STORY OF THE DAY - STRANGE COUNTRY

She asked my sons what strange
countries they had been to & my oldest
son said England & my youngest said we
live in Louisiana & they all agreed that was
strangest of all.


From StoryPeople.

WHO'S GOING TO PAY?!!!

 

From the Times-Picayune:

On a Sunday of expanding coastal destruction from the Gulf oil disaster and little progress in containing it, frustrations bubbled to the surface from local and state leaders in Venice to federal officials in Houston and Washington, D.C.

Parish leaders and Gov. Bobby Jindal emerged from an afternoon strategy session at a Venice fishing harbor to complain about a lack of urgency from federal agencies and BP to address the oil washing into coastal marshes day after day.

Jindal said he supported a decision by local and Jefferson Parish leaders on Grand Isle on Saturday to commandeer about 30 fishing vessels that BP had commissioned but hadn't deployed to lay down protective boom as the oil came ashore.

On a Sunday of expanding coastal destruction from the Gulf oil disaster and little progress in containing it, frustrations bubbled to the surface from local and state leaders in Venice to federal officials in Houston and Washington, D.C.
....

With each criticism of BP and the federal government's inability to force the company to move faster when oil is spotted coming ashore, local officials have started to clamor for President Barack Obama to federalize the disaster response under the Oil Pollution Act.

But Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, reiterated on the Sunday morning talk a message he's been sharing almost since the disaster struck April 20: Industry, and not the federal government, has all the resources to deal with the leak 5,000 feet below the sea and as it comes toward land.

The fear is that if Obama federalizes the response and supplants BP, not only will it be more difficult to get the company to pay for the response efforts, but the federal government may not have the capacity to get the job done.

If less than the best efforts to protect the coast are being implemented by either BP or the federal agencies because of concerns about who will pay the costs, then shame on them. Let's not have the blame game about protecting the coast from further damage going back and forth between BP and the feds, if something can be done now. Whatever you can do, do it! Give the local people the go-ahead to implement their plan, which seems to have worked.

The disconnect between state and federal governments was clear as Salazar trumpeted 1.73 million feet of boom and more than 1,000 vessels deployed on the front lines, while Jindal complained that during a boat tour of oiled coastline Sunday he saw only two vessels trying to protect the shore.

Jindal said 143,000 feet of boom sat in staging areas while oil damaged 65 miles of Louisiana coastline. It has been 20 days since the state asked for 5 million feet of hard boom, but only 786,185 feet of hard boom has been delivered so far, he said.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, along with Jindal and other parish leaders, said the White House's first priority should be granting an emergency permit to skip federal environmental reviews and allow coastal parishes to follow their 3-week-old plan to place dredged sand as berms between barrier islands so oil won't get into delicate marshes, something that wouldn't require any change in BP's role.

"The president has the authority to issue an emergency permit," Jindal said.

"This is proof that the parish plans work," he added, pointing at a picture of sand berm in Fourchon laid by Louisiana National Guard troops in four days that kept oil out of an estuary.

Then he pointed to a picture of a oiled pelican at a bird sanctuary on Cat Island, off the coast of Plaquemines Parish, unable to fly or swim because of the oil, and another picture of pelican eggs discolored with brown gunk, saying: "This is the danger of not acting."

What are the chances for the oiled pelican? What are the chances that the eggs will hatch into healthy pelican chicks and grow to maturity?

Look at the numbers and varieties of birds just from one picture of Cat Island. The threat is the same for the other rookeries and bird sanctuaries across the coast and in the marshes.


As my friend Elizabeth said in the comments to another post:

Sad. Sad. Sad. Mother Earth is weeping for her children.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - GOOD NEWS

If the Gospel is not Good News for ALL, then Christianity has little to offer.


Inspired by Counterlight's commentary.

PLEASE PRAY FOR MAXINE, STEVE, HILARY, AND JONATHAN

From Arkansas Hillbilly:

I just got word this evening that my grandmother, Maxine, is in the hospital with some form of colitis. Could you all please add her to your prayers for me? Thank you.

From Hillbilly on Maxine:

Update from Dad's cousin Shelia. Grandma is doing much better, and if she's able to keep food down, they'll let her go home tomorrow! Thanks be to God and thank you all for your prayers!


UPDATE:

Prayers for my brother, Steve, who has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and my niece, Hilary, just diagnosed with breast cancer.

Thanks

Ann


UPDATE 2 posted by MadPriest:

My dog socked me in the eye again this morning. This time I ended up at the eye doctor. I have a serious lesion on my cornea. Which probably explains why it hurt like hell. I've got to use anti-bacterial eye drops every two hours for a couple of days, but they think I'll live. I was a very brave boy.

