Spin On

I listen to Sports Radio every morning while walking the dog. If the chilly air doesn't wake me up, the frantic commercial cries of auto dealers, "Bad credit? Forget it! If I can't make you a deal, I'll kiss your mother-in-law", usually will.

As the dog did his ritual sniffing of the corner power pole this morning "Ah, the Rottweiler from down the block was here and he's on that cheap Wal-Mart Old Roy kibble again", Sports Radio segued into an atypical soothing guitar background. A calm voice asked, "Do you know who owns the BP stations in your neighborhood? In the Philadelphia region, every one of our stations is owned by your neighbors. They employ hundreds of folks just like you. Think of this the next time you need a fill-up."

Good job, BP! You are not the foreign-owned despoilers of the environment who nearly killed the Gulf of Mexico while cutting corners. You are not the CEO who "wanted his life back" and participated in a yacht race while your well was dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf. You are that hard-working guy down the block with grease under his fingernails who keeps the family SUV running and has a job for our high school age son Kyle manning the cash register next summer. How could I have thought ill of BP?

One wonders whether the money spent by BP on "feel good" commercials might be better devoted to compensation to those Gulf Coast residents whose lives will never be the same. Actually, the BP "spin" is a better investment. When the shrimpers and fishermen complain that there aren't as many shrimp and fish as there used to be, the BP "spin" may result in the rest of us viewing them as whiners against that nice BP. We will buy BP products anyway because, after all, BP station owners are our neighbors.

Would that we humans had noses as sensitive as our canine companions so we could detect insincerity.