This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky's Sparkly Party Favors, for all your partying needs.
Recommended Reading:
Melanie: Today is International Day of Action for Women's Health
Jenn: 10 Facts You May Not Know About Asian-American History
Mar: Kamla Persad-Bissessar is the new Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
Andy: Christian Iowa GOP Committeeman Threatens Gay GOP Presidential Candidate Fred Karger Over Marriage
Renee: On Hoarders
Melissa: Agora
Leave your links in comments...
Friday Blogaround
You'll Never Know, Dear, How Much We Love You
We all, in the U.S., love our Constitution, don't we? Right, left or center, you will seldom hear anyone say of it, "Silly bit of fishwrap! We should scrap that anachronistic document." We speak of it with reverence. Most of us believe that, despite having been written over 200 years ago, it should remain the foundation of our laws and government.
Oh, sure, some of us think it could do with a few tweaks. Many of us women feel we should be in it! You know, specifically and unambiguously. Then there's the fact that some of us get treated like it doesn't apply to us, even though the 14th amendment says
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.That's pretty clear, right? No state shall . . . any person within its jurisdiction? So if a state makes available a contractual arrangement between consenting individuals - let's call it marriage - which provides access to a wide array of benefits, that state must make that contractual arrangement available to all consenting individuals who are otherwise qualified to enter into legal contracts - you would think.
Or if - purely hypothetically - any state passed a law which, despite covering language, required law enforcement to single out some kinds of people for different treatment than others, based on nothing more than what they look like - or maybe what their shoes look like - well, the 14th amendment really ought to be all over that one.
But despite our seemingly unanimous love and respect for our Constitution, some of us do have more of a soft spot for some of its provisions than for others. Take this bit:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.That's the 2nd amendment, and for some people it is their very, very favoritest part. No, seriously. The entire structure of our government is in our Constitution, as well as the guarantees of our most basic freedoms, but for some folks that one sentence about a "well-regulated militia" seems to be the locus of all their Constitutional hopes, dreams and fears.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-mageddon) is one such. Following the shooting at Ft. Hood last year, a new policy was instituted there which requires anyone bringing personal weapons on base to register them, and those living on base to notify their commanding officers of personal weapons in their possession and to keep their weapons in a unit arms room.
The Dept. of Defense (DOD) Independent Review Related to Fort Hood, led by a retired admiral and a former Secretary of the Army, determined that the DOD's policy regarding personal weapons on military bases was "inadequate". The Pentagon is now formulating a stronger policy for all military bases.
But what is the expertise of the Pentagon regarding either weapons or defense of the Constitution, in comparison to that of Sen. Inhofe? Also inadequate, apparently. Because Sen. Inhofe claims that the recommendations of the Pentagon investigators won't prevent future attacks, and that requiring anyone - even those carrying weapons onto a U.S. military base - to register those weapons, is a violation of the 2nd amendment.
How ya gonna keep your militia well-regulated if they can't even take their personal weapons onto military bases without the military sticking their snoopy noses into that?
So the Constitution-loving Senator has introduced S.3388, the Service Member Second Amendment Protection Act of 2010, to preclude the Pentagon from such "gun ownership over-regulation", saying
Political correctness and violating Constitutional rights dishonors those who lost their lives and is an extreme disservice to those who continue to serve their country.And we may be sure that this legislation avoids such errors because "Inhofe worked closely with the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the development of the legislation" according to a press release from his office.
Nobody hates political correctness or loves the U.S. Constitution more than the NRA. Not even the federal courts of the United States, which have ruled both that the 2nd amendment "poses no barrier to (gun) registration" and that the military, being a unique society within the larger society, may place some restrictions on its members' rights under certain circumstances.
So Sen. Inhofe's great love of the Constitution may not prevail, even if his bill were to be passed. But he'll have the satisfaction of knowing that he's made the NRA happy. I hear they're very generous with people who make them happy.
Oh, and don't confuse the "extreme disservice to those who continue to serve their country" which is imposed by regulating the terms of their possession and use of personal firearms with the minor inconvenience to gay service members caused by DADT. Because the 2nd amendment does not wanna be in a foxhole with your kind.
