Five lines of frustration

A bit earlier, I was following a conversation about the BP oil spill, and amidst the typical (and, let's face it, pretty dang enticing) anti-BP sentiments, one of the participants made a comment about "kicking them while they're down", which got me thinking about the organization of things.

It's easy to demonize BP in it's entirety, and perhaps the main corporate structure, and the wing of the company that operates drilling and extraction equipment ought to be chastised. But as far as BP filling stations go, most that I'm aware of are owned and operated by independent, small business owners who just happen to contract with BP as their fuel suppliers. Owners of BP filling stations are no more at fault that the owners of Citgo, or Wilco-Hess, or Circle K stations, and many of them are taking serious losses because of an oil drilling catastrophe they're really not at fault for. And this train of thought resulted in the following few lines which, while they probably appear to make light of the whole thing, just barely begin to scratch the surface of my confusion and frustration at the economic reach and complexity of this whole situation.

A big, international oil company

Did some things that caused lots of harrumph-ery

But the huge plume of crude

Gets the little guy screwed

And the whole thing makes me feel quite grumpery.