"Fried Fridays: Crying over spilled....oil"

Accountability.

One of several words in the English language that, in real-world practice, is not only overlooked but purposefully avoided by some people and institutions. It's one thing to point a finger and blame someone or some group for some travesty or misfortune; it's quite another for a person or group to run away from a clear responsibility to save their own hide, usually a financial one.

Throw in the murky mix of politics, lobbyists, and everything obtuse, and you get....

DATELINE: WASHINGTON D.C.

Rewind to March 24, 1989.

On that fateful day, the Exxon ship "Valdez", en route from Valdez, AK to Los Angeles, CA, ran aground on Bligh Reef. We're talking 10.9 million gallons of raw crude oil, over 20% of the ship's load, spilling into the then-pristine coastal waters of Alaska and contaminating over 1,100 miles of non-continuous coastline. 8 of 11 oil holds were damaged on the ship. At the most intense stage of clean-up, there were 1,400 vessels, 11,000 personnel, and 85 aircraft working their damndest to contain what to date is the largest and worst oil spill in U.S. waters.

It was no 'accident'; rather, it was a 'consequence' that resulted from lapses in judgment. Court records revealed that Captain Hazelwood took the ship out of the navigation channel to avoid ice bergs, then passed off navigation duties to lesser ranking and overworked personnel while he retired to his cabin (and later found intoxicated)...it makes this tragedy smell all the worse. The impromptu ship handlers did not return the ship to it's proper shipping channel once icebergs were cleared, per supposed orders; the result was, as they say, history. A painful history.

Setting aside the sweeping environmental costs, the future shipping and tourism costs were enormous to the residents of the Valdez region. "Catastrophic" doesn't even begin to cover the cost of lost livelihoods and property, of families effectively destroyed, of dreams crushed.

Most of us have no idea how powerful political lobbying is. I would hope with the publicity of the Iraq war and the myriad side issues that most at least have an inkling of how powerful the oil industry is interwoven in U.S. politics. Hard to believe that here in 2008, this now 19 year-old case is still in the courts, assessing damage issues thanks to repeals by Exxon, mostly.

Harder, more, to believe that just this past Wednesday the Supreme court overturned the prior decision that Exxon pay the 33,000 people and related governments $2.5 billion in punitive damages...they cut it to only actual clean-up costs of $507.5 million. Lose a livelihood. Lose a family. Lose a town. Lose Life. Here's your $15,000 per person for all that pain and suffering.

$15,000 per person. That's it.

For me, this issue goes so very far beyond an oil spill. It represents the very core of what is out of whack about our legal and political systems here in the United States. Of special note is the ruthlessness of the oil industry and lobbying that continue to roll in wild record-setting profits at our expense. Some parts are fried, alright.