Like most of the folks I know, I have spent the last months surfing the waves of information coming at me about BP. I come away with a story about the dynamics of blame.

Characters in no special order include: Transocean, Haliburton, BP, Tony Haywood, Obama, Congressional Democrats, Congressional Republicans, Hillary Clinton, the new and old British Prime Ministers, the Lockerbie bomber held in Scotland, Energy Secretary Chu, Interior Secretary Salazar, Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, among others.

I’m trying to make sense of it; and am writing about it because that’s how I do it. Here’s a bit I’ve arrived about how we moderns, hooked into our media, surf the waves of information pounding against our minds:

We choose what we seek to integrate until satisfied with our closures, we turn away, more or less content though aware of the continuous presence of more. Too much, and we are overwhelmed and feel burnt-out; too little, and we feel under-informed. Jumping in and out of a relentless event timeline, our actions are continuous— more or less engaged and attuned from time to time. Our times present us daily with a Jamesian “buzzing, blooming confusion” to parse, not only as new-born, but throughout our adult lives.  Our adaptive responses in and out are the cognitive equivalent of short-term market day trades, with the implicit personal information of experience and emotion adding its complexity.

How do you feel about all this? How do you make sense of it?

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