Spill imperils a distinctive culture: 'There's a sense of doom'

[highplainsdem]

Source: CNN

Spill imperils a distinctive culture: 'There's a sense of doom'
By Drew Jubera, Special to CNN
May 25, 2010 10:31 a.m. EDT

-snip-

Extending south of New Orleans like a vast watery Great Plains, through marshes and bayous all the way to the Gulf, this part of southern Louisiana is a place like nowhere else.

There are fifth-generation fishermen who still speak French better than they speak English. Many live in houses built on the same land where their parents and grandparents and great grandparents lived -- and to which their own children and grandchildren cling.

-snip-

These are people used to living in isolation, and used to surviving disaster. They tick off the names of hurricanes that leveled their communities as if they were their own wayward children: Flossy, Betsy, Katrina, Gustav. It seemed there was nothing they couldn't handle.

Until this spill. It threatens to wipe out Louisiana's $2.8 billion commercial seafood industry and tens of thousands of jobs. Oysterman Buck Battle, who lost his house to Katrina, calls the oil spill "the monster of monsters."

-snip-

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/24/gulf.coast.cultural.impact/

[ananda]

1. It IS a doom.

nt

[barbtries]

2. yes it is

for those who live and work there. i feel so badly for them, and outraged already on their behalf knowing what the corporate bastards will make them go through just to get any kind of life back. what is being taken from them, though, it looks more and more to my uneducated eye that that life is gone for at least a couple generations.

[happygoluckytoyou]

3. bubba gump is rolling over in his grave.... yeah... first the news killed him

[happygoluckytoyou]

4. can we quit calling it a leak... and a spill... sounds like something you mop up with a SHAMW00 !!!

it is a fucking volcanic sized gash in the earth, who has decided to daily bleed 100,000 gallons of oil and return the favor

it is the fucking mother earth of all menstrual cycles

it is not a ..... DRIP.... LEAK.... SPILL....
...............IT IS A MONSOON... IS THERE A BIGGER WORD... PLEASE ADD IT....

[caseymoz]

8. Cataclysm comes to mind.

Since it's original meaning, "flood," is no longer used, I think it's best to attach it a new form of flood.

[truth2power]

13. +1000. It's Orwellian Newspeak. If my kitchen faucet drips, that's a leak...

If I accidentally knock over a glass of water, it's a spill.

Not that we don't know this is a deliberate euphemism on the part of BP.

Worthless scum!

[caseymoz]

14. Well, in all truth, oil spill was the common term prior.

But you don't call anything like this "a leak." When a main pipe in your home is broken in half and the water is five feet deep, that's more like what this is, and that's not a leak either. That's a flood.

"Spill" doesn't really work here because this comes from beneath the ocean, it's not actually spilled in the ocean.

[happygoluckytoyou]

15. maybe we can coin a new term.... it is a "B P Lube Job"

[emmadoggy]

19. Someone here on DU the other day called it the

oilcano, which I thought was a perfect name for it. Wish I could credit the poster, but I don't remember who it was.

[caseymoz]

21. Sorry, terrible.

I tried saying it, and my larynx broke.

[Subdivisions]

5. Why is it that 'doom' is tinfoil hat until it actually happens? Also,

why are those who warn of impending "doom" derisively scorned and tagged as "doomers"? Why are people scorned for being pessimistic, yet once doom is manifest, the doomer's prescience is not acknowledged?

[blue sky at night]

6. I recently found a new author who has turned into a favorite....

James Lee Burke, his main character is a New Iberia Parish Sheriffs Detective, a man who grew up as described in this post...his dad built his house in the thirties and it has withstood the storms. This Spill really breaks my heart knowing more about the Delta Region and Bayou Tesch having read four of his works. This is some of the Best Crime Fiction I have read, and I have been at it for TEN YEARS or more. The books rock, but to get the full effect, get them on Disk, the voice actor is Will Patton who brings Dave and his pals to LIFE. My favorite is "The Tin Roof Blowdown"...the story line revolves around when Katrina hit the Lower Ninth...fourteen disks!

some links:

http://www.jamesleeburke.com/

http://www.jamesleeburke.com/bibliography/40.php

http://www.cityofnewiberia.com/site302.php

[bikebloke]

17. Dave Robicheaux

I expect in the next year or two this oil catastrophe will feature in a Dave Robicheaux novel.

[blue sky at night]

20. ya, was thinking the same thing...

it may be hard to read because of his reaction to the mess, but then again, Dave is used to punishment. I am sure it will be about how they worked together on the disaster.

