PUNCTUATION!

An English professor wrote the words: "A woman without her man is nothing" on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All of the males in the class wrote: "A woman, without her man, is nothing."

All the females in the class wrote: "A woman: without her, man is nothing."

Punctuation is powerful.


Don't blame me. Blame Lisa.

"WE ARE ALL CONNECTED" - BP. KATHARINE JEFFORTS SCHORI

A young heron sits dying amidst oil splattering underneath mangrove on an island impacted by oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Barataria Bay, just inside the the coast of Lousiana, Sunday, May 23.

The original peoples of the North American continent understand that we are all connected, and that harm to one part of the sacred circle of life harms the whole. Scientists, both the ecological and physical sorts, know the same reality, expressed in different terms. The Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) also charge human beings with care for the whole of creation, because it is God's good gift to humanity. Another way of saying this is that we are all connected and there is no escape; our common future depends on how we care for the rest of the natural world, not just the square feet of soil we may call "our own." We breathe the same air, our food comes from the same ground and seas, and the water we have to share cycles through the same airshed, watershed, and terra firma.

The still-unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is good evidence of the interconnectedness of the whole. It has its origins in this nation's addiction to oil, uninhibited growth, and consumerism, as well as old-fashioned greed and what my tradition calls hubris and idolatry. Our collective sins are being visited on those who have had little or no part in them: birds, marine mammals, the tiny plants and animals that constitute the base of the vast food chain in the Gulf, and on which a major part of the seafood production of the United States depends. Our sins are being visited on the fishers of southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, who seek to feed their families with the proceeds of what they catch each day. Our sins will expose New Orleans and other coastal cities to the increased likelihood of devastating floods, as the marshes that constitute the shrinking margin of storm protection continue to disappear, fouled and killed by oil.

The oil that continues to vent from the sea floor has spread through hundreds of cubic miles of ocean, poisoning creatures of all sizes and forms, from birds, turtles, and whales to the shrimp, fish, oysters, and crabs that human beings so value, and the plankton, whose life supports the whole biological system -- the very kind of creatures whose dead and decomposed tissues began the process of producing that oil so many millions of years ago.

We know, at least intellectually, that that oil is a limited resource, yet we continue to extract and use it at increasing rates and with apparently decreasing care. The great scandal of this disaster is the one related to all kinds of "commons," resources held by the whole community. Like tropical forests in Madagascar and Brazil, and the gold and silver deposits of the American West, "commons" have in human history too often been greedily exploited by a few, with the aftermath left for others to deal with, or suffer with.

Yet the reality is that this disaster just may show us as a nation how interconnected we really are. The waste of this oil -- both its unusability and the mess it is making -- will be visited on all of us, for years and even generations to come. The hydrocarbons in those coastal marshes and at the base of the food chain leading to marketable seafood resources will taint us all, eventually. That oil is already frightening away vacationers who form the economic base for countless coastal communities, whose livelihoods have something to do with the economic health of this nation. The workers in those communities, even when they have employment, are some of the poorest among us. That oil will move beyond the immediate environs of a broken wellhead, spreading around the coasts of Florida and northward along the east coast of the U.S. That oil will foul the coastal marshes that also constitute a major nursery for coastal fauna, again a vital part of the food chain. That oil will further stress and poison the coral reefs of Florida, already much endangered from warming and ocean acidification. Those reefs have historically provided significant storm protection to the coastal communities behind them.

The dispersants that are being so wantonly deployed will have consequences we're not yet cognizant of, and the experience of gold and silver mining in the West is instructive. The methods used in those old mining operations liberated plenty of arsenic, mercury, other heavy metals, left cyanide and acids, all of which have significant health effects on those who live in the immediate area of mines and tailings, as well as those who use water downstream and breathe downwind air.

There is no place to go "away" from these consequences; there is no ultimate escape on this planet. The effects at a distance may seem minor or tolerable, but the cumulative effect is not. We are all connected, we will all suffer the consequences of this tragic disaster in the Gulf, and we must wake up and put a stop to the kind of robber baron behavior we supposedly regulated out of existence a hundred years ago. Our lives, and the liveliness of the entire planet, depend on it.

And they all said, "Amen!"


Image from MSNBC.

Thanks to AmyJ for the link to the essay at The Huffington Post.

"IT AIN'T MY FAULT" - MOS DEF & LENNY KRAVITZ

May 21, 2010, New Orleans, LA - The Gulf Relief Foundation announced Today that last Sunday's Gulf Aid Benefit Concert raised $300,088.65 The Foundation will be distributing the funds in the coming weeks.

"This was truly an 8-day wonder," said David Freedman, General Manager of WWOZ and a member of the board of the Gulf Relief Foundation. "The Foundation's first distribution will be to the fishing community most impacted by the shutdown of activity in St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes.

