Thursday 3 June 2010

Couple of things.

I have a few things to say but nothing worthy of it's own post, so here's a few mini posts.

Living a lie

This story about a gay man's journey towards coming out left me with very mixed feelings.

First of all, I can almost literally feel his pain. As normal as homosexuality is for me, I really do see how much prejudice is out there. I also know what it's like to live a lie, a lie you cant even admit to yourself, a lie that literally threatens to destroy you.

What I cant forgive though, and what is glossed over in this tale, is involving an innocent in that lie, namely his wife.

While he was living his lie, he always had a choice. A difficult choice, no doubt, but he chose to live that lie. He didn't give his wife a choice. When he was living that life he lied to her face, time and again. To ad insult to injury, when he made another choice to come out, he didn't even give her the respect of telling her first and hearing her input into she'd like things handled.

When he chose to stay in the closet, he had another choice. Play the playboy role, living it up with a gaggle of different women, women he wouldn't necessarily even have to sleep with, just be seen with. Or he could play the loving husband and father. One way doesn't hurt anyone, the other does. He made the wrong choice.

For 9 years or more, Wayne, you lied to her face every single day, either directly or by omission but you make no acknowledgement of that fact.

Whether you're gay, straight or bi-sexual, women are not yours to play with. We are not on this earth to make men's lives easier, we are not playthings you can use when convenient and disguard when you change your mind. We are people with our own thoughts, emotions and feelings. We deserve your respect, regardless of whether you are sexually attracted to us or not.

You used that poor women for 9 years and then discarded her when you decided you didn't what that lie any more. That is why I don't have any sympathy for you.


The BP Oil Spill.

I must confess I'm not a green. I don't cancel out my carbon foot print and I'm undecided about global warming since both sides make a compelling case (though the falsified data from the University of East Anglia does sway me slightly to the con side of the argument).

So when the oil spill happened I wasn't jumping all over BP. Accidents happen, they seemed to be trying to clear the problem up and I thought some people were being very harsh, especially considering how little is said over the 1.5 millions tons of oil Shell spilled in the Niger Delta (that's 50 times more than the Exxon Valdez spilled).

I was cynical, everyone was up in arms over poor America and it's wildlife, but not the Nigerians. I guess Nigeria isn't news worthy. I don't like hypocrisy and I didn't like how worked some people were about one while ignoring the other.

In recent days though I'm changing my mind.

Stories like this, in which BP are actively trying to hide the damage done to wildlife.

And this report, which shows that BP knew there were problems with the well and to save money, opted not to follow safety precautions.

Then (though I can't for the life of me remember where I saw this) we have the theory that BP wanted the junk shot to fail at blocking the spill because it really would prefer to drill 2 relief wells so it can still collect (and sell) the oil. Yes, it's borderline "conspiracy theory" but it does give me pause.

As much as I would hate for Britain to lose an(other) industry giant, I fear PB will not survive this. I also fear that by then, I'll think they deserve it.

You done wrong, BP. Stop hiding and trying to finesse your way out of blame. Admit it, do your best to stop the damage and then throw yourself on the public's mercy. I believe this is your only change of survival.

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