Jan 2011
BP Still Spraying Dangerous Dispersants in the Gulf?
Jan 31, 2011 08:20 Filed in: Environment
The folks at BP, having submerged one of the worst oil spills in history by spraying toxic dispersants on it, are now relying on the well-documented propensity of the American people to forget almost anything that happened more than a few weeks ago, provided, of course, that they are not reminded of it.
That strategy has been successful, for the most part. News of the spill has disappeared from the local and national media, and the attention of the public has moved on to more immediate distractions, like tea parties and the Superbowl.
But a lot of crude petroleum sits under the Gulf of Mexico, along with some unbelievably toxic chemical dispersants (the composition of which is still secret -- wonder why?), whose long-term effects, while unpredictable, are all potentially devastating, both to the marine environment and the humans that depend upon it for sustenance and livelihood.
We will be dealing with the results for a long time, but the damage will be individualized, so as to render it innocuous to the BP media narrative that the spill is over and the damage has been contained. The story has already become the story of unfortunate individuals, rather than a far-reaching public health disaster that has caused and will cause untold suffering to the people on the Gulf Coast for years and years. And we media-consumers have been conditioned by the commercial media to entertain no thought longer that the typical sound-bite. The result is a breathtaking superficiality that has rendered us defenseless to the manipulations of the Rupert Murdochs and Koch families that would keep us ignorant of what is really happening and then cleanse our memories of almost everything that has happened more than a few weeks before.
Dahr Jamail, an American journalist of middle eastern extraction, has made a name for himself reporting independently from Iraq. Now he has written an article for the Dubai-based Aljazeera on the effects of the BP oil spill, documenting the efforts of the EPA to downplay the seriousness of the spill and its after-effects. It is though everyone wants to simply forget about the spill, rather than honestly face the facts.
Environmental Protection Agency?
Efforts to obtain information from the EPA about the effects of the spill and plans for removing the pollution from the lakes, estuaries, and wetlands in the Gulf region have been unsuccessful. People on the ground are encountering evidence that dispersants are still being used, apparently to hide the scope of the disaster.
Offshore drilling has returned to business as usual.
Have we learned nothing from the spill? It was said that the French monarchs learned nothing and forgot nothing. We seem to be learning nothing and remembering nothing.
And it is embarrassing that we must turn to Aljazeera to find out what is going on in our own backyard. It reminds me of the days when Jacksonians subscribed to the Commercial Appeal (Memphis) to find out what was going on in Mississippi, since the Clarion-Ledger and Jackson Daily News did such a poor job.
That strategy has been successful, for the most part. News of the spill has disappeared from the local and national media, and the attention of the public has moved on to more immediate distractions, like tea parties and the Superbowl.
But a lot of crude petroleum sits under the Gulf of Mexico, along with some unbelievably toxic chemical dispersants (the composition of which is still secret -- wonder why?), whose long-term effects, while unpredictable, are all potentially devastating, both to the marine environment and the humans that depend upon it for sustenance and livelihood.
We will be dealing with the results for a long time, but the damage will be individualized, so as to render it innocuous to the BP media narrative that the spill is over and the damage has been contained. The story has already become the story of unfortunate individuals, rather than a far-reaching public health disaster that has caused and will cause untold suffering to the people on the Gulf Coast for years and years. And we media-consumers have been conditioned by the commercial media to entertain no thought longer that the typical sound-bite. The result is a breathtaking superficiality that has rendered us defenseless to the manipulations of the Rupert Murdochs and Koch families that would keep us ignorant of what is really happening and then cleanse our memories of almost everything that has happened more than a few weeks before.
Dahr Jamail, an American journalist of middle eastern extraction, has made a name for himself reporting independently from Iraq. Now he has written an article for the Dubai-based Aljazeera on the effects of the BP oil spill, documenting the efforts of the EPA to downplay the seriousness of the spill and its after-effects. It is though everyone wants to simply forget about the spill, rather than honestly face the facts.
Environmental Protection Agency?
Efforts to obtain information from the EPA about the effects of the spill and plans for removing the pollution from the lakes, estuaries, and wetlands in the Gulf region have been unsuccessful. People on the ground are encountering evidence that dispersants are still being used, apparently to hide the scope of the disaster.
Offshore drilling has returned to business as usual.
Have we learned nothing from the spill? It was said that the French monarchs learned nothing and forgot nothing. We seem to be learning nothing and remembering nothing.
And it is embarrassing that we must turn to Aljazeera to find out what is going on in our own backyard. It reminds me of the days when Jacksonians subscribed to the Commercial Appeal (Memphis) to find out what was going on in Mississippi, since the Clarion-Ledger and Jackson Daily News did such a poor job.
