In a Los Angeles Times account of the hearing, Nguyen was particularly agitated by BP’s vice president for drilling, Harry Thierens. When Nguyen asked about lessons learned from past disasters in the industry, Thierens said he did not remember details of the 1988 Occidental Petroleum rig explosion that killed 167 people, was not aware of a near blowout of a BP well in 1999, and could not list any lessons from the BP Texas refinery explosion that killed 15 people in 2005. Nguyen noted that problems in the drilling process that were identified long ago also afflicted the Deepwater Horizon, and asked sarcastically if the industry simply accepted such tragedies every 20 years.

This pattern should make Interior Secretary Ken Salazar extend his moratorium, which is set to expire on November 30. Salazar assumed the date would allow a reasonable time to work out how to improve the safety of drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf and to make provision for stopping and containing spills.

No such progress was evident in Houston. All you had was Halliburton blaming BP for ignoring warnings that more devices called “centralizers’’ were needed to strengthen the cementing of the well and Transocean and BP blaming each other for the failed blowout preventer. In another pointed exchange reported by the Times, Nguyen was stunned when he heard that senior Transocean performance manager Daun Winslow did not know if any internal audits of the Deepwater Horizon rig had been conducted to see if it met international codes for safety management.

“It’s been four months since the tragedy, and you don’t know?’’ Nguyen asked Winslow.

“That is correct,’’ Winslow responded.

The hearings continue amid political clamor to lift the moratorium. Last week, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu told the National Press Club that lifting it “is about preserving a way of life.’’ Both of Louisiana’s senators, Democrat Mary Landrieu and Republican David Vitter, want the moratorium lifted, with Landrieu saying last week that it “borders on reckless.’’

Texas Representative Joe Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce committee, who has received $1.5 million in oil and gas industry contributions in his career, last week condemned the moratorium as “stupid’’ to the Dallas Regional Chamber.

Amazingly, a plurality of Americans — 49 percent — actually say BP should be allowed to drill in the same area again. BP’s “Make This Right’’ public-relations campaign is clearly working in our energy-addicted nation. Its approval rating has nearly doubled in the last two months — from 16 percent to the fringes of respectability at 31 percent. Obama’s approval rating for his handling of the spill is frozen at 44 percent.

Those are signs that the pressure to lift the moratorium will increase dramatically. But opinion polls and political pressure don’t justify the resumption of drilling. Only when those responsible for the Deepwater Horizon disaster stop displacing blame — and make it clear that they know how to stop future spills — should the moratorium be lifted.

Embarrassed by media coverage of scandals in Zuma’s family and of profiteering by public officials even as millions struggle in poverty, the government has proposed a “Protection of Information Bill.’’ His party, the African National Congress, is calling for tribunals to regulate the media. Earlier this month, a journalist was arrested after reporting that the national police commissioner may have may questionable business dealings.

Under the bill, the government could define so-called “sensitive information’’ as anything deemed in “the national interest.’’ It has aroused vigorous opposition, and not only from media organizations. Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu last week spoke out against the measures as “something that virtually everybody rejects.’’

When guided by leaders such as Tutu and Nelson Mandela, South Africa developed a rare moral authority that would be tragic to waste. If the country fritters away freedom of the press, it would almost assuredly embolden less democratic nations to clamp down even harder.

Zuma and the ANC should look to Mandela himself. During long years in jail on Robben Island, Mandela and other prisoners protested for access to the news. In his 1994 autobiography, Mandela wrote, “In 1978, after we had spent almost 15 years agitating for the right to receive news, the authorities offered us a compromise. Instead of permitting us to receive newspapers or listen to radio, they started their own radio news service, which consisted of a daily canned summary of the news read over the prison’s intercom system. The broadcasts were far from objective or comprehensive. . .

“The broadcasts consisted of good news for the government and bad news for all its opponents. . . Despite the slanted nature of the news, we were glad to have it, and prided ourselves on reading between the lines and making educated guesses based on the obvious omissions. . . we had learned what the authorities did not want us to know.’’

South Africans should not have to guess at anything. And the danger is not to them alone. Last week, in a speech in Johannesburg, American Ambassador Donald Gips put South Africa on the spot for the new restrictions. “We believe South Africa serves as the role model for the continent and the world,’’ Gips said.