Then there's this one:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.That's the 1st amendment, and I would have thought it was many, if not most, people's favorite. It sure does get talked up a lot. You can't even disagree with some folks' blog comments without their suffering a fit of righteous indignation about how that's a severe violation of their 1st amendment right to talk shit all over your blog. (This is not an interpretation of the 1st amendment which has ever been upheld in a court of law.)
But one does get the impression that, in general, the people of the U.S. hold this amendment very dear. And it is widely believed that this prohibition against the Congress "making any law respecting an establishment of religion", along with the protections of the 14th amendment, prohibit any governmental body within the United States from encouraging or inhibiting the practice of any particular religion.
Which raises the question of how to account for the fact that Muslim Americans in several locations seem to be having a good deal of trouble getting city councils and commissions to approve their plans to build or expand existing mosques. An attorney for the Islamic Center in Alpharetta, GA seems to feel that the City Council there is showing insufficient appreciation for the Constitution, and says he'll recommend that his clients file a lawsuit, as "the city previously had approved a number of other churches of similar size."
About 150 concerned citizens attended the Council meeting at which this matter was discussed and voted on, showing curiously little love for the Constitution, or for their Muslim neighbors. Although, to be fair, one man said, "“This is not about religion. … It’s about contractural (sic) agreements.” Fulton County had imposed restrictions on the mosque regarding any future expansion when it approved a previous addition. The Islamic Center did not enter into any contractual agreement with the county, but they raised no objection to those restrictions at the time. So I guess this isn't really a Constitutional matter, because it's "not about religion."
And in Brentwood, TN, it's not about religion, either. It's about terrorists! And about how anyone who is Muslim might be one! A group of Brentwood residents who had applied to rezone 14 acres to allow them to build a mosque have withdrawn their application, after an organized plan to prevent it continued strong despite their having agreed to limit the size of the mosque, not use outside loudspeakers to announce the call to prayer, and limit outside lights.
One of the organizers of the opposition, Matt Bonner, who lives in Nashville, not Brentwood, but evidently considers it his business which houses of worship are erected in Brentwood because he is a member of the Brentwood United Methodist Church, says, "The fact is that the mosques are more than just a church. No one can predict what this one will be used for." Unlike Brentwood United Methodist Church, I guess, where all activity into the distant future can be known, and all of it will be pure, and good, and Constitution-loving.
The difference lies in the fact that Islam is "not really a religion", according to the person whose writings have shaped Mr. Bonner's understanding of it. Instead, "Islam is a dangerous political ideology" according to one Bill French, who for some reason writes under the name of Bill Warner. Mr. French/Warner runs a publishing house in Nashville which for some reason is called the Center for the Study of Political Islam, despite the fact that it does not appear to be a Center for Study, but a Center for Selling Books by Mr. French/Warner.
So don't let any of this lead you to suspect that the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution is held in any lesser reverence than its frequent invocation in blogular disagreements would suggest. The people of Brentwood, determined though they are to keep out mosques, love that amendment so much that they are truly hurt when some attorney takes its name in vain. Like, say, when he mentions to mosque opponents at a meeting "that federal and state law gives religious institutions special protections when it comes to zoning."
Says Mr. Bonner: "What kind of neighbor is that who comes in threatening lawsuits?"
We here in the U.S. do love and respect our constitution. But we hate terrorists, especially if they are sneakily attempting to pass off a political ideology as their religion. And we really hate folks being unneighborly.
More Advocacy Fail
[Trigger warning.]
Copyranter just tipped me to an anti-rape campaign in Britain which features an image of a disembodied woman's lower torso, clad only in panties, with the text: "Have sex with someone who hasn't said yes to it, and the next place you enter could be prison." The image, which I'm not going to post in-page, is viewable here.
Noting that the campaign, which started as ads in lad mags in 2007, has now graduated to posters hanging in public men's restrooms in the UK, Copyranter says: "Call me confused, but showing a half-naked woman in a rape awareness ad being viewed by plastered horny pissing men is just bloody stupid, right?" Right.
Where do I begin with the failfulness? A key part of the rape culture is the dehumanization of women, so featuring a faceless, disembodied, woman's lower torso in an anti-rape campaign is utterly counterproductive—which is to say nothing of the titillation of showing a near-naked faceless, disembodied, woman's lower torso.
