This week's prompts both elated and terrified me. I knew it would push me out of my comfort zone. And not because I'm not often telling jokes that don't go over well - I have a twisted sense of humor at times and it's always been my coping mechanism - but because to relive such things in an easy way seemed near impossible.
I decided to go with prompt 1: Choose a headline from
The Today Show website and write up an opinion post based on the story you chose.
I avoided all things Mel Gibson as I don't find it funny so much as sad. The man is obviously crazy and this woman and her child could be in serious harm. So many women go through these struggles behind-the-scenes and I fail to see the humor in that at all.
And then I spotted the headline,
BP to drill for Libyan oil despite Lockerbie bomber furor, and immediately it had my attention. I had a friend who died on that flight. She was thirteen years old, same as me. And to let a terrorist go under false pretenses for profit and oil makes my normally pacifist self want to go all crazykakes on these people. I just don't understand how anyone can reach that point in life where money tops the value of human life.
I'll be the first to admit, even if it were true, I don't care that the man, this terrorist, was dying. I don't think he deserved a peaceful death when he offered anything but to his victims. I guess it was nice of the Scottish authorities to take compassion on someone who couldn't provide it to others, but I wouldn't have done it.
But now, BP won't even answer the questions arising about the whole situation. I'm not saying medicine always get it right and the man could possibly be one of those who lives way longer than expected (my mom-mom did that). However, call my cynical, but when I read things like this:
BP signed a $900 million exploration agreement with Libya in May 2007, the same month that Britain and Libya signed an agreement that paved the way for al-Megrahi's release from a Scottish prison.
BP has admitted that it lobbied the British government over a prisoner transfer deal with Libya in late 2007, but denied playing any role in the actual decision to release al-Megrahi nearly two years later.
I am much less likely to believe what has gone down. And after everything with the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I think it only drives home further how much big corporations/businesses don't seem to care about anyone or anything that gets in the way of profits. And then they try to guise it as something else when finally called to task on it (barely).
I think it says so much about the world, or at least the United States (as that's all I can really speak for) that more people aren't up in arms, pushing their senators and congressmen to do something, to fight harder for us. Unfortunately, it doesn't say anything good.
