Brett Banter

No the headline was not a reference to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but the latest public relations brain freeze by British Petroleum. In the wake of one of the world's messiest semi-natural disasters since the Red Seas crushed down on the Egyptian Army, everyone's favorite oil producer had another boo-boo. Big boo-boo, actually. According to the New York Times, a vital piece of equipment at a Texas refinery broke down. Instead of shutting down the plant and trying to fix the problem, BP staff decided to reroute the chemicals and burn them off. For 40 days, the plant continued releasing thousands of pounds of deadly chemicals into the local environment.

Now, true the company was kind of busy making up excuses about the oil spill, but no one on staff said "hey, maybe we should tell people to be careful." Or maybe they did, and someone higher up the BP foodchain said "eh, who cares? Maybe it will blow over."

It did blow over. Into houses and neighborhoods. And when kids started getting hacking up their four-year old lungs long enough to end up in a hospital, Texas environmental authorities found the source. Now instead of having to deal with the media glare of just a refinery leak, BP lawyers get to deal with a $10 billion class-action lawsuit.

Somewhere, the BP public relation staff should be slapping its collective head.