ABC on report
Forbes on report
It seems the US government has decided to release its report on the BP-Macondo Oil Leak which I have often discussed in this blog. Over time I will try to report on both the released report itself and how it may affect the situation we already have.
It is time to remeber that the oil disaster in the Gulf occurred almost a year ago. There are old problems syill being made worse. There are new problems still being identified. There are people sick and suffering. There are wildlife populations and habitats under stress. There are industries and employers in severe distress. There is a great deal we do not know. There is a great deal we are not ever likely to know.
Here are some links to things I wrote about the story:
2. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/a-tiny-bp-macondo-leak-round-up/
3. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/bp-has-announced-cementing-in-the-macondo-well/
4. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/looking-at-the-bp-macondo-oil-leak-today/
6. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/bp-oil-leak-and-the-technology-we-do-not-have/
7. https://franksummers3ba.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/the-bp-oil-spill-the-anderson-cooper-response/
These are just a few of the many things that I have written. IF THE LINKS DO NOT WORK WHEN YOU CLICK ON THEM COPY THEM INTO YOUR BROWSER.
It is nota time for summing up all these matters and I doubt that this will be my las t note on this profile which touches on the subject. However, it is a time to to spend alittle while looking at where we are now. That means remebering where we have benn as well. That is the purpose of today’s note
This is a rambling sort of blog post about a bunch of different things that have little in common except that I am interested in them right now. This is a sort round-up post in the broadest sense. So here comes a numbered list folks….
1. Despite disavowals of doing so I have recently posted comments again on the Lords of the Blog and The Norton View in response to some of Lord Philip Norton’s posts on those sites.
2. I missed the New Orleans Saints preseason opener against the Minnesota Vikings without a really good excuse. Although this is only a glorified scrimmage (for the benefit of people who do not know our professional sports culture) it is still a bit shocking.
3. China is officially reported as the world’s second largest economy now. My own time in and involvement with China has a somehow slightly different light cast upon it because of these facts.
4. I bought birthday gifts all recent months but I have bought a birthday gift for my niece whose birthday is August 3rd, my sister whose birthday is August 5th, my sister-in-law whose birthday is August 8th and for each of three nephews who celebrated their birthdays together on the 14th of August. These sorts of calendrical anomalies really remind me of how limited my income is these days — but I did my best and hope it was OK…
5.The BP driller for the crucial relief well is a man named Wright with an impressive record and he feels that this is one of the toughest jobs he has ever done. He is also confident that he will succeed.
6. The name of the giant skimming ship that was sent here and did not work well in choppy seas was A Whale. This name has many associations for anyone here like anyone anywhere else. Acadians and the many other cultural groups have many people who use naturalistic names and appreciate them. However, it is also eery for Acadians who see them selves as children of the Jonas in some ways as New Englanders relate to the Mayflower. Jonas is the same personage as Jonah swallowed by (but also arguably saved ) by a whale. Nonetheless, this is not new because almost all sailors who read the Bible use Jonah as an unlucky term and Acadians are fairly unique among Judaeo-Christian seafarers in using or seeing the term distinctly. Neither Jonah nor his shipmates nor his ship were destroyed in the story after all.
7. I had a very nice niece with one of my nieces today. While at lunch we ran into my ex-wife’s paternal aunt’s husband and his son and two of his grandsons. We chatted and I introduced everybody. All of this makes me revisit my past which I am always doing anyway.
8. Both of my brothers who are fairly recently married have wives that are expecting and one nears delivery while another is to find out tomorrow if she is expecting twins. All of this makes me daydream about my future which I am always doing anyway.
9. In the last few days I have bought eggs, bacon, varied canned goods, sodas, some condiments, sliced ham, milk, breakfast cereal, jalapeno and cheese pull bread, frozen fish and varied paper and soap products. In some houses and in this house at other times that would amount to really shopping and stocking up but here and now it amounts to getting oddments necessary to mostly sustain people in using up what we have before it goes bad and postponing the real shopping until such a fairly regular massive undertaking is ready to be undertaken.
10. In life there are different kinds of highs and different kinds of lows. Right now I think I am in the weary not entirely discontent blues.
