Joe's and Mary's and senseless cities!

As I walk the giant portals of the world's famous cities, decadence and a lack of coherence. Time’s passage through civilisation gets frozen in static images of repetitive models. Every city emulates standing towers reaching out heavenward, Progress marked by sameness. Lurking behind the iconic towers, the emblems of a growing divide, the shanty towns! These are 21st century cities divided into ghettos of colour, race or social stature. They walk a future not of amalgamation but further sub stratification. I am your ordinary man and do not ask me to shut up and go somewhere else with my woes. Even if I leave, you will see millions nay billions standing behind. Do you have the time and the energy and the resources to shoo us all away - strewn as we are across crowded global cities. As long as a few morsels go down our gullet there is a quiet. The hope of a better tomorrow always quietens the remonstrances of today. Now we see the city structure stuttering and so with nothing more to loose and being the first to lose more than anyone else, we rise up once again even amidst bellowing smoke and organised structure. It’s perhaps in your interest to not gamble the quiet away and however small keep the crumbs falling our way. We believe in capitalism and democracy more than you...we still have dreams to fulfill... wonder why we are not there as yet. you should be cynicalyou've seen it all. From New York to Dubai to Singapore it’s not just the growing divide that is a common binding thread. There’s something more... wait...first more of the same. Ah! It’s the same human developmental model shaping the world from the foothills of the Himalaya’s to the slopes of the Rockies. Here different is weird. It’s the Wal-Mart model, one size fits all. Yet there is a difference. It’s the difference of perception of who we are. Somehow this may shock a few westerners, but it’s time everyone evaluate the double standards in their own back yards. Are we attributing to each of our civilisations too much self worth? The belief in the superiority of the west overwhelming only in so far as those subjected to unfair stealthy double standards keep a hushed quiet,? In the East, open turbulence. In the east backwardation...In the west still a simmering underbelly belching out once in a while to keep itself from exploding. In the west the feeling that all that glitters is not gold. Behind the savvy lies the insecurity and greed. A city in the deep north! The silos look familiar or are they more insulated? No effort to hush the whispers. Looks and gestures encircling the lives of lesser mortals. No way to ever unleash untruths spun. The divide is deep. Fortressed walls making it hard to decipher the humming within the inner circle. Here what passes through the underbelly of the cities high life is revered, Who cares its second hand. It’s titillating .Cities decadent living off sordid details of some unknown’s personal life! Half truths spread by entrenched institutions that benefit from it all. And the more they spin the freedom mantra, the tighter the invisible grip on those that inhabit the fringe .But only the fool hardy will try to unmask the veil. Not just the men and women of colour, those that thought they could find true liberation from now left behind structured tyrannical institutions and those that already had been left behind within the city by generations of ostracism and neglect. Yet the vice like circle of buddies and power brokers and rule setters and institution gatekeepers share a secret. It’s the secret that no matter how close to them you stand, you can never decipher. Theirs is an impregnable world. Yet those that see the half smiles and the knowing glances fathom they are being trivialised. But here it’s not for them to act and question. For them it is to accept or die under the shadow of an ominous half truth that has already blanketed their lives. To be your own person here means you have to live beyond the circle, on the periphery. Here the divide is far greater than between the rich and poor. The more I push north, into the land of freedom for all, the worse the divide. The silos multiply in numbers and depth. Yet any whimpering any questioning by them that perceive themselves at the centre of the cities random talk are relegated to the la’la land. Hush no one fights the power structure .Never mind people friendly institutes meant to preserve the common man. There are common men there who have risen above their station and at no cost want to start once again from scratch. They are all one coherent whole and to fight one means fighting all. There is another facet to these cities. Those meant to keep the chaos at bay, those empowered to prevent the anarchy have mastered the blame game. But can those that were to guarantee smooth running and compliance be absolved. By their very essence corporations are meant to make profit and we know that as much as we know that governments are elected only to keep in check the inherent greed of corporations and if they fail they are more to be blamed because their charter is prevention. Yet as we talk of the government why do we construe just a political party. The government is much more. Parties are accountable, fearful of the electoral wrath and are sitting atop a permanent structure inherited year after year no matter what party wins its way to power. So the year after year layered government support structure remains faceless, nameless and blameless. Is that fair? The difference between the I that is part of the chaotic crowd and the I that is part of the ruling elite is a thin line. The I that is part of the chaotic crowd got pushed to the periphery because of his or her inability to play tag to those that formed the ruling elite. Before you earmark me left of centre or even left, pause and think. Is it fair that you and I and the countless numbers absolve ourselves of the blame by slinking away into the crowd and crying out for our rights when we were the ones who were in - charge? My apologies to those who may find this blog offensive. The purpose of this blog is to reach out to the finer aspects of human thought and sensibility. Attacking government and corporations is the latest fad. But look close, look deep and answer, 'who forms the government, who forms the corporations'. It’s the Joe’s and the Mary's - the you and I’s of the world.