Comments
Egypt Aflame and Obama in the Dark
Jan 28, 2011 22:02 Filed in: Middle East
According to Middle East scholar Helena Cobban, Obama is being briefed by a staff with precious little knowledge of Egypt or the Middle East, and the cause of such a dearth of real expertise can be traced to the Israel lobby and its success in keeping the State Department free of any experts not blindly pro-israel. Presidents (and their countries) live and die by the quality and objectivity of the advice they receive. We are in big trouble on that count. One is reminded of how McCarthy purged the State Department of its China hands in the early ’50s and thus crippled at least 4 presidents in their Far East policymaking.
Cobban:
Cobban:
Helena Cobban: Obama’s know-nothings discuss EgyptSo thorough-going has been the witch-hunt that AIPAC and its attack dogs have conducted over the past 25 years against anyone with real Middle East expertise that the U.S. government now contains no-one at the higher (or even mid-career) levels of policymaking who has any in-depth understanding of the region or of the aspirations of its people.
* * *
So now, in the Oval Office, we have the blind leading the blind and the blind advising the blind. No Chas Freeman, no Bill Quandt, no Rob Malley... (The list of those excluded on ideological grounds is pretty long, too.) No-one, in short, who can integrate into the advice the President desperately needs to hear any real understanding of how the peoples of the region think and how the regional system actually works. God save us all from their self-inflicted ignorance.
Music in the City - Beethoven
Jan 10, 2011 13:53 Filed in: Music
Tomorrow night—Tuesday, January 11, 2010 at 5:15—John Paul and I will perform Sonata 2 in A and Sonata 8 in G by Ludwig van Beethoven at the Mississippi Museum of Art, 380 South Lamar, Jackson, as part of the Music in the City series, co-sponsored by St. Andrew’s Cathedral and MMOA. The Beethoven series is partly underwritten by a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission.
The public is invited. Snacks and a cash bar are available at 5:15. The performance begins at 5:45. There is no charge.
Tom Lowe, Editor
John Paul & Tom Lowe (r)
The public is invited. Snacks and a cash bar are available at 5:15. The performance begins at 5:45. There is no charge.
Tom Lowe, Editor
John Paul & Tom Lowe (r)
On the Arizona Killings
Jan 09, 2011 14:39 Filed in: Politics Subjects Civil Liberties
The shooting yesterday of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of six others, plus numerous injuries, is the predictable result of a campaign of slanderous vitriol waged by right-wing media—the largest and most influential of which is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, with its Fox News cable channel—against liberals and Democrats.
Words have consequences. When you incite people to kill, some of them are nutty enough to do just that. When you demonize your political opponents, there are plenty of people out there who will take you seriously and try do something about those “demons.”
Here are a couple of possible solutions:
1. Resurrect the Fairness Doctrine. Conservatives hate the Fairness Doctrine with a fiery passion, because it would put a damper on the lies and slander that are the standard fare of right-wing talk radio. In a perfect world, the Fairness Doctrine would be unnecessary because commentators would behave ethically, but this is not a perfect world, and the right-wing media have become a vast sewer of political poison and sludge, pouring it into the minds of predisposed persons who don’t know better and haven’t the time, energy, or inclination to actually find out the truth.
The public airwaves are--surprise!--owned by the public, and there is no reason why licensees should not be required to act in the public interest by presenting both sides of controversies, or allowing persons attacked to defend themselves. The Fairness Doctrine is constitutional and it worked well for a long time. Abolishing it was one of Ronald Reagan’s gifts to the right wing. It should be reinstated immediately.
2. Make the inciters of political violence civilly liable to the victims of the crimes they encourage. Right-wing media frequently commits the equivalent of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, and there is no First Amendment protection for such behavior. If Glenn Beck’s violent fantasies incite a lone gunman to kill a federal judge, then the survivors should be able to bring a wrongful death action against Beck and his employer, Fox, on the grounds of incitement to kill, and Beck should not be able to hide behind the 1st Amendment because he didn’t pull the trigger, or because millions of his listeners didn’t immediately run out and try to kill the demonized judge. Given the size of the audience, such killings are foreseeable, in fact, inevitable. Beck and his ilk know this; they may be corrupt liars and demigogues, but they aren’t idiots.
The same would go for anti-abortion websites that publish the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortion. Killings are inevitable. Are the lone killers the only ones responsible? I hardly think so.
Words have consequences. When you incite people to kill, some of them are nutty enough to do just that. When you demonize your political opponents, there are plenty of people out there who will take you seriously and try do something about those “demons.”
