Outrage We Should Have Had

Right now, there's a good bit of vitriole out there over the ecological catastrophe currently in work due to oil company negligence and lax regulation. But, I read a story today that boiled my blood, not because it means the spill in the Gulf is any less tragic and horrific, but because this is going on elsewhere in the world and we're either don't know or don't care.

According to this article in the New York Times, oil machinery, pipelines and wells (run largely by Shell) in Nigeria have been the cause of as much as 546 million barrels of oils spilled over the past fifty years in the delta region of Nigeria, which once served as the source of food for most of the country. That's ~50 Exxon Valdez spills, effectively one a year for the last five decades.

Water is contaminated. Fish and shellfish, crops and wildlife which supplied much of the country, are gone, far far out to sea or potentially contaminated. Corroded pipes, defunct wells, sabotage, oil thieves, vandals, all have contributed and it appears that everyone's pointing fingers at everyone else as responsible. But the oil, which supplies 80% of Nigeria's revenue, is not helping the natives that live with the fallout. They have some of the lowest life expectancies in the nation.

Now, I admit I have a pet peeve, the one where people get all caught up about a "local" (i.e. US) tragedy but shrug off horrors that happen to other people. I got hot under the collar when Hurricane Mitch was hardly noted in passing, even though it was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane in nearly a hundred years (and far deadlier than Hurricane Katrina, which doesn't even make the top 25). And it torques me that people who talk about the worst storms ever don't even note some of the horrific deadly typhoons that have devastated the Far East and Asia. The Bhola Cyclone that hit in 1970 killed between 300,000 and 500,000 people.

So, I don't think it's less tragic that Americans are facing ruin and the ecosystem is being ruined in the gulf than it is that people with little/nothing have less because of oil spills largely ignored in Nigeria. But I don't think it's more either. Clearly, holding our oil companies responsible for the damage they cause is long overdue, and not just off our own coast.

This shouldn't just outrage me.

Read more...

Soapbox Sunday: Entertaining Yourself

*Steps on soapbox*

It occurs to me that one reason I'm not a "fun" person is that I have no trouble whatsoever entertaining myself. At any given time, I can happily watch a movie, read a book or a manga, revise existing work, write on one of no less than half a dozen novels, write a short story, play with children, work on jewelry, embroidery or crocheting. I can play a video game (thanks to my husband's tutelage). Or I could blog or read on-line or troll through Wikipedia or sing or, sadly, do some of the many chores and stuff that I have to do. Or work out.

But, when it comes to being a social director, I suck. I've never arranged for the entertainment of others and I've no skill with it when I have. I don't party, I don't know what people like to do in groups and I have no idea how to entertain someone else.

For the past week, my husband and I have been effectively trapped together with the two youngest children as the flu ravaged our good natures and made trips to break up the monotony prohibitively exhausting. I'll be the first to say that makes things challenging in the best of circumstances. Last week, I managed to drag my ravaged body to my husband's brother's wedding to sing and hung out with the baby as Lee and my other two children wandered through the Renaissance Fair. Somehow, that translated in my husband's mind to indulging "me" (???). Since my husband's reaction to illness (he started getting sick on Tuesday) is to sleep 12-18 hours a day, I've been largely on my own watching the two kids. Fortunately, my kids are pretty easy to take care of, but, since I was also trying to take advantage of my down time to finish the revision of my novel, it was somewhat challenging. And, it can be exhausting, when you're already quite ill, to be the de facto one to get up with the kids and make them breakfast and lunch and dinner and entertain them and make sure they stay out of trouble and play with them and, and, and...

At the end of the week, I was finally feeling better, had actually finished my revision, had an exciting new idea in mind for writing and was told by my husband (who is also recovering) this was "my" weekend. Yay, I might think, I can leave the kids to the hubby and dive into my writing. Except, apparently, "my" weekend means I need to get up with the kids and can only wake my husband once I've figured out what "we" can do for entertainment. Then, if we get back from "our" entertainment and I want to write, he gets to go back to sleep from boredom. We, in fact, haven't had a conversation this weekend where he hasn't reminded me how bored he was (that's aside from the fact I bought him two expensive video games at his request last week, owns several times his weight in legos and has reminded me, repeatedly, that he hasn't seen a movie he's desperate to see because I don't care enough to see it to try to find a babysitter and he doesn't want to see it by himself.)

If there's one thing I hate, it's looking forward to going back to work.

*Steps off soapbox*

Note, in all fairness, I managed to write nearly 7000 words on my new novel this weekend mostly because I work well under adverse conditions, but it's really leavened my enjoyment.

Read more...

Responsibility

So, continuing the discussion on manipulation and those that crave power, it seems naturally to move into a discussion on responsibility. If someone does a bad thing, who's responsible?

The easy answer is the individual involved. But is that always the whole answer?

I'm a big one for personal responsibility and accountability, but the truth is, there are times when that's not a sufficient answer. There are few religions out there that do not see murder as a serious sin, but what about a soldier? He is murdering others. He trained to do so, often traveled to do so, has weapons and used them against other human beings, without knowing them personally or knowing why those people stood against him. Nor are enemy soldiers the only ones who die during war. So, is every soldier that took another life evil? Is ever bomber pilot responsible for every soul lost to the bombs he dropped? I can't say they're absolved - I don't have that power- but I'm not comfortable with seeing them as simple murderers.

We can bring up self-defense, but, as we haven't fought any wars on our own soil, really, since the civil war, that's pretty specious. Wandering into someone else's nation with tanks and guns is hard to defend with "self-defense". However, we have defended others' nations and we have defended our own interests in others' nations - which should not be confused with each other.

Were all of those wars necessary? Only history will say for sure. Are there wars when soldiers did unspeakable things (often on either side)? Yes, most of them, but it's hard to define where the line of responsibility ends. War has gotten too impersonal with thousands killed without those doing the killing even seeing a face.

If you are manipulated to do something unspeakable - design the nuclear bomb, or a rocket that can rain fire on people half a continent away, or simply keep your mouth shut when someone opens a concentration camp 2 km outside your town - how much of that responsibility is yours? If you torment or torture someone but tell yourself for the greater good, who's responsible? If someone holds a gun to your daughter's head, your mother's, your wife's, how much responsibility do you have for what you do to keep someone from pulling that trigger? If you are young and impressionable, fed lies and depersonalizations to convince you to kill others on sight, who's responsible?

They are tough questions without easy answers, at least for me. In the end we all make our choices, true. And sometimes the paths we tread are not the ones we would have wanted. On the other hand, perhaps sometimes we are too easy on ourselves, finding excuses for doing the inexcusable.

In the end, we'll all have to face ourselves, and live with the choices we've made.

Read more...