the 2011 definition of ‘chutzpah’

i offer two points before sharing something with you all:

1. leo rosten in the joys of yiddish defines chutzpah as “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts,’ presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to.” in this sense, chutzpah expresses both strong disapproval and a grudging admiration. in the same work, rosten also defined the term as “that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.”

2. my favorite cartoon in the new yorker was published many years ago. in it, an executive at his desk is being interviewed. the smokestacks of his factory can be seen outside his plate-glass window, as can the lake. the caption is “it’s not our factory polluting the lake… it’s all those dead fish!”

redefining chutzpah for 2011, bp has published its 2010 sustainability report. in it, they claim with pride that they leaked less oil in 2010 than in 2006 and 2008. but, you exclaim, what about the gulf oil spill of last year?!? the footnotes of the report speak for themselves:

Although there are several third-party estimates of the flow rate or total volume of oil spilled from the Deepwater Horizon incident, we believe that no accurate determination can be made or reported until further information is collected and the analysis, such as the condition of the blowout preventer, is completed. We have not included any emissions from the Deepwater Horizon incident and the response effort due to our reluctance to report data that has such a high degree of uncertainty.

they have a point. we don’t really know for sure, even if it was the the biggest offshore oil spill in american history. it does seem like the right thing to do is assume the amount is zero, until we really know for sure.

the bar graph on the left shows what bp is reporting for 2006/2008/2010. the chart on the right uses government estimates of how much oil bp spilled into the gulf in 2010:

pbs provides an adjustable oil-ticker for estimating how much oil was spilled into the gulf.

“At the low end is NOAA’s estimate of 210,000 gallons per day. At the high end is what BP told Congress. Drag the slider between those poles to see other possible rates. Keep in mind that all of this is only an estimate.”