* In the spirit of Independence Day, nationwide concerts will be hosted by music venues on July 1st, 2010 to benefit those directly impacted by the Gulf Coast Oil Spill. The organizers have created an ambitious goal: Gather music venues around the country to donate...
Month: June 2010
FDR, Treehugger-in-Chief, Inspires Hopes for Coastal Conservation Corps
This past weekend we went to the 7th annual Roosevelt Reading Festival at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, that featured 21 authors of such works as FDR’s Alphabet Soup: New Deal America 1932–1939 (Tonya Bolden), Beyond...
“Happy Days Are Here Again”
Uplifted by the happy oyster video (below), we’re off to Hyde Park, New York, on Saturday 6/19 (taking a train, naturally!) for the seventh annual Roosevelt Reading Festival at the FDR Presidential Library—free and open to the public. The keynote address will be given...
“The Oysters Never Had It So Good.”
* For anyone who might be concerned about the effects of BP oil on Louisiana seafood and needs reassurance that “oil will be well,” you just need to sit back, relax, and watch this 1960 newsreel of “progress at work” titled Lifeline to an Oyster, “presented as a...
Tony Hayward, Stonewaller-in-Chief
I am here today because I have a responsibility to the American people to do my best to explain what BP has done, is doing, and will do in the future to respond to this terrible incident. . . . —BP CEO Tony Hayward, opening statement to House Energy and Commerce...
From the Oval Office, Promises for Gulf Coast Restoration, MMS Rehab
We’ll look at the energy aspects of President Obama’s Tuesday Oval Office address “in the coming days” (as he might say). Meanwhile, we want to focus on two of the most promising elements of the president’s remarks (text here). First, about three minutes in, he...
Fake President Rachel Maddow’s Oval-Office-in-Her-Own-Head Address
Getting Real with a Fake President Superb, every word of it, except maybe the part at the very end about the White Sox and the Red Sox. Click here for the full text, and click the photo above or here for the video. Read it and share it. Watch it and weep for joy....
Notes for Tonight’s Oval Office Script
Very briefly, what we’re hoping to hear in the president’s address is a strong commitment to progressive energy legislation—the best of the Kerry-Lieberman and Waxman-Markey bills currently in Congress. (Here are some good, sensible specifics proposed by the Center...
Unmanned Drones in U.S. Airspace? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
File under “OMG! WTF?” We took our eyes off the BP oil cam just long enough to see this headline : “Feds Under Pressure to Open U.S. Skies to Drones.” The Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to issue flying rights for a range of pilotless planes to carry...
BP Oil Flood Brought to You by U.S. Supreme Court?
[cross-posted at Daily Kos] Let’s play what-if: Would the BP Oil Flood have happened if the Rehnquist Supreme Court in its Bush v. Gore ruling had not stopped the state of Florida’s vote-counting? We think maybe not. We think it’s not too far a stretch to say that the...
Oil Flood in Hot Water
It’s not like we really needed this extra twist of fortune, but the hurricane season that began June 1 and runs through the end of November (or as long as nature wants) is forecast to be “one of the most turbulent ever.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric...
Welcome Back, Mr. President, to Louisiana, the Dark Underside of the Nation’s Guilty Conscience
* [ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] Take a good look around. Our state bird, only recently removed from the Endangered Species list, now so soaked with crude oil it can’t lift its wings or even breathe. Our hearts are breaking for the dying pelicans and all that they...
Rachel Maddow Reporting from Jean Lafitte National Park
When Rachel Maddow broadcast from the French Quarter the Friday night before the Super Bowl (how long ago that feels!), she surely did not imagine she would be back a few months later covering the hugest godawful environmental catastrophe this nation has ever seen....
After “Epic Foolishness,” Time to Wake a Sleeping (Green) Giant
Columnist Bob Herbert of the New York Times, a stalwart advocate for reinforced infrastructure and an eloquent defender of the unemployed, of over-stressed and under-supplied soldiers, and other victims of neglect, is usually moderate in temperament as he shows...