Time To Catch Up

From Sit Illustrated: The Meditation Cartoon Book

I've been a bit overwhelmed lately. Really overwhelmed actually. As a privileged Northerner, far from any drilling rig, I let the oil disaster get the best of my psyche. Other smaller disappointments and failures had wormed their way in there as well. I went on my annual silent Vipassana meditation retreat on July 16 (actually it was a combo Metta/Vipassana retreat) and I am back facing the world just as it is. So of course, while I was sitting, walking, sitting, walking, trying to figure out what abiding in awareness actually feels like (still don't quite get it but that's ok) my friend Shirley Sherrod got caught in the far right's pseudo investigative meat grinder. As most of you know, she acquitted herself quite admirably. I'm sorry to say the Obama Administration not so much.

The oil flow has been staunched, the economy continues to be difficult for many but we have the example of Shirley Sherrod to inspire our equanimity in the face of difficulty and perseverance as we struggle for justice and peace.

Trajectory Forecast for The Oil Disaster in the Gulf

I am receiving a great deal of information through my various contacts in the Gulf Region.  I promise to process it and pass it along to you as quickly as I can.  I am on a call now with Gulf Coast Fund groups discussing response to the active and looming catastrophe in the Gulf.

For the moment, here is a map from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showing a forecasted trajectory:

This from the chemist and activist Wilma Subra:

Latest confirmed information -- originally after the rig toppled over the estimate was 1000 barrels a day.  Then the estimate went up to 5000 barrels a day.  Nothing changed but the method of estimation.  Estimating by overflight and satellite. British Petroleum has stated that these projections are totally imprecise.  Based on information today the oil has come on land, marshy land at the very toe of Louisiana and the Chandelier Islands.  The oil booms are working well in some places and not so well in others...

Oil has not hit St. Bernard Parish, not Mississippi Gulf Coast, it's currently moving off shore, away from shore because the wind is moving north. Folks who are smelling the oil is because the wind is forming an aerosol of the oil as it moves over the sheen.  When the wind is blowing S-SE people are smelling oil way ahead of the slick. This aerosol is causing significant health impacts.  Serious exposure now even before oil getting to shore.

This Is A Test

Perhaps you are as overwrought as I, with Hurricane Gustav bearing down on New Orleans just as we are having third anniversary flashbacks of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I will be writing often over the next few weeks about this pending disaster, the experience of its survivors, including from Memphis where trains have been taking evacuees since Friday.

I had promised myself that I wouldn’t sit home this time; more accurately, I wouldn’t sit at my writing desk, wringing my hands in horror over the treatment of the peoples of the Gulf Coast. Of course, this time it is supposed to be different. No thousands languishing in heat and filth in the SuperDome – it is boarded up and barricaded – no elderly nursing home residents left to drown in piles by the door of their last place of refuge, no ignorant Federal officials, no oblivious President Bush ... I could go on for pages listing the things that aren’t supposed to happen this time.

Hurricane Gustav will be a test of all the government has said it would do to protect Gulf Coast residents threatened by the next big storm. We will be watching to see if state and Federal governments can evacuate a tenth of the people from New Orleans (30,000 needing transportation) in three days that Cuba evacuated (300,000) from its rural western province in less than the same time. To see if houses recently built on 13 foot stilts prove sturdy enough and high enough off the ground to withstand storm surges predicted to be locally 15 feet. But I wonder if the Lower Ninth Ward will be inundated yet again and will anyone advocate rebuilding in such a vulnerable place? And what will evacuees think and feel, reliving such a fresh trauma? Will they want to come back? Or are we about to see a permanent Gulf Coast Diaspora, one mostly poor and primarily people of color?

As the Republicans milk the mounting crisis for all the political gain they can, we must watch and judge how well they pass the real test -- providing protection for those evacuated and a safe return to the home of their choice.