But it's South Carolina, where there's aways fresh blood in the water for yokel mockery (this time Sanford's and maybe DeMint's). Who knows--maybe video evidence will turn up showing that Haley is into silly clown sex.

The more he says, the less I can stand to read.

My plan for now is to locate the people around me who have already been "doing something" and then learn to do what they do. Hopefully, along the way, new strategies will occur to me and I'll be able to do something original. And hopefully it will matter.

Nope, and some of us--namely we info-Kemp's Ridley sea turtles--may not have very long to find out.

This is what I hear when I get to where you say "Wait a minute!!!! What measurements? I thought you told us there was no way to measure...."

(I am not liable for any nightmares that this may cause.)

What if we are just screwed? Let's suppose that (1) Obama knows there's nothing he can do to stop the gusher, and (2) BP's unprofessionally-named leak solutions really are just political theater. Let's just say. You know, hypothetically.

What, then, might smart and well-meaning everyday people do?

I can only think of these three categories of response right now (I'm not good at thinking quickly):

A. bringing wrongdoers to justice,

B. making sure it "never happens again" (to the extent that this is even possible, since we're always inventing new ways to poop on the dinner table, so to speak), and

C. undoing the damage that has already been done.

The leak would spew at its current rate until at least August, yes? There would be the political fallout, whatever that ends up being.

What do you all foresee?

Good on you, by the way, for reading the Burckhardt, which I suspect is part of that sad library of old, important books read by nowhere near as many people as those who name and cite it (and who ought to). (I haven't read it or cited it, but that's beside the point.) It's easy enough to know why these books are "sposta" matter, but only by reading them do they impart to us these insightful little gems that grab and shake us in unexpected ways.

All snark aside, yes, it really was built last year.

This perpetual turning toward politics in the face of human disaster--it's a symptom.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with those now.