Author: Andrew Sullivan

Don’t Open Any Holes You Can’t Close

Saletan's proposal:

Of all the lessons we can learn from the BP fiasco, the simplest, and the first we should apply to offshore-drilling laws, is this: Don't open any holes you can't close. If the well site is too deep for humans to reach, drill a simultaneous relief well so you can plug a blowout promptly. If a relief well is too expensive, don't drill at all. Or you can keep robots on hand to shut down leaks. But they'll have to be better robots than the ones we're now watching.

Today's laws don't come anywhere near this standard.

The Hidden Toll

OilyBirdCharlieRiedelAP

Think Progress is keeping track of the wildlife impacted by the spill:

As of yesterday, 874 animals (birds, sea turtles, other mammals, and reptiles) had been collected dead in the affected area. Another 466 had been collected with alive, but visibly oiled. Some new pictures from the AP, including dead sea turtles, fish, and birds, as well as pelican chicks discolored by oil [are here]

John Collins Rudolf calls that the tip of the iceberg:

The number of carcasses recovered is important, as it will play a role in determining the liability BP faces under federal law. But this number should not be mistaken for the true impact on wildlife. Past history teaches that the great majority of birds that die after exposure to spills simply disappear into the ecosystem. And as Louisiana’s marshes are significantly more difficult terrain to negotiate than the beaches of Prince William Sound [during the Exxon Valdez spill], it should be no surprise that the confirmed bird death toll remains unusually low.

(Photo by Charlie Riedel/AP)

Actions And Consequences

New sanctions against Iran have passed the UN Security Council. Fisher rounds up reax. Yglesias makes a sensible point:

Something that I think is worth noting here is that sanctioning Iran isn’t just about Iran and Iran’s nuclear program. It’s about every other country on earth, and all those countries’ hypothetical nuclear programs. The precedent of North Korea makes clear that if you really want a nuclear weapon, the international community probably can’t stop you. But how many world leaders cast a glance at Kim Jong-Il and say “I wish I were that guy”? If Iran continues to refuse to verifiably disarm, we want to make sure that other leaders of mid-sized powers still feel that a price is being paid that’s high enough to induce them to make other choices.

The View From Your Recession

A reader writes:

I’m a graphic designer living near a large city in the Pacific Northwest. I graduated from college a year ago with my BA and I’ve been looking for paid work ever since. I’m originally from Australia and came here to study, so I’m still on a student visa that dictates I find work in the field of my major (design and photography) while I wait for my permanent residency to come through.

Finding work has been an exercise in the impossible. In the last year, between applying for positions in person, online, by mail, cold calling, and in many cases simply going door to door at creative agencies and trying to seek work directly from business owners, I’ve applied for about 60 positions. I’ve gotten lucky enough to score a job interview twice (without luck), and I managed a 3 month unpaid internship late last year, but it led nowhere since – surprise! – they couldn’t afford to hire me at the end of it. Right now I help a friend run her fledgling photo business just for something to keep busy – but again, it’s unpaid.

I have a strong portfolio, a good work ethic, am personable – hell, I even have the Aussie accent going for me. Ultimately it leads nowhere. My experience thus far suggests that it doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve accomplished or what your skills are – if you were unfortunate enough to graduate or find yourself looking for work in the last two years then it sucks to be you.

The speed with which rejection comes is absolutely astonishing. Thinking along the same lines as the career counselor that was featured last week, I thought that applying in person, portfolio under arm and dressed to impress would be a good idea. Even if there weren’t any immediate openings, surely the act of being bold enough to walk in uninvited would count for something, and I could (hopefully) put a face to my name and be a first port call when something comes along. While I’m sure this works in normal circumstances, it assumes there will be job openings at some point. Thus far, that hasn’t been the case.

Most times I’ve tried this approach I’ve been rejected before I’ve even had a chance to offer a business card or show my portfolio, the reality being that most creative agencies have seen downturns of near 50% (since their health relies entirely on the health of other businesses to buy new ad campaigns and the like) and they can barely find enough work for the designers left standing. Even when I offer to work for free, on the assumption that it could lead to work later down the line, I’m still rejected on the basis that even if I was given an unpaid position, there’s not enough work for me to have anything to do!