“South Africa has shown the way as a peacekeeper for the continent, in Burundi and Sudan.’’ He noted the South African press’s history in exposing the acts of the apartheid regime and urged, “South Africa must not turn away from that history now.’’

Zuma and the ANC would be much better off cleaning up corruption than corralling the press. All that a canned press will do is make people more angry when they successfully read between the lines. Earlier this summer, Tutu endorsed a general call to African heads of state to eliminate press restrictions, calling the media “one of the most powerful instruments in helping our societies to value the truth.’’

South Africa is arriving at a moment of truth. The World Cup elevated the country to a privileged place on the world map. That was only a game for young men. The government now has to show that it is mature enough to let media tell the truth.

Unfortunately, Obama and his aides were clearly shaken by poll numbers against the mosque, fueled by the predictable blowback from fearmongers who see anything Muslim as evil.

The very next day, while visiting the Gulf of Mexico, he said, “I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.’’

There is no need for Obama to dance on semantics on this issue, especially when the Republican response is a blatant blunderbuss of ignorance. New York Representative Peter King called the “Muslim community’’ insensitive and uncaring to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero and said the “Muslim community’’ was “needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much.’’ Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said a mosque near ground zero was “like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.’’

Such Republicans forget that their own President Bush, in hosting many dinners to break the fast of Ramadan said, “All of us gathered tonight share a conviction that America must remain a welcoming and tolerant land . . . we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.’’ Bush also said, “The freedom of worship is central to the American character. It’s the first protection in the Bill of Rights.’’

There is no need for Obama even to give the appearance of equivocation when he is defending the very Bill of Rights. In a rational United States, this debate would have been over two weeks ago. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is Jewish and likely knows a lot more than Gingrich about the Holocaust, gave a stirring speech defending the right of people to build a mosque.

“The government has no right whatsoever to deny that right, and if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the US Constitution,’’ he said. “. . . Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists and we should not stand for that.’’

The next time Obama has to talk about the mosque or issues similar to it, he can stand on the words of founding father James Madison. In a 1788 letter to Thomas Jefferson, Madison wrote of myopic fears in New England that the freedom of religion in the Constitution “opened a door for Jews, Turks and infidels.’’ He warned that a bill of rights should guard against “the danger of oppression’’ by majorities that render the rights of minorities “insecure.’’

Bloomberg said of the victims of 9/11, “We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights.’’ Likewise, on issues like the mosque, Obama should speak with no insecurity whatsoever. His own commitment to religious freedom must remain unshakable.

Yet top Republicans want to keep the tax cuts. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says if the tax cuts expire, “the people you hit the hardest at $250,000 are small businesses. The people who hire the most people in America are small businesses . . . What they say everywhere I go is, ‘We’re not hiring anybody because between the health bill, the tax bill, and the energy bill, we don’t trust this administration.’ ’’

Gingrich’s claim does not stand up to either facts or American sentiment. It has been long proven that the tax cuts are a major drag on the Treasury. If all the cuts were extended, it would mean nearly $3 trillion in lost revenues over the next decade, according to the Tax Policy Center, a joint think tank of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. Such lost revenues would help fuel the deficit at “unsustainable levels,’’ creating a “much bleaker’’ long-term national debt scenario and stagnant gross domestic product, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO assumed the possible extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to be a “most important’’ factor in its “much bleaker’’ scenario.

Also, the tax cuts did nothing to create jobs. The Bush administration promised 5.5 million jobs would be created with his fiscal policies by the end of 2004. But the policies came up 3.1 million jobs short, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The institute and the Center for American Progress published a report two years ago that found investment growth in the United States was much greater after 1993 tax increases under President Clinton than under the 1981 and 2001 tax cuts of Presidents Reagan and Bush.

“The failure of investment to respond to supply-side tax cuts greatly undermines the central premise underlying the policy,’’ the report said. “. . .economic performance was worse.’’

Americans seem to get that. Obama and the Democrats should too, before Obama’s individual approval ratings for his handling of the economy plummet any further. In the Pew poll, 46 percent of Americans said they would rather follow Obama’s economic policies, compared to 29 percent who would continue with Bush’s. A Time poll earlier this month found Americans still blame Bush by more than a 2-to-1 margin than Obama for today’s economic problems.

