Big week for family gatherings. Two times, we were with our Weinroth family branch. Granddaughter had a piano recital and then a dance/gymnastics recital. The second one was best because our son was able to join the family. Just out of the hospital, he says he is tired and he looks it. Work days are often abnormally long. It was good to see him eat and relax for just a bit.

The grandchildren continue to amaze us with their insightfulness and creativity. They will surely help to keep us young. Grandson's special performances yesterday included rolling his tongue in a way that no one else could do, and bending this thumbs and index fingers 'way back without pushing them. Well, OK!

Our time with the family has been precious for many reasons. They're wonderful, we're wonderful, and put together, we're all stupendous, of course. But more than that, these times underscore the value of family love and the growth possible for all in our mutual validation and support. We are a network and sometimes, the only place in which to rest when one is weary. We feed one another in respect and kindness.

I contemplate these REAL family values when I look outward toward my universal family. As such, this family includes the decision makers of Halliburton, BP, et al and their shocking inability to see clearly the impact of their choices on beauty, security, all living things, the perfection of Nature when left in peace to do its work. Their ethical and moral blindness is not a facade--they really DON'T see!

I think of the behaviors of these "relatives" of ours in business, and how, in forgetting who they truly are, they dishonor themselves and the rest of us. Building high risk structures out in the ocean, using shoddy equipment and inept labor. Financing exploration of the technology of building oil rigs while forgetting the financial necessity of creating emergency responses. Making noises about how sorry they are, like a remorseful drunk the morning after, knowing that they will not make one change more than is necessary to be forgiven for the moment. Keeping away from the site those who would measure and report the situation to the rest of the world. Trying to cut deals with the government, with the people of the Gulf, with the Press, with public opinion. And the deals look cheap and shoddy when compared with the true costs of their mistakes.

Each subsequent move shows how out of touch they are, how they are conniving to get themselves out of trouble any way they can... any way, that is, but the honorable way. With each misstep, they prove their insincerity yet again.

They've killed some of the family through negligence, and not just this time. They are bludgeoning others - the people of the Gulf and their work, the brown pelican, the sea turtle, the ocean, and the essential protection of the Delta wetlands among them. Some of our family, still alive and suffering, will follow the dead. The perpetrators will not acknowledge their culpability or see themselves as part of the interconnected web of all life, because to do so would cause them pain, emotional as well as financial. At this point, the pain remains the sole property of the victims and those who bear witness to their misery.

There has been a split in the family that cannot be healed until all the money and power seekers, from coal mine owners to bank/security companies; from those who cheat us of safe, decent food in their quests to "own" farming and food marketing to polluting oil companies; from the IMF and the World Bank who have held countries captive in their poverty to businesses that work their employees literally to exhaustion; till ALL who seek to profit at the expense of others find their souls again. Till they remember that WE ARE A FAMILY.