Fiddling while Rome burns

i don't know what these guys understand "leadership" to mean but one of the cardinal principles is that appearances are everything... i don't think anybody would begrudge mr. hayward some downtime to recuperate from the incredible pressure he's been under but the bastard also needs to understand that the entire world is watching his every move... the last thing he needs is to have an article highlighting his tony, elite, leisure pursuits with his very well-heeled fellow elites while an entire ecosystem and the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people are being destroyed thanks to his company's greedy heedlessness... otoh, i doubt if he really gives a shit... just let those "small people" eat cake...

BP chief executive Tony Hayward, often criticized for being tone-deaf to U.S. concerns about the worst oil spill in American history, took time off Saturday to attend a glitzy yacht race off England's Isle of Wight.

Spokeswoman Sheila Williams said Hayward took a break from overseeing BP efforts to stem the undersea gusher in Gulf of Mexico to watch his boat "Bob" participate in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race.

The one-day yacht race is one of the world's largest, attracting hundreds of boats and thousands of sailors.

In a statement, BP described Hayward's day off as "a rare moment of private time" and said that "no matter where he is, he is always in touch with what is happening within BP" and can direct recovery operations if required.

That is likely to be a hard sell in Gulf states struggling to deal with the up to 120 million gallons of oil that have escaped from a blown-out undersea well.

what this says to me is just how incredibly far-removed from ordinary people's reality guys like tony hayward really are... to tony hayward, "getting his life back" means he can continue his extraordinarily privileged lifestyle unfettered by the concerns of the peasantry... it also tells me that he was removed from the front lines of the crisis because he's a walking public relations disaster... evidently, the strategy isn't working so well...

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