The true meaning of "shit happens"

Bob Herbert translates for us

The response of the Obama administration and the general public to this latest outrage at the hands of a giant, politically connected corporation has been embarrassingly tepid. We take our whippings in stride in this country. We behave as though there is nothing we can do about it.

The fact that 11 human beings were killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion (their bodies never found) has become, at best, an afterthought. BP counts its profits in the billions, and, therefore, it’s important. The 11 men working on the rig were no more important in the current American scheme of things than the oystermen losing their livelihoods along the gulf, or the wildlife doomed to die in an environment fouled by BP’s oil, or the waters that will be left unfit for ordinary families to swim and boat in.

This is the bitter reality of the American present, a period in which big business has cemented an unholy alliance with big government against the interests of ordinary Americans, who, of course, are the great majority of Americans. The great majority of Americans no longer matter.

This is precisely why I find all the pooh-poohing that goes on of congressional hearings and criminal investigations puzzling. If we continue to let these "too big to fail" type criminals go unpunished for their crimes, then they truly are above the law. If you allow the cycle of "shit happens" to continue, then shit will keep happening to you. But we live in a time when everybody just wants the healing to begin, or something. Oh well.