(Roughly) Daily

Shell Oil has recently suspended its plans to drill in Alaskan Arctic waters this year— something about oil rigs they can’t control.  But that’s just a temporary set-back.  The deeper problem is the climate of regulatory suspicion and public hostility they face.  What’s a poor oil company to do?

Turn to social media!  At ArticReady.com, visitors can help.

Government nearly caused a disaster in Alaska.  Now, only individuals can repair the damage…

Some regulators and environmentalists are letting emotions stand in the way of America’s energy destiny, but we refuse to be victimized.  By donating to Shell’s #RepairingFreedom campaign, individuals who truly believe in our Arctic mission can help bring the Kulluk back to her former glory…

Readers will have spotted the tongue-induced bulge in cheek…  ArcticReady is in fact a collaboration of Greenpeace and our old friends, The Yes Men (and their Yes Lab)… and it’s a gas.

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As we say “still, Baby, still,” we might send illuminatingly satirical birthday greetings to Ringgold Wilmer “Ring” Lardner; he was born on this date in 1885.  A columnist, short story writer, and occasional playwright, Lardner was, with his rough contemporary Grantland Rice, one of the two great American sports writers of the first half of the Twentieth Century.  But while Rice was known for his elegant and thoughtful prose, Lardner’s gift was for the odd, the funny– and always, the authentic.

Lardner’s work was admired by the likes of Virginia Woolf (“and other very serious, unfunny people,” as Andrew Ferguson wrote); he was a friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald; and an influence on Ernest Hemingway, who called him “Jupiter on tiptoes.”

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