

Tens of thousands of Americans actually fought and died in Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of others served while that war was being fought.  This isn’t like Woodstock. You either were there or you weren’t. I am one of those who wasn’t there, and I thank God every day that I didn’t go through the hell that my fellow service men and women who went there did. 

Should Mr. Blumenthal’s entire career be tossed aside because of this single, small, misapplied word? Probably not, but it should invite scrutiny into other claims he’s made about himself. And it should serve as a cautionary note to people in public life that in this era of the 24-hour news cycle, cable news, blog posts and other forms of aggressive, take-no-prisoners media, even a single misstatement involving a single word of only two letters should be scrupulously avoided.

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