The oil spill could be perceived as an opportunity. . . Couldn't it?

The blame game has taken over the news media again.  Perhaps it’s always been this way or maybe it’s just because the media is every where now and we get instant 24/7 feedback.  But to be an official in these times, from the president on down, means the opposition will choose to make you the sole person responsible for every disaster as well as the instant fix.  Obviously Obama didn’t cause this oil spill.  His opposition knows this even though their rhetoric suggests otherwise.  BP caused it.  Some even suggest the real cause of the spill goes back a few years to an earlier administration when the regulations were eased for the benefit of the drillers, regulations that still prevent drillers from cutting corners in the waters surrounding other countries.

But this administration is charged with solving the problem, rightly so; and helping the workers who have lost their livelihood; while at the same time, making the waters safe and clean once again for the life that lives in the sea and the fowl that make their homes there too.   Every time a picture of one of the pelicans mired in oil flashes across the screen my heart aches.  I’m sure yours does too. The problem of clean-up seems unimaginably gigantic.

My husband suggested that the administration require BP to immediately hire a”core of workers,” thousands of them in fact,  at $20 or $30 dollars an hour and put them to work on the beaches picking up the oil balls that are accumulating, balls that are still a form of energy that could be converted for every day use by some enterprising entrepreneur.  Unemployment is high throughout the country but down there it’s very high, particularly now.

I’m forced to ask myself, nearly every day, why would any one want to be a public official?  Particularly the president of this great country.  But then again, many of us with far less demanding jobs struggle to get our lives moving forward each morning too.  It’s best to let a bit of wisdom I learned in a 12 step meeting direct me.  Maybe it will help you too.  Just do the next right thing.  No matter where you are on your journey, what kind of work you do, there is “a next right thing” that is trying to get your attention.  I am inclined to think that the successful people in all walks of life are guided by a principle similar to this.  Even President Obama.