Here are a couple of possible solutions:
1. Resurrect the Fairness Doctrine. Conservatives hate the Fairness Doctrine with a fiery passion, because it would put a damper on the lies and slander that are the standard fare of right-wing talk radio. In a perfect world, the Fairness Doctrine would be unnecessary because commentators would behave ethically, but this is not a perfect world, and the right-wing media have become a vast sewer of political poison and sludge, pouring it into the minds of predisposed persons who don’t know better and haven’t the time, energy, or inclination to actually find out the truth.
The public airwaves are--surprise!--owned by the public, and there is no reason why licensees should not be required to act in the public interest by presenting both sides of controversies, or allowing persons attacked to defend themselves. The Fairness Doctrine is constitutional and it worked well for a long time. Abolishing it was one of Ronald Reagan’s gifts to the right wing. It should be reinstated immediately.
2. Make the inciters of political violence civilly liable to the victims of the crimes they encourage. Right-wing media frequently commits the equivalent of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, and there is no First Amendment protection for such behavior. If Glenn Beck’s violent fantasies incite a lone gunman to kill a federal judge, then the survivors should be able to bring a wrongful death action against Beck and his employer, Fox, on the grounds of incitement to kill, and Beck should not be able to hide behind the 1st Amendment because he didn’t pull the trigger, or because millions of his listeners didn’t immediately run out and try to kill the demonized judge. Given the size of the audience, such killings are foreseeable, in fact, inevitable. Beck and his ilk know this; they may be corrupt liars and demigogues, but they aren’t idiots.
The same would go for anti-abortion websites that publish the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortion. Killings are inevitable. Are the lone killers the only ones responsible? I hardly think so.
Bill Luckett and the Ghost of Mike Sturdivant
Jan 06, 2011 09:08 Filed in: Politics Subjects Mississippi/Jackson
The JP has been receiving email fliers from Bill Luckett for Governor for a number of months. Finally, I went through his web site in an effort to discover what makes him different from all the rest of the gubernatorial wannabes, but was unsuccessful. At the best, his web site seem free of the usual obnoxious right-wing propaganda and he seems like a nice, intelligent, and honest man. At the worst, the web site lacks any substantive commitment beyond jobs, education and new perspectives in leadership. The fact that he is not a career politician cuts both ways; while he may not be a creature that crawls in the usual swamp of Mississippi politics, he will have to master that very swamp before he can bring about substantial change in education, government and the state’s economic wellbeing.
Luckett reminds me of Mike Sturdivant, a wealthy businessman and plantation owner from Glendora who lost the Democratic nomination for governor in 1987 to Ray Mabus , who went on to defeat Tupelo industrialist Jack Reed in the general election. Sturdivant, who by all accounts was an intelligent and reasonably progressive person, similarly ran as a non-politician who promised to bring new perspectives to the governor’s mansion. Mabus, who had gained a reputation for fiscal rectitude as state auditor, easily crushed Sturdivant, who spent more than a million dollars of his own money on his campaign.
Mabus, who also campaigned as a fresh face in Mississippi politics, turned out in the end to have few new ideas worth considering, and was turned out of office by disappointed voters in favor of Republican businessman Kirk Fordice, who rode the right-wing wave that was then inundating the nation.
But I digress.
I’m interested in knowing more about who this Bill Luckett really is. Given the fact that 90% of Mississippi whites voted for an elderly and semi-senile former prisoner of war over a bright, highly educated former head of the Harvard Law Review (who just happened to be African-American) in the last presidential election, there is little hope that the swamp of Mississippi politics will ever be drained—or even penetrated—in the near future. But I rejoice that someone is trying. If you have knowledge about Bill Luckett that would help the readership of the JP, put it in the comments.
Luckett reminds me of Mike Sturdivant, a wealthy businessman and plantation owner from Glendora who lost the Democratic nomination for governor in 1987 to Ray Mabus , who went on to defeat Tupelo industrialist Jack Reed in the general election. Sturdivant, who by all accounts was an intelligent and reasonably progressive person, similarly ran as a non-politician who promised to bring new perspectives to the governor’s mansion. Mabus, who had gained a reputation for fiscal rectitude as state auditor, easily crushed Sturdivant, who spent more than a million dollars of his own money on his campaign.
Mabus, who also campaigned as a fresh face in Mississippi politics, turned out in the end to have few new ideas worth considering, and was turned out of office by disappointed voters in favor of Republican businessman Kirk Fordice, who rode the right-wing wave that was then inundating the nation.
But I digress.
I’m interested in knowing more about who this Bill Luckett really is. Given the fact that 90% of Mississippi whites voted for an elderly and semi-senile former prisoner of war over a bright, highly educated former head of the Harvard Law Review (who just happened to be African-American) in the last presidential election, there is little hope that the swamp of Mississippi politics will ever be drained—or even penetrated—in the near future. But I rejoice that someone is trying. If you have knowledge about Bill Luckett that would help the readership of the JP, put it in the comments.