As a teenager, my sisters used to enjoy exploiting my temper to get me in trouble, pushing my buttons until I did something stupid and wound up grounded. I fell for it all the time. I think it was their secret game but I’ve never been able to prove it. One day when our parents were out, my younger sister and I argued about taking … Continue reading Hanging Pictures…Six Months Later
Making things right…? The other shoe dropped in court on Friday where BP’s lawyer suggested the very company that made all those promises to everyone in the Gulf Coast… well, they may finally be ready to hide behind the Oil Pollution act of 1990 which caps damage claims at $75 million dollars. BP’s attorney, Don Haycraft suggested the inevitable, that BP had already forked over “lots and lots” … Continue reading Judge Barbier Gives BP One Week to Declare their Intentions on $75 Million Cap
So, here we are… Almost six months after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and the Macondo Well became a petroleum free for all, the Gulf Coast has become a crazy mix of truths, cautions and hopes, a petri dish, much like the aftermath of Katrina where agendas did battle inside the square circle with the winner this time to be given the British Petroleum Federation belt … Continue reading The Government, The Press and The People…
Last week, a co-worker came into my office and noted that I’m still going on about the BP Gulf oil spill. I don’t share this blog with too many people I know personally, and this co-worker was one of the few I had mentioned it to. Honestly, I wasn’t surprised by her comment but I did ask anyway… “What do you mean?” “Isn’t it kind … Continue reading If a tree falls in the woods, will the media still be there?
My apologies Mr. Feinberg. I have written a number of things up here, laying the blame for the slow payments of reparations firmly at your feet. I questioned your promises. I doubted your ability to do the job. I insinuated you were naive. Sorry. I felt that by promising people they would get their emergency payments in twenty-four hours and businesses inside a week you … Continue reading My bad, I thought the slow payments were Ken’s fault
In perhaps a poor choice of words, Ken Feinberg said yesterday, “No grocery receipts, no documentation, just an allegation of subsistence loss. Four thousand claims where the claim form is exactly the same, including the misspelling. Outrageous! I can’t pay those claims.” So what was he talking about? Apparently Plaquemines Parish Council Chairman, Don M Beshel, frustrated with the slow movement of reparations to the … Continue reading Feinberg says it’s “Outrageous”
When Kenneth Feinberg took over disbursement of the $20 billion dollar fund from BP one month ago, he made the rather startling claim that emergency payments would be underway to people within 24 hours and businesses within a week. One month later, over 40,000 claims remain to be processed. He has been forced to do town hall meetings, to add personnel, then to streamline the claims … Continue reading Feinberg Should Make Amends…
Federal officials and the Obama administration have maintained for well over two months now that all is safe in the gulf: no serious food contamination, no significant risk to air and water quality, no long-term health risks. And all this seems well and good so long as you only ask the government’s scientists. Asking elsewhere, one gets an entirely different story, and from such notable … Continue reading FDA, NOAA Still Not Testing for Heavy Metals or Dispersants in Gulf Seafood
By now many of us have read of British Petroleum’s increased ad spending in the months following the April 20th Deepwater Horizon Explosion. Rep. Kathy Castor was especially upset by this, saying “BP is overdoing it, it’s really making people angry. Every day you get up and see these full-page ads in every newspaper and the TV ads…while BP’s advertising campaign ramped up, businesses and the … Continue reading An Audition: British Petroleum’s Public Relations Department
While many, myself included appreciate that the Macondo Well is “effectively dead,” considering the claims that no oil has been leaking from the site since mid-July it is a bit anti-climactic. Many bloggers, myself included have been far more focused on the cleanup activities or lack thereof, the oil still washing up on the beaches and permeating the Gulf, the dying sea life, the increasing … Continue reading The Problem with Sandcastles
Drake Toulouse: Photography and Words 