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Courtesy of the Washington Post, we meet Bob Dudley, the man that reporter Steven Mufson dubbed “the human relief well.” His job, says their headline writer, is to “polish [BP's] tarnished image.”
Good luck with that, Bob.
It’ll be rough, but don’t let anyone tell you that your job is impossible. To fans of the best science program on television, MythBusters, this job sounds very familiar.
In December 2008, MythBusters hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman took on the myth that says (as they most delicately phrased it) “you can’t polish a turd.” Using techniques borrowed from the ancient Japanese art of dorodungo, they demonstrated that it *is* possible to polish a turd — i.e., turn a piece of dung into a bright shiny object — but it takes a lot of time, a lot of hard repetitive work, and single-minded attention to the surprisingly delicate task at hand, plus a willingness to put up with lots and lots of very bad odors while you go about your work.
What you can’t do is say “there are no turds around here.”
To help BP and their new polisher-in-chief stay focused on their task of polishing that . . . image, here’s some advice. Every time Dudley gets on television, the producer in the control room should put up a split screen. In one screen is the wispy-haired, American-accented, calm demeanor of Dudley (as Mufson described him), soberly answering questions and assuring the world that BP is on top of things. In the other screen would be a rotating montage of images like these:
- the ineffective blowout preventer, spewing out barrel after barrel after barrel of oil
- overhead views of the spill site
- oily workers, trying to hold back the tide of death
- waves of oil
- dead dolphins washed up on the beach
- living oiled animals being collected for cleaning
- living but likely soon to be dead wildlife
- clouds of oily smoke rising from the burnoffs
- oil-clogged marshlands
- maps of the areas closed to fishing by NOAA
- beaches fouled with oil
- workers pulling tar balls off the beaches
- boats being cleaned before being allowed to dock at Gulf ports
- Gulf coast restaurant owners in tears as they close their doors for good because there is no seafood
- images from the funerals/burials of those who have died, including not only the 11 oil rig workers but also the fishing boat captain who committed suicide
If you’re going to polish a turd, you have to start by admitting that you’re polishing a turd. You can do your polishing wearing a beret or not wearing a beret, but concentrating on the crap in your hands is mandatory.
Maybe that split screen can help everyone stay focused.
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How do you say “turd” in Russian?
How BP’s Bob Dudley Got Kicked Out Of Russia
Rachel Slajda | June 25, 2010,
If you’ve heard anything about Bob Dudley… you’ve probably heard that he was expelled from Russia in 2008.
So what happened?
In 2003, Dudley became CEO of TNK-BP, BP’s joint venture in Russia along with Russian company AAR, a group of four Russian billionaire oligarchs. Over the years, tensions mounted between BP and the oligarchs. According to news reports from 2008, the oligarchs wanted more bang for their buck in the form of higher returns on their investment, while BP wanted to invest more profit back into the company. The 50-50 venture became a fierce power struggle, with BP executives alleging harassment by both AAR and the Russian government, charges that the Russians denied. According to one report in the Times, Dudley was regularly sweeping his office for bugs and taking phone calls on his balcony to avoid being recorded. It came to the point, in July 2008, where Dudley fled the country. His visa was set to expire, and it seemed that the Russians weren’t keen on renewing. BP was so paranoid at the time that they didn’t announce his departure until he was airborne, and refused to disclose his location. Dudley continued to run the company from his secret location.(Excerpt,TPM)
How BP’s Bob Dudley Got Kicked Out Of Russia – 21 hours ago
If you’ve heard anything about Bob Dudley, the BP managing director who this week … It came to the point, in July 2008, where Dudley fled the country. …
TPMMuckraker (blog) – 65 related articles »
If Dudley is smart, he will handle his new job from a secret location, too. Don’t imagine he will be too popular. Thanks, Peterr.
This kind of like a tgurd that hasn’t dried yet, soft and mushy, sort very fresh.
I always think of Bo Diddley when I hear Bob Dudley’s name mentioned.
Curiously enough, Diddley was from McComb,Mississsippi;and, Dudley was raised in Hattiesburg ,Missippi.
One is in the Hall of Fame, the other…well…
Hall of Shame
*G*
I thought the SAME thing, but,hey,then I thought…let’s give the guy a chance….
Wishful thinking much,on my part?
Translate “the word turd” to Russian:
the word turd – слово какашка (slovo kakashka)translate.google.com
So, ‘kaka’ is somewhat universal, eh?
The missing piece in this Gulf Coast puzzle is who are the private contractors, the ones hired by BP to both oversee the clean-up of the tar-balled beaches and handle security?
Why would the Republican Gulf Coast governors flood the coastal disaster zones with state national guard personnel and equipment, especially if this public action would interfere with the profit-making of these for-profit private contractors and sub-contractors? (This would also explain why respirators aren’t being issued to clean-up crews or even security personnel…the cost of respirators cuts into the profits of whomever is behind this).
And you can bet that crony capitalism is at play in this, with for-profit privatization trumping public and environmental health (doesn’t it always, at least in the minds of Republicans?), similar to what happened along the Gulf Coast following (and even during) Hurricane Katrina.
Presumably, BP is footing the bill for the entire clean-up cost of their Gulf oil disaster. If Republican Gulf Coast governors sent in every state national guardsman available, then I’ve read that BP would reimburse the states for this expense. Does this mean that BP, along with these Republican governors, prefers that Gulf Coast states AREN’T fully involved, even if supposedly fully reimbursed later for any state’s resources used? Why?
And who exactly are these private for-profit contractors and private security personnel that I’ve seen journalists either trying to interview on the beaches or get past to conduct interviews? Logo-less jumpsuits? Stone-walling “public interest” journalists? Threatening workers with the loss of their jobs if they talk to the press? Refusing respirators? Blocking private-citizen volunteers from the beaches?
Shades of both the aftermath and what happened during Hurricane Katrina, privatize, privatize, privatize, orchestrated with help from crony Republican politicians along the Gulf Coast, but this time run by a multi-national ultra-conservative-run corporation (BP) instead of by a Republican-controlled White House…with Democrats currently in the White House and in Congress seemingly at a loss in understanding (and dealing with) what is going on.
The $20 billion escrow fund is a good start, but if Democrats don’t make certain that this fund ISN’T politicized by BP and corrupt Gulf Coast Republican politicians (i.e. privatized solely for for-profit gain by conservatives) then this money will be pissed away in the Gulf, like the billions of dollars that were pissed away following Hurricane Katrina (which, BTW, still hasn’t been fully investigated).
Our Government keeps polishing it’s self, and we eat the results, smack our lips, and say give Me some more.
We have become a Country of terd eaters, and don’t really care if they go the the trouble of polishing them or not.
Wanna bet on how many people didn’t pull their banking out of the Banks that caused the recession, or lost money on the Markets but are still buying stocks, Or will buy oil products tomorrow like they did sixty days ago.
We are in a rut, that we keep supporting the very things that are killing us, from the above mentioned to our Government Political Parties, and the Politicains who allowed it all to happen.
We keep sayin Whoa is Me, Whoa is me, but sitting around complaining about it, thinking everything will fix itself.