Today, August 6, is the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Nagasaki was nuked on Aug. 9. The bombs killed some 90,000 to 160,000 in Hiroshima and some 60,000 to 80,000 in Nagasaki, with half the deaths occurring in the first day, even the...
Levees Not War
WikiLeaks’s Afghan War Diary:
A “Pentagon Papers” for Our Time
“In releasing the Pentagon Papers I acted in hope I still hold: that truths that changed me could help Americans free themselves and other victims from our longest war.” —Daniel Ellsberg, Papers on the War (1972) There’s a kind of appropriate, ironic justice that the...
Rising Tide 5 Is Aug. 28 in New Orleans: Register Today
A Conference on the Future of New Orleans The Rising Tide Conference is an annual gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans’ recovery. It’s for everyone who loves New Orleans and is working to bring a better future to all its...
Drew Landry Sings “BP Blues” to Presidential Commission
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52am1DN_svA&feature=player_embedded * “Just Do the Right Damn Thing” Some of the most sensible and melodious testimony we’ve heard in a long time was given yesterday in New Orleans by crawfisherman and singer Drew Landry before the...
What Happens When You Call OSHA, White House
Before we tell about the fun we had today phoning OSHA, sweet OSHA, we wanted to mention our recent and more enjoyable phone experience with Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a 400,000-member grassroots organization that is behind...
Stop BP from Hurting Cleanup Workers:
Join the “BP Makes Me Sick” Coalition
“We cannot let the denial of protective gear that hurt so many 9/11 cleanup workers happen again with the Gulf cleanup workers.” BP Refuses Respirator Masks for Cleanup Workers Levees Not War has joined the “BP Makes Me Sick” Coalition of Gulf Coast fishermen,...
Martha Serpas: Our Life, Between Sea and Oil
In today’s New York Times, Louisiana poet Martha Serpas gives a rich and sensitive account of Louisiana’s environmental predicament by focusing on Bayou Lafourche where she was raised and the Cajun people who have survived through generations of “persecution,...
Jim Bohlen, a Greenpeace Founder, Dies
* Navy Veteran, Peace Activist, Born on 4th of July A quick note of appreciation for the life of James Calvin Bohlen (at left in photo above), a cofounder of the environmental and peace action group Greenpeace, who died Monday in British Columbia. He was 84. We did...
Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has signed a “guns-in-church” bill sponsored by Louisiana state representative Henry Burns that will authorize individuals who qualify to carry concealed weapons in “any church, synagogue, or mosque, or other similar place of worship.”...
Declare Independence from Endless War
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” —Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., “Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam,” Riverside Church, New York City,...
Afghanistan: More Insane Than a Quagmire
* “. . . the reality, secretly guarded until now, is . . . [that] . . . it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. . . . That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had...
Smoke on the Water: Alabama Conservationist’s Gripping Video of Death at Sea
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxDf-KkMCKQ&feature=player_embedded * On MSNBC’s Countdown on June 30 Keith Olbermann spoke to John L. Wathen, an Alabama conservationist with Hurricane Creekkeeper (Waterkeeper Alliance) who has flown over the Gulf of Mexico to...
Gulf Coast Benefit Concerts on July 1, Coast to Coast
* 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...
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...