That indicates that people want Obama to get more fed up with the continued big paydays on Wall Street despite its meltdown and the largest inequality levels in the developed world, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that six of the 12 most highly compensated public-company CEOs were paid lavishly while shareholders lost money in the last decade.

When a strong percentage of Republicans see through the fallacy of tax cuts, that is a sign that all the 2001 and 2003 cuts should expire eventually. First in line should be the wealthy. The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says that if the cuts for the top 2 percent of households are extended, they will add $1 trillion to deficits and debt over the next decade.

Americans want that $1 trillion to go to work, by putting people to work.

Another coalition air strike was ordered on the pretense that insurgents were making off with stolen fuel trucks. It ended tragically when the bombs killed 60 civilians who were trying to remove fuel from abandoned trucks.

Added up, the Times said the reports “illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.’’

Parallel to that, the reports also suggest that Pakistan’s intelligence units may be working with Afghan insurgents and as the Times wrote, “alongside Al Qaeda to plan attacks.’’ Just last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed $500 million in new aid for Pakistan, part of the $7.5-billion, five-year infrastructure package the United States pledged to that country last year to eliminate the “legacy of suspicion’’ between the two countries and to demonstrate that “there is so much we can accomplish together as partners joined in common cause.’’

There is no common cause indicated in the reports. An official Pakistani program of double-dealing is not conclusively proven by the documents. But the reports suggest how one former head of Pakistan’s spy agency is maintaining contacts with terrorists, to the point of assisting in attack strategy. The reports also indicate how other Pakistani intelligence officers helped support plans for Taliban suicide bombings, with the targets ranging from Afghan officials to Indian engineers working in Afghanistan. There was even an alleged plot where Pakistani spies and the Taliban plotted together to ship poisoned alcohol to US soldiers in Afghanistan.

If true, it represents a failing war overall and a back stabbing from Pakistan that the US cannot ignore. Of course, the White House is trying to do just that, as national security adviser General James Jones condemned WikiLeaks for “irresponsible leaks’’ that “could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk.’’ Essentially blaming most past mistakes on the Bush administration, Jones noted that Obama announced a “new strategy’’ that began almost precisely at the end of the time period of the leaked reports and claims that the US and Pakistan “have deepened our important bilateral relationship.’’

Instead of trying to shout down the leaks, the Obama administration should immediately examine whether its new strategy is worth the lives of any more of our soldiers. It is better off tightening the conditions on aid to Pakistan even more until they truly join us in common cause. The leaks should be the beginning of a final determination as to whether this war, the way it is being fought, is worth it at all.

However, Obama also affirmed his confidence that “BP will be able to meet its obligations to the Gulf Coast and to the American people. BP is a strong and viable company and it is in all of our interests that it remain so.’’

It sure would be nice if Obama could explain why we should keep BP big. Ken Feinberg, the negotiator appointed by Obama to run BP’s $20 billion compensation fund, last week said that the fund was much more preferable than for BP to go out of business under the crushing costs of its devastation. He told FOX News that bankruptcy “would be a horror. If BP ever was unable to pay valid claims because of bankruptcy, that would be a disaster for BP, it would be a disaster for the people in the Gulf, it would be a disaster for the economy of the Gulf. I think that is not an option.’’

Feinberg reiterated to Gulf residents in Larose, Louisiana, “There is absolutely no sense at all in driving BP into bankruptcy.’’

It is all starting to make sense, in an insane way. Unemployment in the United States is still near 10 percent because of the meltdown caused by the recklessness of our biggest financial institutions. Congress is finally near passage of a so-called financial overhaul that puts more oversight on the biggest institutions and supposedly puts mechanisms in place to safely liquidate collapsing firms. Obama proudly said last week, “No longer will we have companies that are ‘too big to fail.’’’

Yet nearly every analysis says the measure is too little to succeed in another crisis similar to what we experienced. Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told the Los Angeles Times, “There is probably no economist who believes that this bill will end the risks of too-big-to-fail financial institutions.’’

Now comes Obama’s advance blessing to BP, which amounts to a political bailout. No company should be praised as “strong and viable’’ when its damage so drastically cripples the viability of an entire region of the nation. Every company that skirts regulations and has no realistic disaster plan should face the possibility of closure. Given how the other oil companies — no environmental angels themselves — gleefully criticized BP at a recent congressional hearing, we can be quite assured that if BP went down, the rest of Big Oil would easily pick up the pieces. And they would do so with much more fear that the same thing could happen to them.

An analysis this month by Dun & Bradstreet found that businesses in coastal counties in Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama normally experience half a trillion dollars in total sales. The potential economic damage from the oil spill is so uncertain that Dun & Bradstreet executive Bill Pastro told The Advocate in Baton Rouge, “We personally have a gut feeling’’ that current economic impact estimates “are relatively small.’’

Until we know that impact, Obama is wrong to assure that BP is here to stay. A company that bankrupts the “small people’’ is too big to enjoy our blessing.

The study makes a strong case “for sparing whales, which can be a source of significant benefits sustainable over time.’’ As the study noted, whale-watching fans certainly eclipse the relative handful of people who enjoy the taste of whale meat. In an interview, Sumaila added, “Some countries say we have to keep hunting whales for economic benefit. The data shows you don’t have to settle for economic crumbs.’’

Promoting whale-watching as international policy is not a joke, since nothing else works to protect the marine mammals. International Whaling Commission talks fell apart this week, with pro-whaling nations Japan, Norway, and Iceland continuing to harpoon the 1986 moratorium on commercial hunts. Japan says it does it for “research,’’ though everyone knows the research is a taste test at sushi restaurants. Iceland whaling magnate Kristjan Loftsson told Agence France Presse, “Whales are just another fish for me, an abundant marine resource, nothing else.’’ He claims that without the hunt, fin whales “would become a pest,’’ bullying other fish for food.

According to the IWC, more than 1,500 “pests’’ were eradicated last year by those three countries. Hunting in Antarctic and North Pacific waters, Japan killed 825 minke, Sei, Bryde’s, sperm and fin whales. Norway slaughtered 484 minkes. Iceland knocked off 206 fin and minke whales. Korea killed an additional 16 minkes.

Some anti-whaling countries, including the United States, tried to offer whalers official blessing for their industry if they would accept sharp reductions and stop plundering pristine Antarctic waters, where 80 percent of all whales feed. The whalers, particularly Japan, which took 508 whales out of the Antarctic last year, rejected the compromise. This leaves the effectiveness of the IWC moratorium in doubt and whales in uncertain waters. Decades of protection have helped the humpback in the North Atlantic to rebound after the near-disastrous industrial whaling of the early 20th century. But other species remain rare or critically depleted, such as the blue whale and northern right whales.

Besides harpoons, whales also have to deal with climate change. The latest projections are not good. This week, the Zoological Society of London released a new assessment of the effect of climate change on food and breeding habitats for wildlife. Compiled for the United Nations’ Convention on Migratory Species, the report determined that whales comprise five of the nine sea or land mammals that are highly vulnerable to climate change. They are the North Pacific and Northern Atlantic right whales, the bowhead whale, the Southern right whale and the blue whale

The assessment said those species “will not respond to conservation measures in the long term if action is not taken to mitigate climate change.’’ Global warming means dramatic declines in zooplankton and krill, big changes in how the ocean circulates food, and more dramatic disruptions of food supply by more frequent and intense storms. The blue whale, down today to a few thousand from a preindustrial whaling stock of up to 200,000, is a krill eater. The turbulence of storms is already known to disrupt krill supplies. “It is likely that this will also negatively affect other baleen whales and the basking shark,’’ the report said.

So far, none of this has moved enough hearts and minds in Japan, Norway, or Iceland to stop their hunts. It all may come down to how much the rest of us can turn the “pests’’ into a magnificent public resource. “It is becoming increasingly obvious that animals such as whales have intrinsic value,’’ the whale-watching study said. With the failure of the IWC meeting, it falls to us to set the value, by proving that the sight of a living whale is worth more than one that is dead.

The Washington Redskins still hold onto a nickname that today could never have a counterpart such as “Blackskins,’’ “Whiteskins,’’ “Yellowskins,’’ or “Brownskins.’’ The new National League Hockey champion is the Chicago Blackhawks.

