We are all saddened by the plight of our southeastern citizens whose lives are splattered by the BP oil spill. What impresses clear skies folk are people working together to solve a problem and help victims who are being hurt. In short, people who do no harm, and do good. Our country has a lot of experience at responding well.

    From this distant clear skies perspective, we’re not responding well. Too many misdirected responses are splattered throughout our media. What worries me is those responses are aimed to impress us.

    Leaders do harm when they blame environmentalists or promising to “kick some ass.” Media does harm by demanding the BP COO state whether its most recent approach will cap the well -- BP won’t know until it tries.

The media focuses on whether the BP oil spill is Obama’s Hurricane Katrina. Obama has an advantage: he can call BP to the White House. Bush couldn’t call Katrina.

    So Obama’s administration hammers out an agreement for BP to forego dividends and create a fund to compensate claims. The fund makes sense, but did White House officials stage it to impress us?  The confrontation bothered me.

    Senators held a hearing and asked CEO Tony Hayward if he expected to remain CEO.  He’s head of a company whose spectacularly profitable stock is a mainstay in the investments and savings of thousands of shareholders, particularly our good neighbors in England. The stock at one point lost 85 percent of its value. BP has taken responsibility to clean up the spill and pay for damages. BP is trying. 

    Senators roasted him. Senators whose southern border has been leaking illegal entries for decades. Senators whose budget leaks so much red ink rating agencies are warning of debt downgrades. Senators, do you expect to remain senators? 

    These senators are responsible for the Minerals Management Service that granted the license to drill this well with inadequate oversight. Since our regulations are inadequate, our government suspended drilling permits, increasing unemployment. Then our government demands BP pay for the unemployment while we fix our inadequate regulation.

    We’re not impressed senators. Friday night at a bluegrass festival a conservatively minded friend spontaneously interrupted the music to say he was disgusted with the way our senators behaved. We quickly agreed to stop commiserating and refresh ourselves with the harmony on stage.

    Yet these Senators can take credit for the Center for Disease Control, which identified the SARS virus by linking with dozens of other labs and agencies around the world. It’s a fascinating story told in The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. Not one agency was in charge. Everybody committed to the same goal.  They shared information online daily and ruled out dozens of possible viruses until they identified the right one. Nobody claimed credit.

    What is impressive are continued improvements firefighters make responding to wildfires. T volunteer fire-captain who arrives first remains in command until releasing authority to one of a host of arriving agencies. Everyone is committed to quench the fire, protect people and pay later. Afterwards agencies squabble about payments and how to respond, but they continuously refine the process.

    We have lots of collaborative examples in air travel, electrical power, natural gas, transportation, church relief efforts and on and on.

    In the meantime we can ask ourselves with every picture we see and every voice we hear, are we seeing something that will solve the spill and/or soothe the pain?  If not, let them know we’re not impressed.