Oil Spill? What Oil Spill? BP Updates from a Woman on Vacation

National media is still on the BP Gulf of Mexico oil leak/spill/greatest environmental disaster of all time/oilpocalypse--whatever the media gurus are calling it now. CNN is reporting on the next phase of well fixing, putting mud in the well, called a "static kill." Next comes relief wells.

Watching the video at the top of this post, I marvel at how I'm not breaking out in hives. The video reminds me of my past doing government PR and writing scripts about what a great job our engineers were doing to protect groundwater from nuclear contamination at a plutonium facility.

I'm not saying the BP video is untrue. I'm saying I'm aware that parading experts out to explain technical solutions is an effective way to calm the majority of the public and stall inquiry even when scientists know of specific dangers and disagree about assorted solutions, such as the Gov. Bobby Jindal "solution" for wetlands remediation and protection.

I had to let news about the Deepwater Horizon leak go for a while. Talking and writing about this ecological disaster consistently began to wear on my nerves. Actually, blogging and dealing with people in general had worn me thin, which is why I took a blog break, and technically, I'm still on that break because I'm not writing anything heavy or doing research about anything. Tomorrow, I'll hit the road and drive up the east coast, hoping to see a dolphin or two.

Nevertheless, who could ignore the news that BP finally kicked its CEO Tony Hayward out, replacing him with Bob Dudley of Mississippi? The move is part of the company rebuilding its image. Showing Tony "I want my life back" Hayward the door may help since Hayward rubbed me and most sane people the wrong way. Dudley may help the company appear to be more humble during this crisis.

As reported by NPR, his first message was BP will scale back its clean-up efforts. That's definitely not a message anyone would have stomached from Hayward's lips. Even from Dudley's mouth, it was not taken easily. He said the company will still work to restore the Gulf, but since there's less oil on the surface and the company's temporary cap finally worked well enough to stop all oil from seeping into the waters, the area doesn't need such an aggressive remediation effort.

After tropical storm Bonnie went through, returning workers had trouble even finding oil on the surface. However, environmental scientists say that doesn't mean the oil is not there under the surface or so dispersed that it's hard to see with the naked eye. Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts has stayed on the BP's case, currently accusing them of "carpet-bombing" the Gulf of Mexico with dispersants.

See, this is where I start to get that headache again. Folks are arguing back and forth, even going so far as to say the oil leak was exaggerated and not a great disaster. The spin machines are working triple-time on all sides. Every fact is up for twisting. Where's my Tylenol?

Nigel Lythgoe's Posted a National Dance Day Photo

This just in from Dizzy Feet. WOW! Looks like National Dance Day is a success. The photo below was tweeted by Nigel Lythgoe of So You Think You Can Dance and the Dizzy Feet Foundation. He says it comes from today's festivities on the mall in Washington D.C.



Waiting on video. See more pictures, perhaps, here. You can also follow the hash tag on Twitter, #nationaldanceday, and as I've said before, here's the Facebook page.

Anne Rice quit the Roman Catholic Church, not Christ

I just published a post at Examiner.com about the latest Anne Rice flap regarding her Facebook post saying she "quit Christianity." A more careful reading of her remarks reveals that while the novelist is disillusioned with organized Christianity, in particular the Roman Catholic Church, she's still a believer.

Rice will still quote the Bible and share her faith in Christ Jesus, but she's fed up with more conservative positions within Christianity that rebuke gays and pro-choice advocates. A recent interview she gave to the AP also indicates she was shaken by current reports on Catholic priests and sex scandals. Please read my post at the New Orleans Literature Examiner.

Charles Fuller's Latest: What Will You Learn from a Children's Book?

Contributions from Charles H. Fuller to America’s literary heritage have been rich, theatrical plays based in historical fact that feature adults struggling with racial injustice and each other. So, it’s unsurprising that his much-awaited new release also draws from American history. That, however, is where the similarity with the playwright's older works thins.

Fuller's latest offering, Snatch: The Adventures of David and Me, is neither a play nor is its focus adult characters. It’s an adventure novel about two free black boys in 1838, young brothers who help a runaway slave in New York’s Five Points neighborhood.

He wrote this tale for his sons, who are now working men, Charles III and David Ira Fuller. With this novel, the playwright fullfills a promise he made 40 years ago to place his own boys in a story. ... Please continue reading at the African-American Books Examiner.