Posted in Acadians, Environment, Lords of the Blog, Louisiana, New Orleans Saints, Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics
Tagged A Whale skimmer, birthday presents, blog posts, BP - British Petroleum, BP -Wright relief well, BP Macondo Oil Spill, China, Chinese economy, equivalents to the Mayflower, family, groceries, Gulf of Mexico, Jonah, le Jonas, Mayflower, melancholy, New Orleans Saints, round-ups, ships, shopping, The BP Oil Leak, this blog
I have occasionally offered links to a BP site but not really given them the primary spot on anything as long as their oil was continuing to spew ever more death into the Gulf of Mexico. However, they now claim that they have initiated static kill and are also trying to remain engaged in clean-up and recovery. So I thought this was the time after many other posts to allow them the principal and premiere position to describe their situation and operations. Here is that link: http://bp.concerts.com/gom/houma_command_center_update_073110.htm
In addition to all that we have to address from this spill and ongoing challenges we have to face the fact the human and political challenges are ongoing and very serious as well. There is no limit to the amount of confusion and conflict which can bedevil our efforts to find the right way forward. Already we see the Senate shying away from the onerous aspects of the process we must undergo to find resolution: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40597.html
I am regarding all these more than one hundred days of activity as the first phase. Today we enter the second phase. It will be interesting to see how ell we can handle it in this world of flawed and busy people working in flawed and busy systems. But for now we can hope for the best.
Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, Frank W. Summers, Gulf of Mexico, Ken Feinberg, Louisiana, Oil & Gas Industry, Sweden, TS Bonnie, United States of America, Wetlands
Tagged Acadians, blogs, BP – British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, Frank W. Summers, Gulf of Mexico, Ken Feinberg, Oil & Gas Industry, Senate balks on spill vote, Static Kill, Sweden, The US Senate, United States of America, Wetlands
I watched the 2010 Louisiana Legends Gala on LPB tonight after going to my nephew’s birthday party. The Louisiana Legend honorees were a musician of great accomplishment named Burton and a man of many accomplishments in politics, music and the life of his family and community named Michot. They also included a woman who had reared children as a politician’s wife and been on the one hand a patron and organizer of the arts and an actual artist and designer named Morrison as well as a man who at the college, professional and other levels had distinguished himself as basketball player, coach and mentor in the world of hoops and hardwood. It also included former Governor Buddy Roemer.
My sister had just put on a big birthday party for her son and then she had to head off to Mexico. It was also garbage night. I was looking at all the achievement of these people and thinking about all the fullness of family life. That and other thing sort of pushed the oil leak out of my mind, except that Buddy Roemer was a governor who cut pollution. There was also the fact that Louis Michot alluded to the man-made setbacks. It also played on my mind as I thought about my nephew growing up.
But overall, I am just plain tired, distracted and willing to forget about this leak for a day or so. No real BP oil gusher story for today….
Posted in 2010 Roemer. Burton, Acadians, Audobon Society, Bobby Jindal, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, Frank W. Summers, Geopolitics, Gulf of Mexico, Ken Feinberg, Louisiana, Louisiana Legends Honors, Michot, Morrison, Reed, United States of America, Western civilization, Wetlands
Tagged blog, BP - British Petroleum, BP Macondo Oil Spill, environmental impact, Frank W. Summers III, Gulf of Mexico, gushers, Louisiana, Macondo Wellsite, Oil & Gas Industry, Transocean's Deep Water Horizon
I no longer have very many concerns about “freaking out” or “having a nervous breakdown” or “losing it”. That is mostly because in many ways my life is already as bad as it can get. In the ways that it is not a total hell others would have to do most of the things they are not doing for me to lose all those I care about, go to prison, be maimed or whatever. At various times in my life I have run many risks and exposed myself to a great deal of danger. However, I have never believed anyone could function like that all the time and so I am both quiet and cautious to an outrageous degree rather than outrageous.
But here are reasons why I am not having a nervous breakdown over the BP Oil Leak yet.
