Voices from the Gulf

Showing stories 121 through 130 of 818 total stories.

I learned recently that someone very special, and a powerful voice in Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek, died on the day before the film was broadcast. A tribute to Eva Skinner.

Culture and Traditions

Organizing and Engagement

Remembering Linda St. Martin 

Last Friday, May 23rd, Louie Miller of the Mississippi Chapter of the Sierra Club emailed a number of friends and colleagues: "Sharing the tragic news that Linda St. Martin passed away at 9:30 this morning from complications due to chemotherapy. I would appreciate everyone taking a moment to reflect on Linda in honor of her body of work, passion, and commitment in service to the Sierra Club and the Gulf Community as a whole."

Climate and Environment

Land and Housing

The GreenARMY Joins the Fracking Fight

Approximately 300 people filled the Castine Center in Mandeville, Louisiana on Monday, May 12th. The crowd was electric. The majority of them held signs with slogans such as “We can’t drink your excuses,” and “Frack-Free St. Tammany.”

Climate and Environment

Culture and Traditions

Disaster, Response and Renewal

Economy and Work

How Could BP Think We Aren't Fishermen?

We couldn’t crab and we had to eat, so my son Ralph and I worked clean up. I have two sons. One went into the Marines. Ralph’s worked with me on the boat since he was just a kid - we’re a team. We were really in the heart of it.

Race and Racial Justice

Racial Politics Primes Mobile for Municipal Suicide: Split Council Paralyzes Government

Mobile has lapsed into a coma. Whether it stays stupefied or recovers will indicate whether it wishes to continue existence as constant reruns of historic hallucinations or to create a liveable future.

Disaster, Response and Renewal

Health and Wellness

Media and Arts

An Open Letter to 60 Minutes

I watched the 60 Minutes segment regarding the unfair claims BP is having to pay out, which aired on May 4th. In the story you mention that 12 people that were awarded damages declined to be interviewed for your show. Well, that seems very one-sided. You could have done the rest of the show about the people and businesses here on the Coast that did not get compensated.

Culture and Traditions

Media and Arts

Race and Racial Justice

Q & A with Nailah Jefferson, director of Vanishing Pearls: The Oystermen of Pointe á la Hache

“The world must know what they [BP] have done to this community. This place could have been a paradise.” Those are the words of Byron Encalade, president of Louisiana Oystermen’s Association and the face of a beautiful and devastating new documentary film, Vanishing Pearls.

Criminalization and Justice

Education and Human Development

Organizing and Engagement

"Problem Children" or Problem Legislators?

On April 24th, parents, students, and community advocates from across Louisiana rallied at the State Capitol in opposition to Senate Bill 652. The draconian bill would further criminalize our children in a number of alarming ways that are more about expanding the “school to prison pipeline" than promoting safety.

Climate and Environment

Culture and Traditions

Race and Racial Justice

A Conversation with Members of the Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition

I caught up with Kimberly McCuiston, David Underhill, Patricia Hall and Michele Walker-Harmon of the Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition (MEJAC) during the regional Gulf Gathering, which was held in Fairhope, Alabama, April 13th through 15th.

According to their Facebook page, “MEJAC is a coalition of Mobile Bay residents and groups confronting new and longstanding environmental justice issues to cease toxic industrial pollution.”

Climate and Environment

Economy and Work

Land and Housing

Oil Pipeline Through Mobile’s Drinking Water Flunks First Flood Test

Originally posted May 2nd in the New American Journal. The first foreign substance flowing into Mobile’s drinking water from the new crude oil pipeline is not oil. It’s mud — and whatever welding and other construction debris got stirred into the disturbed earth of the pipe’s broad right-of-way through the watershed of the metro area’s reservoir Big Creek Lake.

Photo: Plains Mobile Watershed Pipeline after the flood – Walter Simon