look out polar bears, BP's coming

COMMENT 1

So. BP has signed a multi-billion dollar "share swap" with Russia's state owned oil company, prior to exploiting the vast oil reserves of the Arctic ocean. BP's safety and environmental record hardly reassures us that they will go about this in a responsible way, and as for the Ruskies...

I found myself thinking of that famous Orson Welles "fairground speech" in "The Third Man", where he invites Joseph Cotten to contemplate the people moving about far below them. "If you had $10,000 for every one of those little dots down there to stop moving forever, how many would you choose?" And then I started to think of the top level oil execs discussing their deal. They could be saying: "If you got a million dollars for every lake of pollution you left behind in the Arctic, how many lakes would you choose, and how big?"

COMMENT 2

Yesterday at the Vatican, 3 Anglican bishops, implacably opposed to the ordination of women bishops, were ordained as catholic priests. But hang on a minute: aren't they all married? Did popey give them some kind of let-out clause to allow them to contravene rules established centuries ago? Could this be the first little shaft of light shining through a door that was slammed shut a long, long time ago?

To me, the issue of celibacy is central to the understanding of all the terrible episodes of sexual abuse of children by catholic priests. The priests take a vow of celibacy, but then are too weak to adhere to its unnatural tenets. Somehow, in their twisted, frustrated minds, they cannot have "normal sex" because they have vowed not to. But fiddling with children's privates isn't covered by the strict wording of their vows, so apparently that's "morally" acceptable to them. I can't help feeling that if the rules against catholic priests marrying were relaxed, except for a much smaller band of monks who actively choose that path, then the problem of child abuse would go away, and quickly. It's worth a try, anyway. Anything's better than the terrible revelations that have come to light in the past couple of years.