Nakul Dev Mahajan: Bollywood Uses Many World Dance Styles, He Says on SYTYCD

Did anyone else notice that Bollywood choreographer Nakul Dev Mahajan of So You Think You Can Dance stressed during last night's episode that Bollywood draws from many world dance styles? I think that was Mahajan's chance to correct what Mia Michaels said three weeks ago when she criticized AdéChiké for adding an African flavor to his Bollywood moves. As I hoped to convey in my post after that episode when I said Mahajan has trained in African tribal dance is that it's highly probable AdéChiké didn't give the routine an African flavor; Mahajan did.

Tonight during the clip of Robert and Billy learning the steps to a new Mahajan Bollywood routine, the choreographer shouted out a dance style during part of the training in a comical way, "Hip Hop/Hip Hop/Hip Hop!" I guess he didn't want a repeat of the judges showing their ignorance about Bollywood, especially Mia's ignorance, which was quite insulting. And the judges complied by praising the performance.

I thought I had heard that before that Bollywood incorporates multiple dance styles, but I couldn't find any documentation online three weeks ago or I would have linked to it in the post back then.

When I wrote about that incident with AdéChiké and Mia, however, I commented that Mahajan stood up when Cat Deeley questioned that the judges seemed to be criticizing the black dancer for doing exactly what they'd praised José for doing during his Bollywood number early in the season, which was to add his own flavor. I suspected then that Mahajan disagreed with Mia's critique. I perceived that there was an "African" feel to some of AdéChiké's movement as well, but unlike Mia, I didn't think it was wrong to have a taste of Africa in a Bollywood number.

I still don't think Mia's comment was racist. She's simply rude, and sometimes she's not even rude. She just neglects to put the sugar on her comments that Adam Shankman and Nigel Lythgoe do. Someone should remind her to always find something encouraging to say because her fellow Americans are easily offended on behalf of their favorite dancers.

Nevertheless, I have been watching her more since people have been claiming she exhibits racist attitudes, trying to gauge if her rudeness is disproportionately directed to dancers of color. She was abrupt with José tonight following his Hip Hop routine with Comfort, but I guess that doesn't count because in the past she's been overly enamored of him. So, jury's still out.

Poem from the Still Small Voice

Under the Covers
By Nordette N. Adams

Under cover of scars crissrossing the torso,
purple-blue etchings mesh into one nest
stubborn spirits of slurs escaped
from inept exorcisms, hiding
an impostor's beat. This metronome
times the rise of withering supplications.

Alone, she skates figure eights,
the eternal curve. If only
she could swerve off the deepening groove
to sail a new arc high through air,
she could retire her blades, rend the mask,
reveal the straight lip, the damp eye,
the brow wrinkled as a mother's
when children fail and fail again.

She's prayed this pain projecting from her
back, through the shrink of cleansing organs,
means wings budding, that God is
closing windows to open the door wide
for her soft, feathered, coverless journey.


© 2010 Nordette N. Adams
July 18

What's Up With WikiLeaks and the Afghanistan War?

What is WikiLeaks.org and why is it in the news? The White House says the website is a security risk. Here are some resources so you can learn more.



The WikiLeaks.org website appears to be offline currently, probably because it's getting so many hits or maybe its enemies are jamming it. According to a post at The Guardian's Comment is Free, WikiLeaks is "a Sweden based non-profit website that publishes leaked documents pertaining to government and corporate misconduct." And you can ferret through Wikipedia's page on the WikiLeaks project.

CNN's stories about the Afghan war leaks: Alleged war documents paint ground-level picture and What leaked documents are telling us about the Afghan war.

The AP story: "WikiLeaks Founder On Afghan War Diary: Evidence Of War Crimes In Leaked Documents"

From Foreign Policy Magazine:

Composed in large measure of "secret" reports and cables from the U.S. military, the initial review of the (92,000) documents reveals new details about multiple aspects of the war, including civilian casualties caused by international forces, the increased use of sometimes unreliable armed drones, Pakistan's alleged role in supporting various Taliban and militant factions and suspicion of Iranian involvement as well, secret special operations task forces that hunt Taliban ... read more

The New York Times: "View Is Bleaker Than Official Portrayal of War in Afghanistan"

A six-year archive of classified military documents made public on Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.

The Washington Post: "White House, foreign allies downplay impact of classified document leak."

The New York Times: Leaks Add to Pressure on White House Over Strategy

Remember General McChrystal's resignation scandal: BlogHer

Gibbs at press conference talks of security concerns. Video below.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Blog Break. Blogcation. Hiding Out.

I'm taking a blog break. I may pass through with three-sentence post and links just to remind the Google and Bing people that the blog is still alive or maybe I'll post a poem or two, but my brain needs a vacation. I am on break until further notice.

Thank you all for your support.

Nordette