Spill baby Spill

Way back in 2000, the Pacific States Oil Spill Task Force sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation warning it of the threat of a major or even catastrophic spill in U.S waters. The letter cautioned the government that,"current capability to respond to such a spill warrants further consideration".

One of the recommendations of the task force was that 'the U.S Coast Guard (USCG) stress preparedness by emphasizing unannounced drills, performance standards in addition to planning standards and large scale regional, equipment deployment drills .'

Giving details of the risk assessment report, the letter spoke specifically of oil pollution from offshore exploration especially in deep waters, far from shore. "The further offshore, the more coastline will be impacted,' the report added. It said,"spill response planning for offshore platforms should be focused on those areas in the U.S. being aggressively leased and explored i.e, the Gulf Of Mexico and Alaska. The USCG should reevaluate the area plans for these regions to ensure that there is adequate response equipment and capability to deal with a blowout scenario".

Suggestions also included, a regional approach, the need to maintain a "trained cadre of personnel and raise, if necessary, the cap on the Oil Spill Response Fund. It also pointed out to the lack of organised, coordinated information collection effort across Federal Agency lines.

Like other studies before and after, this seems to have filled up void electronic spaces in government offices.

The current liability for a spill in the U.S rests with the responsible party. So the government can afford to absolve itself. However the same report had warned the government that "maintaining a viable capability within the private sector is becoming less cost effective in a business sense. The advisability of augmenting the government's role in marine salvage should be considered'.

So, what could have been a well planned and well practised response to a well envisaged emergency is turning out to be yet another exercise in learning. Cure through trial and error even as 210,000 gallons of oil gush into the Gulf of Mexico every day!

Imagine a hospital operation theatre and a surgeon trying to experiment with various surgical procedures even as the patient lies dying there. At the end of the day the legal rights of the surgeon may trump over those of the dead patient and the doctor may go Scot free.

In my opinion the U.S government is as responsible as the oil company B.P for this poor show of who's in charge and what needs to be done when push comes to shove.

Here are some more reasons why there should be frustration at the government response :

Too much ambition or perhaps greed for profit on the part of BP? After the Wall Street debacle, this is not much of a surprise. Yet after Exxon Valdez and Katrina, the government (and the government is huge though all the blame, going by press coverage and the propensity to ask questions like, "has the President spoken to the BP officials?, nestles on the shoulders of the President and not the respective departments) can offer little explanation as to why every time when catastrophe strikes it's caught off guard. Perhaps its time the US government start coming forward as the mammoth structure that it is and stop taking shelter, when disaster strikes under the White House umbrella.

Coming back to British Petroleum. The company, has a history of cost cutting especially in the area of maintenance. The 2007 Baker report into the Texas city blast questioned British Petroleum safety performance and its willingness to implement lessons learnt from previous serious accidents including the one in Grangemouth, Scotland in the year 2000. The panel emphasised that short term cost cuts were apparent in both cases. A report from the chemical safety and hazards investigation board (CSB) said that there was an iron clad case for pinning some of the responsibility on budget cuts. The report pointed out that between 1992 and 2000 there was an 84 per cent cut in maintenance spending at Texas city.

Keeping the task force report in mind and BP's track record and the fact that drilling in such deep waters is a recent exercise, extra precautions/inspections needed to be taken.

- Reportedly, drilling in the depths of Gulf of Mexico is a different game altogether than what BP is used to- having operated mostly in Alaska and North Sea. Both are relatively simple.

-The sheer geological complexity of Gulf of Mexico particularly around mobile salt and trapping and imaging problems created by the mobile salt make exploration difficult in the Gulf

An interview given a few years back talks of the ambitious plan of BP and how they saw an opportunity to transform the business. "Instead of sustaining production of 200,000 barrels of oil a day,we would potentially grow a business that could deliver 500,000 barrels a day". Deeper exploration pushed production levels and the target was to keep pushing for higher and higher daily production. Was the deep water horizon oil rig built with these additional capabilities? Of course now there are reports of accidents and how the rig, drilling the world's deepest offshore well, may have suffered a structural fault in one of the accidents.

Did any of the government departments bother to check the implications of all this?

David Rainey, exploration manager for BP in the deep water Gulf of Mexico in a March 2002 interview said, "one of the lessons we have learned about the Gulf of Mexico is never to take it for granted. It will continue to surprise us .. we are going to do our best to stay humble and avoid the trap of thinking we have all the answers.'

Little did he know at that time how prophetic these words would turn out.