Blogging from Slidell, Louisiana about loving life on the Gulf Coast despite BP and Katrina
Monday, November 30, 2020
Sunday, November 29, 2020
A Time to Heal
James S. Gordon: Covid is just one more crisis for this nation of traumatized people. We need to start healing.
America has long been suffering from chronic dysfunction and disorder, and 2020 has seen that reach a crescendo. But there are signs change is coming.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Rocky Goes Home
Rocky, the tiny, beloved owl found inside the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, is released back into the wild in upstate New York, after a week of rehabilitation https://cbsn.ws/3mkjZIV
Monday, November 23, 2020
Sunday, November 22, 2020
Keeping Louisiana's Newest Wildlife Refuge Running
QUEEN BESS ISLAND, La. (AP) — After Louisiana officials finished restoring 37-acre Queen Bess Island in February, much of the vegetation planted on its small footprint of newly pumped sand didn’t have time to take root before more than 6,000 brown pelicans arrived for breeding season. The birds pulled up some sprouts to use in their nests.
So on November 13, the squawks of a few lingering pelicans mixed with the hum of drills boring shallow holes in the island’s surface, preparing spots for about 50 volunteers to plant another 6,000 seedlings on the state’s newest wildlife refuge.
Nicholls State University student-athletes clad in yellow Shell-sponsored shirts work to plant rows of black mangrove on Queen Bess Island, La., Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. After Louisiana officials finished restoring 37-acre Queen Bess Island in February, much of the vegetation planted on its small footprint of newly pumped sand didn’t have time to take root before more than 6,000 brown pelicans arrived for breeding season. The birds pulled up some sprouts to use in their nests. (Halle Parker/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via APMatt Benoit, who coordinates habitat restoration for the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, demonstrated how to take young black mangrove shrubs and matrimony vines out of their plastic pots and place them in the drilled holes.
Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Executive Director Bren Haase pats dirt down and around a black mangrove on Queen Bess Island, La., Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. After Louisiana officials finished restoring 37-acre Queen Bess Island in February, much of the vegetation planted on its small footprint of newly pumped sand didn’t have time to take root before more than 6,000 brown pelicans arrived for breeding season. The birds pulled up some sprouts to use in their nests. (Halle Parker/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)“You have to pack the sand around the roots real tight. They don’t like any air down there,” he said as he pulled sand around a mangrove seedling. His agency brought about 1,500 of the plants, while Nicholls State University’s farm provided about 200 and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Foundation supplied the remainder.
Todd Baker, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ coastal resource scientist manager for wildlife, said the goal was to secure the plants with enough time for them to bolster nesting habitat ahead of the pelicans’ next nesting season three months hence.
“We could allow the island to naturally vegetate, but it’s going to take years for it to do it, so this is a good way to give it a jump start,” he said. “We’re losing a lot of pelican nesting habitat all around, so the more we can provide it here, the more it substitutes for the habitat being lost.”
Queen Bess, which provides 70% of Louisiana’s pelican nesting habitat, benefitted from $18.7 million provided by the BP oil disaster settlement. The island and its feathered inhabitants, located in Barataria Bay about two miles north of Grand Isle, were some of the first to be oiled after the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010. The island’s population of brown pelicans, Louisiana’s state bird, had climbed its way back after a 1960s decline caused by the widespread use of the since-banned pesticide DDT.
“To see that money go right back into this habitat and for those exact birds is significant,” Baker said. “And then to see these organizations come together to make another investment in this island is pretty special. It’s not very often we get to do bird projects at this kind of scale.”
As the native mangroves and vines grow, the pelicans build their nests on top, squishing the plants slightly when they sit and care for their eggs. The plants also help hold sand in place, limiting erosion caused by the wind and water.
Between the coronavirus pandemic and the record-breaking 2020 hurricane season, Baker said, there was a lot of uncertainty around whether the Nov. 13 event would continue. That uncertainty only increased as Hurricane Eta approached the Gulf of Mexico, though the storm ultimately struck Florida.
Despite the number of storms this year, including a direct hit from Hurricane Zeta two weeks ago, executive director Bren Haase, of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said the restored island fared well, with only a couple areas showing minor erosion and some water still held on the island. Other restoration projects that were still under construction, such as marsh-building efforts near Port Fourchon on West Belle Pass and at Caminada Headlands, were the most damaged.
While restoration project surveys continue, Haase said, “what we found generally just from looking at aerial photography is that projects that were done actually did pretty well.”
While tucking a black mangrove into the ground, Nicholls State graduate student Katie Gray said she was drawn to the Nov. 13 event to “do her part” to address the state’s land loss crisis. Because of Louisiana’s rapidly eroding coastline, “us planting these black mangroves to stabilize these barrier islands is so important,” she said.
Haase said the volunteer turnout showed “what the coast brings out in the souls of Louisiana.”
“These people are all out here on a work day on their own time volunteering to get plants in the ground for the sake of our state bird, for the sake of our ecosystem,” he said. “It’s a testament to the passion that people have for our culture and for our coast.”