Consulting with the United Commercial Fishermen's Association, the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board and the United Way, Gulf Relief Foundation officials will be traveling to the area next week to talk to people on the ground about their needs. In the following two weeks, working with Tulane School of Social Work we'll begin triage activities, followed by case management and financial support," Freedman said.

"Last Sunday's Gulf Aid benefit concert is just the first in a series of food and music events planned by the Gulf Relief Foundation to raise additional relief funds," said Sidney D. Torres, owner of SDT and Foundation board member. "Donations are still coming in and we expect a boost in donations from tomorrow night's documentary airing on Fuse TV," Torres said. Fuse is carried in New Orleans on Cox channel 359, DirecTV channel 339 and DISH channel 158.

Plaquemine and St. Bernard Parishes were devastated by Katrina and the federal flood, and now comes the oil.

Thanks to Ginny S, who brought the video to the attention of MadPriest.

MAXINE SAYS...

 

Thanks to Lisa.

CARVILLE TO OBAMA

From The Huffington Post:

"The President of the United States could've come down here, he could've been involved with the families of these 11 people" who died on the rig after an explosion, Carville said on ABC's Good Morning America. "He could be commandeering tankers and making BP bring tankers in and clean this up. They could be deploying people to the coast right now. He could be with the Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard...doing something about these regulations. These people are crying, they're begging for something down here, and it just looks like he's not involved in this."

His voice rising, Carville cried out, "Man, you got to get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this thing and get this moving! We're about to die down here!"

I fully understand that BP and Obama want the gusher stopped as much as any of us down here in south Louisiana. I don't know if the technology exists to plug the well, but I hope it does.

Where the Obama administration can help and should help is in mitigating the damage from the gusher. Neither BP nor the administration has done everything that was and is possible to protect the coast and marshes. Here we are crying that we are dying, and we don't get the emergency help that we need. If the feds won't help, then, at least, get out of the way of local people let us try our solutions. Suspend the rules and regulations. We are desperate. What you've done thus far is all too little and too late.

UPDATE: Be sure to watch the video at HP - at least the beginning about the administration's response to the oil gusher.

UPDATE 2: Here's the link to the live video feed of the gusher from BP's site.

COMIC RELIEF - THE OBEDIENT ITALIAN WIFE

There was an Italian immigrant man who had worked all his life, had saved all of his money, and was a real "miser" when it came to his money.

Just before he died, he said to his Italian wife..."When I die, I want you to take all my money and put it in the casket with me. I want to take my money to the after life with me."

And so he got his wife to promise him, with all of her heart, that when he died, she would put all of the money into the casket with him.

Well, he died. He was stretched out in the casket, his wife was sitting there - dressed in black, (what else), and her best friend was sitting next to her.

When they finished the ceremony, and just before the undertaker got ready to close the casket, the wife said, "Wait just a moment!"

She had a small metal box with her; she came over with the box and put it in the casket.

Then the undertaker locked the casket down and they rolled it away. So her friend said, "Girl, I know you were not fool enough to put all that money in there with your husband."

The loyal wife replied, "Listen, I'm an Italian Catholic & I cannot go back on my word. I promised him that I was going to put that money in the casket with him.."

You mean to tell me you put that money in the casket with him??"

"I sure did," said the wife.

"I got it all together, put it into my account, I wrote him a check....

If he can cash it, then he can spend it."

AMEN!


CIAO A TUTTI

Don't blame me. Blame Doug.

HORIZON SURVIVORS ALLEGEDLY KEPT IN SECLUSION AFTER EXPLOSION

From Yahoo News:

According to two surviving crew members of the Deepwater Horizon, oil workers from the rig were held in seclusion on the open water for up to two days after the April 20 explosion, while attorneys attempted to convince them to sign legal documents stating that they were unharmed by the incident. The men claim that they were forbidden from having any contact with concerned loved ones during that time, and were told they would not be able to go home until they signed the documents they were presented with.

Stephen Davis, a seven-year veteran of drilling-rig work from San Antonio, told The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg today that he was held on a boat for 36 to 40 hours after diving into the Gulf from the burning rig and swimming to safety. Once on a crew boat, Davis said, he and the others were denied access to satellite phones or radio to get in touch with their families, many of whom were frantic to find out whether or not they were OK.
....

Davis' story seems to be backed up by a similar account given to NPR by another Deepwater Horizon crewmember earlier in the month. Christopher Choy, a roustabout on the rig, said that the lawyers gathered the survivors in the galley of a boat and said, "'You need to sign these. Nobody's getting off here until we get one from everybody.'

I'd heard Christopher Choy's story some time ago. From the beginning, something seemed fishy about the waivers signed so quickly, or perhaps I should say oily. Other than that, I let the stories speak for themselves. I have no words.

PHILIPPE COUSTEAU: "THIS IS A NIGHTMARE...A NIGHTMARE"

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.