I don’t begrudge any of these businesses their rejections of me, as most have been nice enough to review my portfolio and take a resume after explaining their hiring situation. Most of them like my work. I’m told frequently that if they were hiring, I’d be an ideal candidate.

I dropped in to see one of my professors two months back, curious to see how other graduates were doing. She’d always been particularly nice to her students, and took a keen interest in her students’ lives after graduation. My graduating class was somewhere between 30-35 students, and I was eager to find out if I was crazy, or if this was somehow normal. I found out that of my graduating class, only two of us had found work. The best part? One of those people was me – she was counting my unpaid internship. The other fellow who’d found “work” had also received an unpaid internship, but like myself, had been cut when it expired as his agency couldn’t afford to hire him either.

During my internship, I remember one of my co-workers telling me about their previous intern, an incredibly talented young woman who’d produced some of the best work they’d ever seen. My co-worker had just been to Starbucks, where said intern had served her and wished her a nice day. The sad part is after a year of looking for something, anything paid, I would relish that opportunity.

I’ve never been someone who believes that work is easy, that life will suddenly make sense after graduation or that a perfect career will drop into my lap. Getting your career in order should be a challenge. Climbing the ladder of life should take time. But you need a rung to start from, and right now there’s a lot of ladders out there without rungs.

The Science Of Fag Hags, Ctd

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A reader writes:

Ahem.  Some of us prefer the term Fairy Princess.

Another writes:

I find the term Fag Hag horribly degrading to the wonderful straight women in my life. I much prefer Flame Dame or Fruit Fly.  Oh, and Lesbros is the straight guy/lesbian equivalent. 

Fruit fly? Another:

When I was in college the term for a man who predominantly befriended lesbians was "Dutch Boy," though in my experience it was more a derogatory term for such men used between lesbians.

Another:

I can relate to your remark that some girls just want to have fun. I was a single 26-year-old woman in 1974 when the disco scene was hot. I loved to dance but dreaded putting myself out as bait for a relationship I didn't want. The best places to dance without complication were disco clubs near me in Hollywood.

They were filled with gay men dancing their hearts out. I loved going there and many guy were happy to dance with me, since I wore great twirly dresses. The bathroom situation was remarkable in that "boys" and "girls" held no meaning, and I had to fight my way through men to go pee, but nobody bothered looking at me while I did so. (No doors on the stalls!)  Great memories…

Another:

Gay guys like the things we like. My gay friend went shopping with me and my 4-year-old daughter last week, and loved it – told me to give him a call the next time I go. My husband would rather have his fingernails pulled out with hot tongs, you know? So it’s fun to have a male friend who "gets" many traditionally female pastt imes (though I couldn’t talk my friend into going to see Sex and the City 2 with me!).

Another:

True: hanging out with gay men does provide the chance have fun without the possibility of sexual tension (although we can get that from girlfriends too). It's not just that, though – gay guys are still guys, and we can learn things about the way guys look at the world from our gay friends that we can't learn from women.

Another:

I just thought I'd share this Onion article from 2002 on the subject.

(Photo: Actress Kathy Griffin arrives with some Siberian Huskies at the Best In Drag Show 2005 held at the Wilshire Ebell Theater on October 16, 2005 in Los Angeles, California. By Vince Bucci/Getty Images.)

A Ship Of Fools

Gadi Taub begs Israel to come to its senses:

Today, Israel is not the belligerent party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is Israel that has offered partition, and the Palestinians who have consistently refused it. Netanyahu inherited a winning hand. He could have put a peace plan on the table, leaving the Palestinians to refuse it. He could have declared that Israel wanted to withdraw from the West Bank and would do so if its security was guaranteed by an agreement with the Palestinians or a third party. He could have offered state housing help for those who would leave the settlements even before an agreement. Instead, he mumbled something half-heartedly about two states, and then moved on to fight for enlarging settlements.

Settlements, clearly, are the keys to all this. Further settlement is what energizes the campaign to delegitimize Israel. And, for the first time since its war of independence, Israel is in real danger of destruction. Zionism’s success depended, as Theodore Herzl understood, on international recognition. It will not survive without it. If Israel clings to its settlement policy, it will sink along with its West Bank occupation.