Image from Louisiana Sportsman
Story from https://www.thehour.com/news/article/An-effort-to-plant-Queen-Bess-Island-for-15745674.php
Saturday, November 21, 2020
LOUISIANA: You are now healthcare providers
Dr. Christopher Thomas with the COVID-19 unit at Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge
Tuesday, November 17, 2020
Monday, November 16, 2020
Friday, November 13, 2020
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Veterans Day
Monday, November 09, 2020
Saturday, November 07, 2020
At Last
Friday, November 06, 2020
John Lewis
A few words from the late great John Lewis:
Thursday, November 05, 2020
An Obese Turtle
NN’s Anderson Cooper compared President Donald Trump to an “obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun” after his misleading, falsehood-ridden remarks at a press briefing on Thursday.
“That is the president of the United States. That is the most powerful person in the world, and we see him like an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun, realizing his time is over, but he just hasn’t accepted it and he wants to take everybody down with him, including this country,” Cooper said.
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this from a president of the United States and I think as Jake [Tapper] said, it’s sad and it is truly pathetic and, of course, it is dangerous and, of course, it will go to courts, but you’ll notice the president did not have any evidence presented at all. Nothing. No real, actual evidence of any kind of fraud,” the CNN anchor also said.
Trump’s Thursday evening remarks — in which he baselessly said he was being cheated in the election, spread misinformation about voter fraud and falsely claimed he won the election if only the “legal” votes were counted — were interrupted on multiple networks as anchors and correspondents leaped in to fact-check the president’s statements.
Also Read:Networks Cut Away, CNN Calls Trump 'Pathetic' After Speech Falsely Claiming He's Been Cheated
“Here we are again, in the unusual position of not only interrupting the president of the United States but correcting the president of the United States,” Brian Williams said as MSNBC cut away. “There are no illegal votes that we know of, there has been no Trump victory that we know of.”
“We have to interrupt here because the president has made a number of false statements, including the notion that there has been fraudulent voting. There has been no evidence of that,” NBC News’ Lester Holt said.
“We’re not going to allow it to keep going because it’s not true,” CNBC’s Shepard Smith said as his network interrupted Trump’s remarks.
The Biggest Loser
An American President telling the world the American election can’t be trusted.
If a Russian screenwriter had pitched the idea to Putin he would have been told to come back with something more plausible.
But that’s what happened tonight as Trump gave a rambling, low-energy, fact-free press conference in which he claimed he was being cheated out of victory in Tuesday’s election because the votes were being counted. Except in Arizona, where he would be cheated out of victory unless the votes were counted.
On NBC News, Lester Holt cut the Trump Show off to tell viewers: “We have to interrupt here because the president made a number of false statements including the notion that there has been fraudulent voting.”
On CNN, Jake Tapper said: “Frankly, watching him flail like that, it’s just pathetic.”
The press conference came at the end of the day in which Facebook shut down a fast-growing ‘Stop the Steal’ group which had accumulated 300,000 members and was circulating calls for violence, while Twitter was compelled to repeatedly label Trump’s tweets for being misleading.
Trump’s tweets are also dangerous. As actor John Cusack wrote:
Trump is already signaling he wants to fight this all the way to the Supreme Court, where, according to one of his legal advisers a quid pro quo is fully expected.
It seem like a weird strategy to openly admit that the case Trump wants to take to the United States Supreme Court is basically, “You guys owe me. Don’t let me down.”
Two days after the polls closed, Trump keeps repeating the claim that he won the election because he was ahead at the half-way point and that’s all that matters.
It’s ridiculous.
It’s pathetic.
And even top Republicans are saying so. Larry Hogan, the GOP Governor of Maryland said “there is no defense” for what Trump said. GOP rep Adam Klinzinger called it “insane.”
Of course, the psychopathic Trump is frantic. He has been humiliated by his second crushing defeat in the popular vote. And even as he may fear the legal jeopardy losing the presidency will put him in, he is still trying to sell his poorly educated marks on the idea that he’s being cheated. If he does relinquish power, he wants his supporters to cling to their grievance as tightly as they do to their racism and their religion. Because as long as he and his grifter family stay out of prison, they will be looking to monetize that grievance.
But even Fox News isn’t buying Trump’s foot stamping. Despite Tucker’s and Hannity’s best efforts, the network is no longer willing to blindly push Trump’s reckless conspiracy theories. Most of their coverage since election night has been guiding viewers toward acceptance of a Trump loss.
I can’t tell you for sure the final outcome of this election. But right now, it’s clear that Emperor Donald has no clothes.
Biden is being Presidential.
Trump’s acting like a loser.
Wednesday, November 04, 2020
Election Levity
A man interrupted a live on-air election update from Nevada’s Clark County on Wednesday, screaming that Democratic nominee Joe Biden is “stealing the election.”
The man appeared behind Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria as the official was answering a question about how many ballots were left to count in the county that includes Las Vegas.
“As I mentioned, we are not prepared to give that information out, ” he said before being interrupted.
The man, wearing a white tank top that read “BBQ, BEER, FREEDOM,” yelled three iterations of “The Biden crime family is stealing the election. The media’s covering it up.”
“We want our freedom for the world,” he added. “Give us our freedom, Joe Biden.”
“Joe Biden is covering up this election. He’s stealing it,” the man said before walking away.
you're welcome
The Vote Counting Will NOT Stop, drumpf
and here we are post election
I am both disappointed in America and angry that drumpf is such an insufferable piece of shit.
I slept while the orange one made a speech in violation of the Hatch Act (again and again) and glad I was. CNN has fact checked all this B.S. and I am putting it here.
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New Orleans will soon be welcoming home a New Orleans native and his wife. Jeff St. Romain is leaving his post as president of Volunteers...
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