Category Archives: Important Articles
There’s an old saying that he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. Well, here in New Orleans, the tourism industry is a double-edged sword. Ever since the first oil-and-gas crash of the 1980s and especially since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005, the Crescent City has depended on the kindness — and the tourism dollars — of strangers from all over the world to pay its [...]
Read More »When it comes to fracking — the popular term for the natural-gas drilling technique also known as hydraulic fracturing — the approach has been to shoot first and ask questions later , even if thousands of innocent civilians are caught in the line of fire. Nobody in America outside of a small circle of oil- and gas-men and some engineers had even heard of fracking in the mid-2000s when Dick [...]
Read More »Some folks are born New Orleanians (like me) but many others fall in love with the Crescent City and adopt it as their own, including some Hollywood celebrities. Harry Shearer — star of “This is Spinal Tap” and TV’s “The Simpsons,” and formerly of “Saturday Night Live” — is one of these. He’s done a lot more than just buy a home here — he’s become quite an an active [...]
Read More »It’s hard to keep secret. But it’s really hard to keep a secret when hundreds, if not thousands, of American citizens have been sickened from exposure to a highly toxic chemical — even when it’s one of the world’s richest oil companies and people inside the U.S. government that are trying to pull off the cover-up. That’s the sad situation that is unfolding here in the Gulf of Mexico, as [...]
Read More »Today is the three-year-anniversary of the event that changed life for so many of us here on the Gulf of Mexico: The explosion at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig off Louisiana, which killed 11 people and triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history. I was in a private plane flying over the Gulf just hours after the blast and saw the thick plume of black smoke, and I still remember [...]
Read More »One of the more important topics I cover here at this site is noise pollution, particularly in my hometown of New Orleans. Over the last few years, I’ve worked together with a website www.HearTheNOLAMusic.org, where you can find a lot of critical information about the harmful health impacts from unregulated noise. That is why communities pass noise and other quality of life ordinances: It is, quite literally, a matter of [...]
Read More »If you’re a regular reader of the blog, it will come as no surprise to you that the ecological health of the Gulf of Mexico in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill is considerally worse than depicted in much of the mainstream media — let alone by the tens of millions on dollars of bogus PR spin that BP has purchased on your television screen. Over the last 36 [...]
Read More »Over recent months, we’ve talked on this blog about numerous reasons for taking a much more cautious approach on the natural gas drilling process known as fracking. There is a growing body of evidence that fracking has been linked to contamination of drinking water wells — so much so that in some cases methane gas has created smelly tap water that can be set on fire with a match. Air [...]
Read More »Many times in this space, I’ve told you about the remarkable work that my friend Bonny Schumaker has done with her environmental and animal rights outfit called On Wings Of Care. Bonny is a former NASA rocket scientist and an ex-commercial pilot who knows how to use her aviation skills for so much good, as an environmentalist and as a fighter for animal rights . The work that she’s done here [...]
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Jindal to embrace stealth tax hike?
Governor Bobby Jindal is said to have lost his “mojo” this legislative sessions. His plan to repeal the state income tax failed before it got started. His education reforms are on life-support due to successful court challenges to his plans for vouchers and public charter school supports. Yet, publicly he remains committed, he says to vetoing any tax that comes before him. He opposes the cigarette tax, for example, even [...]
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