O God, the strength of the weak and the comfort of sufferers: Mercifully accept our prayers, and grant to your servants Maxine, Steve, Hilary, and Jonathan the help of your power, that their sicknesses may be turned into health, and our sorrow into joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

MEET JOEY

 

Joey is my eldest grandchild and the first to graduate from high school. I'm quite proud of him, as he graduated with honors and got to sit on the stage in a place of honor. In the fall, Joey will go to LSU (Louisiana State University). When he graduates, he will be the third Joseph Thomas Butler to graduate from LSU. Note: I said when, not if. His great-grandfather and his grandfather are both graduates. Grandpère and I abandoned the tradition of passing on the name when we named Joey's dad, our son, Tim, but the next generation returned to the tradition. Tim attended Nicholls State University here in Thibodaux.

When I asked Joey's mom, Cindy, if I could post his graduation picture on Wounded Bird and write about him, she said, "Yes, but I wished he'd shaved." No matter. He's still good-looking, isn't he?

Joey was smart from an early age. I remember when he was about 18 months old, we went to visit my mother in the retirement complex in New Orleans. When we left her apartment and reached the elevator, Joey pointed to the number next to the elevator and said, "Nine." I nearly fell over. Cindy told me that when he saw a Walmart ad in the newspaper, he'd say, "Walmart."

While his parents worked, I cared for Joey for a few months before he was a year old. From his infancy, he loved music. His favorite song when he was around 7 months old was Burl Ives singing "The Little White Duck". He'd sit on the floor and listen, almost in a trance, and rock from side to side in time with the music, and when the song was finished, he'd cry. I'd say, "Wait! Wait! I'll play the song again," and I'd move the needle on the old vinyl back and start the song over. We'd do the routine for quite a while before I could get him to move on to listen to the other songs on the record.

When I rocked Joey to sleep, I sang to him, nursery rhymes, children's songs, and sometimes I'd run out of songs and start singing the same songs again. I wondered that I didn't bore him to sleep more quickly, because I bored myself nearly to sleep. Along with my singing, I played tapes and records of children's songs for him. We liked Raffi, especially "Five Little Ducks". Ducks again! One day, Cindy came to pick up Joey to take him home, and the song was playing.

Five little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away.
Mother duck said "Quack, quack, quack, quack, But only four little ducks came back.

The song went on until:

One little duck went out one day,
Over the hills and far away.
Mother duck said "Quack, quack, quack, quack, But none of the five little ducks came back.

Cindy looked a little stricken and said, "But it's such a sad song."

And then came the final verse:

Sad mother duck went out one day,
Over the hills and far away.
Mother duck said "Quack, quack, quack, quack,
And all of the five little ducks came back.

And all was well again.

One day, when Joey was not yet two years old, I was changing his diaper, and I noted that the diaper had the rhyme "Five Little Monkeys" printed on it. I said the rhyme once or twice, and Joey repeated the rhyme back to me. I thought he'd learned the counting rhyme from his parents, but when I asked Cindy about it, she told me that, so far as she knew, he'd never heard it before. Quite a memory for a little one. Joey was full of surprises.

Joey still loves music and has a vast collection of songs. He plays the guitar, both electric and acoustic. A few years ago, I gave him my nice Yamaha acoustic guitar which I had stopped playing long before and which I never played at all well.

Prayers, congratulations, and blessings, Joey, as you embark on your new adventure.

Note: I asked Joey if I could feature him on my blog, and he said yes, but he's not responsible for what I say here.


UPDATE: One more Joey story.

My mother passed away when Joey was five years old. During the memorial mass, the priest did a dialogue sermon, asking questions of the people at the mass and going back and forth in a conversation. One of his first questions was, "What happens when people die?"

Joey's hand popped up, and the priest called on him. Joey said, "They go to heaven to be with Jesus."

The priest said, "Yes, they do."

Joey spoke again, "And if you love them, they live in your heart."

After mass, I asked his parents whether they had told Joey what to say, and they both shook their heads. Amazing!

THE REV. CANON SCOTT B. HAYASHI CHOSEN 11TH BISHOP OF DIOCESE OF UTAH

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

Utah Episcopalians on Saturday selected Scott Hayashi as their 11th bishop to replace the Rev. Carolyn Tanner Irish, who will retire this fall.

Hayashi, who was rector at Ogden's Good Shepherd from 1989 to 1998 before leaving to become a diocesan administrator in Chicago, emerged as choice to lead an estimated 6,000 Episcopalians in the state after two rounds of balloting at a special convention attended by priests, deacons and lay members at St. Mark's Cathedral in Salt Lake City.

The biography of the new bishop-elect may be found at the Episcopal Diocese of Utah website.