[Courtesy Flush]

24. He writes about my very neighborhood

I live on Main St. in New Iberia. I heard that Burke was trying to buy a house on my block several years ago.

Here's my house. http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Lafayette,+Louisiana+70501&ll=30.000677,-91.809397&spn=0,0.01929&z=16&layer=c&cbll=30.000602,-91.809285&panoid=tD_sSdcMjrnNsDMV0LPUag&cbp=12,223.31,,0,1.2

[NBachers]

26. "In the Electric Mist" with Tommy Lee Jones as Dave Robicheaux

Released in 2009. Even better that I expected, but, it is Tommy Lee Jones.

In other news, today is John Wayne's birthday. You're welcome to engage in partisan bickering if you want about John Wayne, but he still appeared in some good movies.

[bvar22]

27. BIG Burke fans here.

My wife is from Missoula, and I'm from South Louisiana.
Burke is one of the very few who has captured the real beauty/ugliness of South Louisiana.
:hi:

[swilton]

7. Under one world government

who cares if we drop a few cultures along the way

:sarcasm:

It's going to be like feudalism all over.

[zumba da geek]

9. Sad

Watching the same fisherman that they keep interviewing gives an idea of how desperate and frustrated people are down there. He is finding it harder and harder to talk in front of the camera without falling apart. And the democrats were the ones who screamed foul so loud after Bush ignored that area after Katrina. Obama and Salazar make Bush seem like a hands on kind of guy. How sad is that.

[Magleetis]

10. I don't think

Obama and Salazar make Boooosh seem like a hands on guy at all. Care to explain?

[intheflow]

12. Oh yeah! Bush sure was hands on after Katrina!

He had his hands all over this guitar, for instance.

[truthisfreedom]

11. I'm getting pretty sick of the Obama-bashing and comparisons to Bush during Katrina.

Bush had plenty of advance warning and received pleas from concerned authorities in NOLA about the impending hurricane, asking for Federal help in getting people relocated and organizing relief. Obama was a witness to this man-made disaster just as we were, and has been hands-on in getting the Federal government involved in trying to assess and fix this leak EVEN THOUGH the Federal government does not have the equipment or expertise in solving a problem of this type. The Feds certainly could have helped during the period just before Katrina, and that's how Bush dropped the ball.

Obama has not dropped the ball, here, people. We're all victims of BP's mad experiment, and unless you want Obama to drop a nuke on it, there's little the Feds can do but hold BP accountable and force them to reveal to us what they know about the present state of the disaster.

[Grinchie]

16. What you are sick of is the nauseating similarity in this administration and the last.

Different class of disaster, same ineptitude and Corporate welfare.

Obama has most certainly earned the right to be call DLC Champion of the year, which is exactly the saem reason the Hilary was shunned by the voters.

Unfortunately, Obama turned out to be Hilarry's and the DLC "Any Craps" bet on the come out roll, whech anbled then to win the election from the pathetic loser Bush.

We have exchanged one pathetic loser for another Corporate schill. Happy to play ball for his single term, as long as he is able to rest on his laurels when he retires.

[icee]

25. Exactly. I predict upon the end of his single term, he will not run

again; instead, he will leave the country. He has been a Cat Five disaster. I hope the Democrats retain Congress in November and we can get a few more Progressives in place who will think about people rather than corporations.

[mdmc]

18. perhaps there should have been some regulation over these drills?

When you let business make the rules, ya end up playing their game..

[Odin2005]

22. Expect a huge exodus of folks from the region, "Grapes of Wrath" style.

[Courtesy Flush]

23. I live in South Louisiana

I always get the impression that the rest of the country is relieved when disaster strikes here, rather than in more populated coastal regions, and I can understand it on some level, but this isn't other coastal regions. Our coast isn't cluttered with condos. I sail in Vermilion Bay, and there's little more than marsh all around the perimeter. I think "unspoiled" is a little too strong a word for it, but it's less spoiled than the Florida or Mississippi, or Alabama or Texas coasts.

If you visit South Louisiana you might not see the culture described in that article. It's still here, but in fairly isolated areas, like the region where the oil is making landfall. In my lifetime I've seen French die off to the point of near extinction. It is still spoken, but sparsely. Our culture is as fragile as that coastline.

[L0oniX]

28. Big deal! I need more gas more my Hummer and that's all that counts.

:sarcasm: