brightening

Wow! Both my parents are energy lawyers who have worked for the federal government off and on their whole lives, and they never had this much fun. But then, aside from Jay McInerney, and, we now know, members of the Bush administration's Interior Department, who does?:

The report says that eight officials in the royalty program accepted gifts from energy companies whose value exceeded limits set by ethics rules — including golf, ski and paintball outings; meals and drinks; and tickets to a Toby Keith concert, a Houston Texans football game and a Colorado Rockies baseball game.

The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

The investigation separately found that the program’s manager mixed official and personal business. In sometimes lurid detail, the report also accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine.

The culture of the organization “appeared to be devoid of both the ethical standards and internal controls sufficient to protect the integrity of this vital revenue-producing program,” one report said.

The sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives sound particularly enticing, don't they? Also the paintball outings, because god knows they're hard to come by.

I am trying to be in a better mood about things. The oh-so-wise Gail Collins is telling me to be, for one. Also, contrary to expectations, Rushdie's entertaining but narratively muddled Enchantress of Florence was not even shortlisted for the Booker this year, which means all status quos change eventually. AND the Large Hadron Collider succeeded in creating a small black hole but not in destroying the world. This feels like a good thing right now, although ask me again if McCain/Palin are elected.

NOTE: Do you ever think about the fact that life could end suddenly, in a flash, depriving all the religions of the world of ever knowing whether they were right?