Thanks to Ann for the link.

THE BBC FINALLY GETS IT

Still from BP's live feed video from The Huffington Post, May 21, 2010.

Two Republican governors, in California and Florida, have withdrawn their support for the idea of expanded offshore drilling and a number of Democrats in Congress have warned that they can no longer support energy reform legislation if it includes such provisions.

President Barack Obama recently announced that he was willing to lift a decades-long moratorium on drilling in new areas of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coastline.
At the time, he said any new exploration would "balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America's natural resources".
....

But with the true consequences of the spill yet to be determined, this is perhaps a little premature. What is more clear is that making history seems less of a priority right now than establishing blame.

Last week, it was Wall Street "fat cats" who were being roasted by members of Congress.

Yeah, poor babies. My heart bleeds for the executives.

But while venting anger and debating when and how to reintroduce a moratorium might make people feel good, what does it actually achieve?
....

Of course all of this depends on a disaster which hasn't quite materialised yet.

And yes, Bill, who would ever have expected that a disaster would materialize after 17 days of thousands upon thousands of barrels of oil gushing from a well in the Gulf of Mexico?
As of yesterday, the BBC appears to have caught up with the reality of the disaster in the Gulf. Watch the video on the right of the BBC website of Rep. Ed Markey's (D-MA) commentary. It's short and to the point.

BP said it had siphoned 2,200 barrels in the 24-hour period to midnight on Thursday, down from an estimate of 5,000 barrels earlier in the day.

The US government has formed a team to develop a more precise estimate of the amount of oil gushing from the well.

BP will attempt to stem the oil flow next week, instead of Sunday as hoped.

The oil leak began more than a month ago, when a rig leased by BP exploded.

The spill has reached Louisiana and is threatening Florida and Cuba.

Thick, sticky oil is washing on to miles of fragile Louisiana wetlands, with brown, foul-smelling globs coating reeds and grasses.

For playing down the extent of the disaster 17 days after the explosion, I'd like to ship Bill Adams an oiled, dead pelican to hang around his neck for - let me think - perhaps 17 days?

Thanks in great part to the efforts of Rep. Ed Markey, a live video feed of the oil leak is available at BP's website.

UPDATE: My post at Wounded Bird on May 6, 2010. Who would ever have expected...?

OIL ON THE BEACH AT GRAND ISLE, LOUISIANA

Before officials closed it Friday, visitors walked along the beach at Grand Isle, checking out the oil that washed up on the sand from the offshore platform that exploded and sank in April....

From the Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

Walking over the sand dune separating Grand Isle camps from the Gulf of Mexico, Paul Trouard said he didn’t see anything unusual.

Trouard, 36, and Walter Allred, 41, both of Lafayette, were on the island to get together with friends and do some fishing.

They said they hadn’t been on the Grand Isle beach for years, but with all the talk of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, they decided to take a look for themselves Friday morning.

“I didn’t expect this,” Trouard said, pointing to the beach.

On the water’s edge, the beach was covered with oily globs the consistency of chocolate mousse and streaks of oil. In some locations, pools of oil were getting trapped in low-lying beach areas.

“They told us it was coming,” Allred said.

He said he brought a plastic bag to the shoreline to collect some of the oil and a camera to take some pictures. Trouard and Allred both agreed they’d probably be telling their children about the day they were fishing and oil came ashore in Grand Isle.

“It’s epic,” Allred said.

It's epic all right, epically catastrophic.

 

A small sand crab covered with oil...makes its way around the beach Friday at Grand Isle.

What are the chances for the little sand crab?

FIRST OF THE SPRING SEASON

 

Grandpère picked the produce pictured above this morning, the first of the season. They're fresh from the garden, not even cleaned yet. He's proud, and I don't blame him. He works hard in his spring vegetable garden, and we both enjoy eating the harvest. Mmm-mmm good!

BEES - A FRIDAY SILLY JOKE

 

A man was driving down the road and ran out of gas. Just at that moment, a bee flew in the window.

'What seems to be the problem?' asked the bee.

'I'm out of gas,' replied the man.

The bee told the man to wait for a few moments, and flew away. Minutes later, the man watched as an entire swarm of bees flew to his car and right into his gas tank. After a few minutes, the bees flew out.

'Try it now, ' said one bee.

The man turned the ignition key and the car started right up.
'Wow!' the surprised man exclaimed, 'what did you put in my gas tank?'

The bee answered,

 

Wait for it. Wait for it...

 

You're just gonna love this...

 

 

I see you smiling.

 

I figured why not go a little mad in the middle of the sorrow and depression with a timely joke, which admittedly did not result in LOL, but did, in fact, make me smile.

Don't blame me. Blame Doug.