Dear Claimant, Hey, how’s it going? Weather’s pretty warm for a January, huh? Yeah, I was able to leave all the really cold weather clothes back at the hotel and…okay, first, allow me to introduce myself. Well, kind of introduce myself… I work for a rather unpopular agency down in the Gulf Coast. Let’s call it an insurance company and yeah, turns out we’re about … Continue reading An Open Letter to Gulf Coast Residents…
Approaching nine months after the Deepwater Horizon exploded, spilling 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, sensitive marshes off the coast of Louisiana are still covered with oil. Friday, state and local representatives took the media on a tour of Barataria Bay, showing an area where the oil continues to destroy the marshes and also where protective boom is gone or has been eaten … Continue reading “It’s like you’re in bed with BP.”
I grew up in the church. My father is a minister which meant I went to church every Sunday, did the whole baptism, confirmation, altar boy thing and when I was twelve, he took a new job at a church populated with a lot of people who had a lot of money. Not all, granted, but enough of them and I remember being about fifteen … Continue reading Nothing Makes a Cynic Like a Wealthy Church…
“The GCCF takes into account evidence of the connection between the asserted loss and the spill, the nature of the claimant’s job or business, and the extent to which the claimant’s job or business is dependent upon injured property or natural resources,” the letter stated. “In weighing these factors, the GCCF has determined that you did not demonstrate that you lost profits or income as … Continue reading In Denial – BP said “Yes,” GCCF told her “No.”
Hello everybody… Typically, I try not to make these things all that personal, usually covering up a lot of feelings with humor, dark cynicism, take a few jabs at politicians while emotionally stepping slightly outside of myself, a calculated distance learned from many years of social work that makes it easier to blunt the emotional impact of what I do for a living, but I … Continue reading The Newer Meanings of Black Friday…sentimental thoughts
Over the past five months, Gulf Coast residents have been treated to a number of decisions with direct impact on their lives. They weren’t asked to give input at the time these decisions were made. They weren’t asked how they thought it might affect their future. The decisions occurred above their heads and most times, without their knowledge, but they are the ones now paying … Continue reading Changing Course in the Gulf: Bad Lessons in Money and Politics Pt. 3 – The Obama Administration and Business as Usual
Is Feinberg reconsidering the no-sue clause? Perhaps so, and maybe because of new information such as this: In the journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, a new study reveals the longer term health effects for cleanup workers exposed to spilled oil when the tanker Prestige sank off the coast of Spain. What it shows is the risks to human health go far beyond the damage of … Continue reading The Prestige Study…Why Feinberg Should Drop the “No Sue” Clause for Final Payments
In the ongoing narrative of all is well in the Gulf of Mexico, Barack Obama and his family came to Panama City Beach Florida for vacation. They dined on Gulf seafood and the President announced to the press, “Beaches all along the Gulf Coast are clean, they are safe, and they are open for business,” and then he briefly went swimming in the protected inlet … Continue reading The Myth Is Real – Let’s Eat – The Obama’s Visit Florida
Imagine a country, a place where an oil spill fouled a major body of water off five states. The ensuing damage threw thousands out of work, threatened an entire ecosystem, a culture, killed thousands of birds, fish, sensitive marshlands. The company promised to do everything to make things whole again. The government stepped in and held that company to task while spearheading the greatest mobilization … Continue reading Of Course It’s Political…
The article by Jerry Cop and Charles Hambleton begins: “The unprecedented disaster caused by the BP oil spill at the Deepwater Horizon Mississippi Canyon 252 site continues to expand even as National Incident Commander Thad Allen and BP assert that the situation is improving, the blown-out source capped and holding steady, the situation well in hand and cleanup operations are being scaled back. The New … Continue reading The Crime of the Century: What BP and the US Government Don’t Want You to Know, Part 1.
Drake Toulouse: Photography and Words 