From My Perspective - - -
When disaster strikes, what should one do? There appear to be at least two possibilities: (1) Devise a Solution. Let ingenuity – part of the fiber and backbone of this nation’s development – be turned loose to create solutions and remedies for the crises at hand. Last Saturday-Sunday, the TV Program – Huckabee – had a string of ordinary people with possible solutions for the Gulf Oil Crisis. Sadly, government bureaucracy has not seen fit to try any or all of these possibilities – even though the demonstration of them showed a positive result. (2) Organize a Boycott. There are people in our nation whose response to a crisis is to see it as another opportunity to be in the limelight by organizing a Boycott. One of the downsides to such an effort is that it is based on disinformation and misdirection.
An example of this appears in a Boortz Report – Nealz News - where he states: “So now we have people showing up around the country calling for a boycott of BP…Can someone please tell me on what level of insanity a boycott of BP makes sense? A few things to consider: (1) The Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig did not belong to BP. It belonged to a group named Trans-ocean. (2) At the time of the explosion there were 126 people working on the Trans-ocean rig. Only 8 of them were BP employees. (3) The vast majority of BP stations - the targets of the boycott - are privately owned by small businessmen. The employees of these stations are not employees of BP. (4) What sense does it make to, on one hand, try to starve BP of money while, on the other hand, demanding that they pay the costs of the cleanup? - - So what happens when you boycott your local BP station? First, you do little, if anything, to actually cause any financial harm to BP itself. The people you do hurt are the local businessmen who own and operate the stations and your neighbors that they hire. If your…boycotts are successful all you are managing to do is to put people in your own community out of work.
On June 14th, The New York Times Headline read: “Efforts to Repel Gulf Oil Spill Are Described as Chaotic.” Part of the report includes: “It was late May. Oil had been creeping into the passes around Grand Isle. Two fleets of fishing boats were supposed to be laying out boom, the long floating barriers to corral oil and protect the fragile marshes of Barataria Bay. But the boats were gathered on the inland side of the bay — the wrong side — anchored idly as the oil oozed in from the Gulf of Mexico. BP officials said they had no way of contacting the workers on the boats…For much of the last two months, the focus of the response to the Deepwater Horizon explosion has been a mile underwater, 50 miles from shore, where successive efforts involving containment domes, top kills and junk shots have failed, and a spill-cam shows tens of thousands of barrels of oil hemorrhaging into the gulf each day. Closer to shore, the efforts to keep the oil away from land have not fared much better, despite a response effort involving thousands of boats, tens of thousands of workers and millions of feet of containment boom. From the beginning, the effort has been bedeviled by a lack of preparation, organization, urgency and clear lines of authority among federal, state and local officials, as well as BP. As a result, officials and experts say, the damage to the coastline and wildlife has been worse than it might have been if the response had been faster and orchestrated more effectively…” These are good observations – but – where are the current solutions?
Human nature is fascinating. We can be aghast as catastrophes and errors in judgment that demonstrate ineffectiveness are observed. But – what about human life? What about the Christian Life-Choices – how effective have they been? In II Peter 1:5-8, a partial list is given that must be foundational for necessary Life-Choices. Note what is stated: “make every effort to add to your faith goodness; to goodness, knowledge; to knowledge, self-control; to self-control, perseverance; to perseverance, godliness; to godliness, brotherly kindness; to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ… Kept from being ineffective and unproductive – does that describe you? Obviously, these are Christian values and possibilities that are provable and functional! Consider these things with me!
When disaster strikes, what should one do? There appear to be at least two possibilities: (1) Devise a Solution. Let ingenuity – part of the fiber and backbone of this nation’s development – be turned loose to create solutions and remedies for the crises at hand. Last Saturday-Sunday, the TV Program – Huckabee – had a string of ordinary people with possible solutions for the Gulf Oil Crisis. Sadly, government bureaucracy has not seen fit to try any or all of these possibilities – even though the demonstration of them showed a positive result. (2) Organize a Boycott. There are people in our nation whose response to a crisis is to see it as another opportunity to be in the limelight by organizing a Boycott. One of the downsides to such an effort is that it is based on disinformation and misdirection.
An example of this appears in a Boortz Report – Nealz News - where he states: “So now we have people showing up around the country calling for a boycott of BP…Can someone please tell me on what level of insanity a boycott of BP makes sense? A few things to consider: (1) The Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig did not belong to BP. It belonged to a group named Trans-ocean. (2) At the time of the explosion there were 126 people working on the Trans-ocean rig. Only 8 of them were BP employees. (3) The vast majority of BP stations - the targets of the boycott - are privately owned by small businessmen. The employees of these stations are not employees of BP. (4) What sense does it make to, on one hand, try to starve BP of money while, on the other hand, demanding that they pay the costs of the cleanup? - - So what happens when you boycott your local BP station? First, you do little, if anything, to actually cause any financial harm to BP itself. The people you do hurt are the local businessmen who own and operate the stations and your neighbors that they hire. If your…boycotts are successful all you are managing to do is to put people in your own community out of work.
On June 14th, The New York Times Headline read: “Efforts to Repel Gulf Oil Spill Are Described as Chaotic.” Part of the report includes: “It was late May. Oil had been creeping into the passes around Grand Isle. Two fleets of fishing boats were supposed to be laying out boom, the long floating barriers to corral oil and protect the fragile marshes of Barataria Bay. But the boats were gathered on the inland side of the bay — the wrong side — anchored idly as the oil oozed in from the Gulf of Mexico. BP officials said they had no way of contacting the workers on the boats…For much of the last two months, the focus of the response to the Deepwater Horizon explosion has been a mile underwater, 50 miles from shore, where successive efforts involving containment domes, top kills and junk shots have failed, and a spill-cam shows tens of thousands of barrels of oil hemorrhaging into the gulf each day. Closer to shore, the efforts to keep the oil away from land have not fared much better, despite a response effort involving thousands of boats, tens of thousands of workers and millions of feet of containment boom. From the beginning, the effort has been bedeviled by a lack of preparation, organization, urgency and clear lines of authority among federal, state and local officials, as well as BP. As a result, officials and experts say, the damage to the coastline and wildlife has been worse than it might have been if the response had been faster and orchestrated more effectively…” These are good observations – but – where are the current solutions?
Human nature is fascinating. We can be aghast as catastrophes and errors in judgment that demonstrate ineffectiveness are observed. But – what about human life? What about the Christian Life-Choices – how effective have they been? In II Peter 1:5-8, a partial list is given that must be foundational for necessary Life-Choices. Note what is stated: “make every effort to add to your faith goodness; to goodness, knowledge; to knowledge, self-control; to self-control, perseverance; to perseverance, godliness; to godliness, brotherly kindness; to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ… Kept from being ineffective and unproductive – does that describe you? Obviously, these are Christian values and possibilities that are provable and functional! Consider these things with me!
No comments:
Post a Comment