So,
I would have a nervous breakdown over the oil leak but…
1. I am too tired from following this story to get the energy up for a breakdown.
2. I am afraid friends from New York will say “Why didn’t you have a breakdown after 9-11 then?”
3. I am afraid that I will need my nervous breakdown for responding to the way this crisis is handled a few years from now.
4. I am reminded of all the suffering animals, birds, fish and other living things and it seems selfish to have a nervous breakdown if they can’t.
5. I tried to find the nervous breakdown form online but I could not.
6. I think I should try to be sane in case one of my many friends who are fishermen, shrimpers, oystermen, seafood pickers, processors, icehouse owners, fishmongers, guides, brokers and hoteliers should call — I want to be strong for them.
7. I am not sure if having a break-down is going to improve my tough South Louisiana image.
Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, Frank W. Summers, Louisiana, media, Oil & Gas Industry, Sweden, United States of America, Wetlands
Tagged BP - British Petroleum, BP Macondo Oil Spill, environmental impact, Frank W. Summers III, Gulf of Mexico, gushers, Louisiana, Macondo Wellsite, Oil & Gas Industry, psychological wellbeing, Transocean's Deep Water Horizon
Yesterday I finished a draft of a novel on a Facebook account I call “Summers Progress” it is a draft but it is not unreadable or incoherent as it is and there is not likely to be a more complete draft later on. I have written about a dozen novels like this and another half a dozen plays that I have not submitted to anyone for publication. I have submitted a couple of short stories and had them rejected but not recently. However I have had my writing published in real paper publications of the type that pay people and undergo large distribution costs. I have also had my writing published in newsletters, paid compendiums in book form for private release and in various vehicles of my own like this blog. The novel I completed yesterday is called “Culkathadreil” . I watch television. I buy movie tickets for myself and others. I buy several newspapers and I surf the web like a madman. In addition I listen to the radio and watch music videos from varied purveyors. The point of my next paragraph is not that I do not like anything in the world and that it is all crap — that is not my opinion.
Nonetheless, it is true that despite Louis Armstrong, Sydney Bechet, Kate Chopin, Ernest Gaines, Stephen Ambrose, Lyle Saxon, Lauren Post, Carl Brasseaux, Zachary Richard, Fats Domino, Michael Doucet and Beausoleil, the Degas paintings of the Cotton Exchange, James Lee Burke, the politics of James Carville, the monuments to Jean Lafitte, the Jazz Festival, the Cajun Music Festival, the Festival Acadiens and the guest list of the last Weeks to rule the Shadows on the Teche –despite all those things and the Williams with cousin Tennessee and their endowment of the Royal New Orleans Collection I live in a State which is a land of sunken things and deep shadows. I do not publish my novels for many reasons and you and I might not agree on all of them. However, the oil leak is a great symbol of the world I and so many from my state live in. The reckless madness and damaging folly of big oil, big government and even big environmentalism interfere with plans people here had and hopes they would have liked to see made real. I have no doubt that most of these plans are better and could be part of something much better than the status quo.
So after each novel is finished I take a day to feel sorry for myself. I do not usually share those thoughts. However as I sink into the shadows this time I take you with me because it is crowded with sunken people and dreams around here. Despite the New Orleans Saints winning a world championship with many local boys turned men on board and with a neighbor from Texas at the lead on the field, and despite Brittney Spears and Tim McGraw being as big in popular culture as one can really measure people to be — this is a place where much more is washed a way by storms and erosions of the natural and cultural kind thean can be easily measured either. Miles of land are damaged and vulnerable because of bad federal planning and coroporate greed American Indian Tribes have to watch till another kind of Indian from around the world is governor while they struggle for culture, natire and a future in many ways. America if it is anything (and sometimes it is not anything) as an idea has become an “English only” democracy. When it was young here it was sincerely hoped by many here and in other states that it would never be either of those two things. Many thought such a pair of calamities was prohibited by the Constitution. We have a Preservation Hall but a hundred institutions that created jazz have not been preserved. So things are undertaken but less than is lost so as I sink into the shadows this time I take you with me because it is crowded with sunken people and dreams around here. If you look carefully and think hard about this oil leak you can see why.
