Letter to Senator Inhofe and a Jingle for Your Pleasure

Senator Inhofe:
    Please discontinue blocking limits that our government has been attempting to place on BP. The dispersants have proven ineffective and dangerous. As investigations are completed it appears BP and its management is entirely at fault for the disaster in the Gulf.
    It appears BP executives did not act responsibly and were probably the cause of the deaths of the 15 men lost on the rig initially.
    BP can’t pay enough for the damage being done in the Gulf. Senator, you are too far removed from the tragedy taking place there. The oil drenched wildlife refuge is blackened with black goo oozing up every where. The degree of damage is staggering.
    Corporate America is killing this country. One more nail gets hammered into the coffin of the middle class. Greedy BP must pay. There is no limit to the damage they have caused -– there should be no limit on the amount of damages for which BP is responsible.   

It’s About Oil
(sung to the tune of It’s About Oil)

Dick Cheney is explaining
Why we need to invade Iraq
He says we gotta get them, we gotta hit them
Before they can hit us back
I’m not even gonna bother
To argue over that
‘Cause it’s clearly just a bunch of B.S.
To distract us from the facts:

It’s about oil, it’s about greed
It’s about rich white men getting richer
It’s about fear, and control
Of those barrels of black gold
Well step up folks to another war where we never really say what we’re fighting for
It’s easy to pretend we’re defending our native soil
Put it in the headlines, I want to see it in big lights
Hello – it’s about oil

George Dub-yuh, how I love ‘ya
And your tough Texas cowboy ways
Congressional approval is for weanies
You go to war whenever you please
And if the citizens raise some questions
Just use the T word, and lock ‘em up
Then it’s back to business as usual
Priming the pump

It’s about oil, it’s about greed
It’s about this rich country getting richer
It’s about fear, and control
Of those barrels of black gold
Well step up folks to another war where we never really say what we’re fighting for
It’s easy to pretend we’re defending our native soil
Put it in the headlines, I want to see it in big lights
Hello – it’s about oil

And we the people we shrug and sigh
Too bad about your country, but I like to drive
If I bury my head and close my eyes
Maybe the oil never will run out

Yeah we’re livin’ in a strange sort of heaven
St. Peter is holding a gun
All the angels are dressed in business suits
The disciples are on the television
And our lord says, “Do unto others
As you need to do to come out on top.”
And after church we all go to Wal-Mart
The 11th commandment – Thou Shalt Shop

It’s about oil, it’s about greed
It’s about rich white men getting richer
It’s about fear, and control
Of those barrels of black gold
Well step up folks to another war where we never really say what we’re fighting for
It’s easy to pretend we’re defending our native soil
Put it in the headlines, I want to see it in big lights
Hello – it’s about oil

© 2002 Amy Martin

Biography of Gouverneur Morris, Signer of the Constitution

"This country must be united. If persuasion does not unite it, the sword will." Gouverneur Morris (1752–1816) Founding Father King's College 1768 Revolutionary War–era statesman Gouverneur Morris made a lasting impact on the nation, the state, and the city as a drafter of the U.S. Constitution, a builder of the Erie Canal, and a creator of Manhattan's street grid.

Morris graduated from King's College in 1768, delivering the commencement address "Wit and Beauty." The scion of a prominent New York family whose manor gave the Morrisania section of the present-day Bronx its name, Morris and his older brother Lewis, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, sided with the revolutionaries even as their mother and sisters remained loyal to the crown. After the Revolutionary War, Morris served in the Continental Congress and as assistant to the minister of finance, proposing the decimal system for the national currency and inventing the word cent in the process. As a Constitutional Convention delegate, he is acknowledged to have given final form to the U.S. Constitution, paring the original draft of 23 articles to seven and writing the document's preamble. He also inserted the famous phrase "We the people" at the beginning. As James Madison said, "The finish given to the style and arrangement of the Constitution fairly belongs to the pen of Mr. Morris." Morris later served as a diplomatic agent in England, as U.S. minister to France during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, and as a U.S. senator. In 1811, he chaired a three-man commission that transformed Manhattan Island by designing its 12-avenue, 155-street grid above Houston Street. He also chaired the Erie Canal Commission for three years, but did not live to see the canal's completion.