I'm a long time lurker, sometimes poster under my real name & e-mail... tonight, I'm playing the anon game because of possible backlash if my post got back to the company I work for.. flame away doomers suck, etc., I don't give a s**t...

Today, I was roped into going to a local chamber of commerce function, for the PeeCee company that I work for. Told split up and sit at seperate tables to "better network"... ok, I understand that... the husband of the owner of the company was to do an informative Y2K information presentation, limited to 30 minutes :) right...

One of the ladies I sat next to was from a local franchise bottled water distributor, and a free-lance reporter. She was very interested in Y2K, lots of questions, and I mentioned one of my concerns was oil distribution & refining, and it's effects on fuel supplies... living in So. Cal., the Chevron refinery problems, etc.,

Then the presentation was on, fairly middle of the road, not going over the line, reassuring about banks, although he did make a statement "there will be no blackouts, a few brown outs maybe", hell, even the power companies themselves wont say that... then the question and answer... my mouth hit the floor when she asked him about oil & gas... his response, the only reason we import it is because it's cheaper that way, and the US has so much gas stored away, it's a non-issue...

After it was over, I asked him about his blowing off of the problems, explaining that here was someone delivering critical supplies, ie., drinking water, looking at a fleet of gas hungry trucks to make those deliveries, and his blowing off the issue, and possible convincing her and her husband not to prepare to have the resources to deliver drinking water because they listened to his polly spin...

His response, "Hey, you don't want to be the first one out there ringing a bell 'the end is near'... what if nothing happens? Plus the mayor is here, VP's from the banks, you don't want to be out there preaching doom & gloom... that's not what they want to hear..."

So I bit my toungue, and later e-mailed her some links with a polite note, "hope these help your research..."

I'm feeling really bad at the moment... that company supplies bottled water, a critical item, and I just sat by and let the politically correct spin completely misinform her... well, not completely. The response was "production is no problem, distribution might have a little heartburn, but we have so much stocked up, it doesn't matter"

BULLSHIT... who cares if you can pump it out of the ground, if you can't ship it or refine it? So much stocked up? How many days did it take in back, what was it , 1976, when the Arab oil embargo damn near shut this country down? I was in the 101st Airborne at the time, and I remember the plans to invade Saudi et al, the 82nd parachuting in to keep them from blowing the fields up, us coming in to tie down supply routes and set defensive perimeters to keep the fields outside their artillery range of the time, until the Marines and regular Army grunts could fight their way in to link up... remember the consatina wire around our barracks so nobody could skip out or tell mommy "Hey, we're gonna go shoot us some A-rabs!"

Anybody else out there had to swallow bile as management spewed out polly bullshit because they didn't want to "upset" anyone?

If only we could really tell it like it is, maybe we could do something...

-- Carl (sorry@nottoday.com), July 21, 1999

Answers

sorry, that was 1975... got out in March 1976... and my oldest has to register for the draft next year, if there is anyone left to run a draft...

-- Carl (sorry@nottoday.com), July 21, 1999.

Carl,

Thanks for sharing. Sometimes it just takes a bonafide "crisis situation" to wake people up. Then they can figure out work arounds when motivated... real fast.

I went through the 1994 Northridge quake in Southern California's San Fernando Valley (about 7 miles from the actual epi-center), where water supplies in many areas were "disrupted." You know who came through? The Arrowhead water bottling company.

Granted, they were outside the damage zone, had trucks, supplies and fuel... but they hired on additional staff, went into bottling overtime, and the additional drivers made sure people--customers and non-customers--had as much water available as they wanted.

People often respond in "unexpected and marvelous" ways when they need to.

Diane, very grateful at that time of need!

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), July 21, 1999.