Bp did not cause all these evils but this crisis is deeply tied to many other trials. Britain has the toughest real anti-libel laws in the world (as opposed to laws never enforceable or murderous thugs or honorable duels combatting libel) and if I ever did make some bucks maybe BP could find a way to sue me for libel for some of the things written here. But the truth is that I and others here are swimming in a see of subtle libels that are harder to prove and still suck the air out of life here. BP is among the libellers and has been for a very long time along with most people their people know. That is no fiction.
Posted in Acadians, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, Culkathadreil, Environment, Frank W. Summers, Geopolitics, Gulf of Mexico, Kate Chopin, Ken Feinberg, Louis Armstrong, Louisiana, Louisiana Musicians and Music, Louisiana writers & Literature, novels by Frank Summers, Oil & Gas Industry, Sweden, Western civilization, Wetlands
Tagged BP - British Petroleum, BP Macondo Oil Spill, environmental impact, Gulf of Mexico, gushers, Louisiana, Macondo Wellsite, Oil & Gas Industry, Transocean's Deep Water Horizon
There have been a great number of competent and quite a few gifted journalists who have covered the leak and consequences of the leak that followed the sinking of the Deep Water Horizon at the Macondo underwater feature in the Gulf of Mexico just off the Coast of Louisiana. I will say that I have even seen more than one production that could be called a full-length documentary film. I think many of these people deserve commendation and some deserve censure for their response to this crisis.Even BP itself has spent quite some significant amount of cash collecting and reporting information in various formats and through various people who have differing levels of expertise and candor as regards these events and their consequences. The BP response and other responses are not really so surprising when one considers that at least thirteen human deaths have been tied to these events, billions of dollars in trade and economic effects (including BP stock value fluctuations) can be tied and related to these events. I have seen the disaster covered on ABC, NBC. CBS, Fox, MSNBC, PBS, the BBC, CNBC and many other venues in the electronic and broadcast media. The local and regional broadcast stations have had many significant exclusive stories. Also I have seen the print media from Gannett ( my former employer) as well as many other competitors cover the story. All these people have done work that deserves to be considered carefully by students, critics and practitioners of modern journalism. But none of those people and institutions are the subjects of this blog post.
I want to take an absurdly short amount of time and space to acknowledge the work of Anderson Cooper and his crew and staff on the CNN show AC360. Anderson Cooper has traveled the marshes, formed relationships with Governor Jindal, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nunguesser, Grand Isle Mayor Dave Camardelle and local observers James Carville and his Republican wife Mary. He has taken time to tie into the cultural background stories, the family histories, and the political history. He has kept up a stream of steady reportage of the facts and has spiced that up with interviews of people like Lenny Kravitz and other celebrities who really know the area. He has owned the story and in my opinion has been a significant force in driving better coverage elsewhere.
In a climate where CNN has lost ground to more adversarial and advocacy driven networks like Fox and MSNBC he has found and area where he can bend his lines and not break them in advocating the case of voiceless animals and plants as well as millions of American citizens threatened by this disaster. So I think he has probably helped CNN fight back while being CNN. He has shown how they can still cover a big and long story and that they can do it in the new media environment. So he is adding his own professional quest and knight errantry to that of the people he has chosen to stand beside.
So, before it is too late, I take this chance to salute Anderson Cooper. Good job, Sir. You are one of those we need around more than ever. I hope this leads to new but probably not more important opportunities.
Posted in Acadians, Anderson Cooper, Audobon Society, Bobby Jindal, BP - British Petroleum, BP Chairman Svanberg, CNN, Environment, family, Frank W. Summers, Ken Feinberg, lly Nunguesser, Louisiana, media, Oil & Gas Industry, United States of America, Western civilization, Wetlands
Tagged Anderson Cooper, BP - British Petroleum, BP Macondo Oil Spill, environmental impact, Gulf of Mexico, gushers, Louisiana, Macondo Wellsite, Oil & Gas Industry, Transocean's Deep Water Horizon
Born 1964 Frank Wynerth Summers III
This is the blog of Frank Wynerth Summers III, I had wanted to title "A Frank Summary"...
Franksummers3ba's Blog 