Growing up before cable TV and the Internet brought global media to Cleveland, my earliest exposure to foreign TV programming was watching Britain's 1969-74 comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus, which repeated for years at off-hours on local television, and fascinated me for its absurdity. I certainly considered those who came up with that programming and provided a home market for it equally absurd, and I have always had concerns about the sanity of British leadership and the citizens raised in that culture, as a result.

My worst fears about the Flying Circus effect have been validated since the British Petroleum Deepwater Disaster has brought crisis and shame to America and Britain, and is currently destroying our global environment... BP leadership has been Dickensian in its blackness... Pythonesque in dimwittedness... BP has done little more than throw bricks at the crisis, and offers only spam as food for thought.

As such, it is fascinating to explore what imagery the Flying Circus generation big shots at British Petroleum associated with their firm and so themselves as they developed their advertising for the big, green "Sustainability" Era, like in 2006... "BP... Beyond Petroleum" - "beyond darkness... light", their advertisement above promised... Welcome to the Spam Circus.

Fascinating... Images of a closed beach with a "No Swimming" sign - "beyond danger...", the British chap clearly annunciates - followed by a man surfing - "a thrill" - footage of a nuclear bomb exploding - "Beyond Power... responsibility" - a man locked out of his car - "beyond crisis" - images of a coat hanger and a brick - "a cure" - footage of an operating room with breast implants on a tray - "Beyond Pain..." - followed by a big breasted beauty - "JOY!"

Monty Python could not have come up with a more ironic portrayal of sexism, unnaturalness and absurdity.

I was afraid the British wouldn't get that Monty Python was all a joke... a spoof.

Absurdity and deep sea oil exploration do not go together... and neither do environmentalism and spam.

Blame Monty Python.