There have been noteworthy victories in reducing the stereotypes. The National Collegiate Athletic Association five years ago announced that schools could not use mascots, nicknames, or imagery of ethnic origin in postseason play. Rather than be iced from tournaments, most colleges have either changed their name or received tribal permission to continue them. The University of North Dakota is preparing to change its nickname from the Fighting Sioux. In South Carolina, Newberry College two weeks ago changed its nickname from the Indians to the Wolves.

High schools in many states have also been slowly modernizing their nicknames and rituals, including those in Massachusetts. Last year, the Gill-Montague Regional School Committee voted to end the display of the tomahawk chop and its accompanying music at Turner Falls High School. School committee chair Mary Kociela said at the time, “We have a responsibility as leaders to foster inclusiveness and respect in all that we do.’’

A fresh reason to maintain that responsibility came this spring in a study on the effect of American Indian mascots, done by researchers at The College of New Jersey and Ohio State, Illinois and Pacific universities. They found that participants who were exposed to stereotypical Native American mascots and icons “were more willing to endorse stereotypes about a different minority group.’’ The study found that “even if the intention of the depiction may have been to honor and respect, the ramification of exposure to the portrayal is heightened stereotyping of racial minorities.’’

Lead author Chu Kim-Prieto of The College of New Jersey said in a telephone interview, “I don’t want to make it like people become racists just because they are exposed to the stereotypes . . . But the implication is that the more willing one is to endorse stereotypes, the more that it negatively impacts efforts at multicultural understanding.’’

It is long past time to end that kind of exposure. Curse or ban the vuvuzela if you will. But back home, our Indian sports stereotypes speak louder than 100,000 plastic horns.

If American mothers rate a zero for maternity leave, you can forget about fathers. Yet, according to Earle, 32 nations, in the quest for gender equality, now offer 14 weeks or more of paid leave specifically for new fathers.

It is beautiful to see the difference. In an April trip to Stockholm and Copenhagen, my wife and I were stunned to see how many fathers pushed infants in strollers, rode bicycles hauling baby trailers and breathlessly chased toddlers around parks. Sweden reserves two months of paid paternity leave for the father. In Denmark, fathers have two weeks of paternity leave dedicated to them and can further share in 32 other weeks of parental leave.

In the United States, where few fathers can afford unpaid leave, you see them pushing strollers, but more likely with Mom alongside. In Stockholm and Copenhagen, the fathers were alone with their kids. By definition they were far more engaged.

Heymann, co-author with Earle of a new book on family policies for workers titled, “Raising the Global Floor,’’ said she was struck during a visit to a Norway factory how fathers felt free to be the one to pick sick kids up from school and stay home with them until they recovered.

“That starts with parental leave policies,’’ Heymann said. Norway gives fathers six paid weeks, and then they can share in up to 39 weeks of further paid leave. “This factory was like one you would find in the industrial Midwest. What we found out, from the CEO down to the lowest-paid handlers, was that paid parental leave made for low turnover and a more highly skilled workforce because they had to cross-train to fill in for fathers on leave. They cared about the firm because the firm cared about them.’’

In Sweden, 85 percent of fathers take advantage of their two months of leave. In a feature this week on that nation’s paternity leave policies, The New York Times had, by American standards, a hilarious photograph of a hunter with his dog, carrying his baby. His wife told the Times that she finds him the most attractive, “When he is in the forest with his rifle over his shoulder and the baby on his back.’’

Better still, despite the American business lobby whining that paid leave will damage the economy, the evidence is that countries and businesses that support generously-paid leave for fathers also boost women in their workplaces. A Swedish Ministry of Employment study this year found that for each month a father goes on paternal leave, the mother’s earnings go up by 6.7 percent. “This is a large effect, larger than the effect of the mother’s own parental leave,’’ the study said. “This indicates that paternal (lack of) involvement in parental leave and child care may in fact be one important explanation for the male-to-female earnings gap.’’ The study said that the father’s shortening of mother’s leave helps her send to her own workplace a “positive signal of work commitment.’’

That is on top of all the other benefits. Divorce rates are down in Sweden. Globally, involved fathers are associated with all kinds of better outcomes of well-being for both the children and the mothers. Earle and Heymann note that 12 of the world’s 15 most economically competitive countries have paid leave for new dads. “Those societies are not losing talent and productivity,’’ Earle said.

We should not lose one more Father’s Day to a society that has no paid days to be a father.