And the text. Oh, Maude, the text! Euphemizing rape as "having sex" in an anti-rape campaign is positively absurd. There's no such thing as "having sex with someone who hasn't said yes." The appropriate way to convey this idea without reinforcing narratives of the rape culture is something like: "Sexual activity without consent is illegal" or "Sexual activity without consent is rape."
While I'm certainly not against the idea of noting that going to prison can (should) be the consequence of raping another person, I am decidedly unthrilled with its being communicated as "the next place you enter could be prison," with the victim's body being obliquely invoked as the first "place you enter." Suffice it to say, I don't share the opinion that an anti-rape campaign is the best place for cheeky wordplay, no less cheeky wordplay that reduce a rape victim's body to an inanimate "place" (more dehumanization) that can be equated to prison.
And, really: With an abysmal 6.5% conviction rate, are there any British rapists who are going to be deterred by the threat of prison? Somehow I doubt it. Which means we can "ineffective" to the heaping garbage pile of fail.
What we're left with, then, is an ostensible anti-rape campaign whose only success is more deeply entrenching tools and language of the rape culture. Huzzah.
[Previously in Advocacy Fail: On Exploitation, and Anti-Exploitation Messaging; Calling Cut on Domestic Violence.]
Good News
[Trigger warning for female genital cutting.]
Earlier this month, I wrote about an American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement that proposed a "compromise" on female genital cutting in the form of a "ritual nick," a minor incision of the clitoris to satisfy the urge to ritualistically disfigure a female child's genitals.
In a positive turn of events, the AAP has rescinded the policy statement:
"We retracted the policy because it is important that the world health community understands the AAP is totally opposed to all forms of female genital cutting, both here in the U.S. and anywhere else in the world," said AAP President Judith S. Palfrey.One of the women instrumental in this reversal is Soraya Mire, a Somali filmmaker and survivor of female genital cutting, who now lives in LA and is an anti-FGC advocate working with African immigrant families, who are under pressure to continue the tradition, putting "American girls in immigrant communities at risk of being sent overseas to have the procedure completed." Mire "was in disbelief when she first read the AAP's original statement about six weeks ago."
..."We welcome the AAP's decision to withdraw its 2010 policy statement on FGM," said Lakshmi Anantnarayan, a spokeswoman at Equality Now. "This is a crucial step forward in the movement to raise awareness about female genital mutilation."
She couldn't sleep. She couldn't eat. She's dedicated her time to calling legislators, survivors and advocacy groups to pressure AAP to change its original policy statements.That's a lady who knows how to work a teaspoon, right there.
Her efforts worked, she learned on Wednesday from a personal phone call from the academy. ... "I cried and told them how grateful I am," said [Mire]. "Thank you for understanding us survivors and hearing our voices."
..."I slept so well last night," she said. "I woke up smiling."
House and Senate Armed Services Committee Vote to Repeal DADT
The House voted Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as "don't ask, don't tell."Good stuff. Note that the House voted to approve an amendment attached to the annual Pentagon policy bill, on which they'll vote today. It is expected to pass.
...The House vote was 234 to 194, with 229 Democrats and 5 Republicans in favor, after an emotionally charged debate. Opposed were 168 Republicans and 26 Democrats.
...Separately on Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved a similar measure allowing the repeal.
Supporters of the repeal hailed it as a matter of basic fairness and civil rights, while opponents charged that Democrats and President Obama were destabilizing the military to advance a liberal social agenda.Despite the fact that there is categorically no evidence to support their claim.
In a statement, Mr. Obama said he was "pleased" by the votes.I really like that he said repealing DADT will make the military stronger, but that "honestly and with integrity" is so passive that it suggests, if unintentionally, that LGB soldiers lack integrity and the legislation is granting it to them, without so much as a nod toward the legislation that forced them into self-denial. "To serve openly and with the dignity they've been denied" would have been better, which I know is nitpicking, but, fuck, it's no time for the president to half-ass it, you know?
"This legislation will help make our armed forces even stronger and more inclusive by allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve honestly and with integrity," he said.
Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 Republican in the House, accused Democrats of trying to use the military "to advance a liberal social agenda" and demanded that Congress "put its priorities in order."Like John McCain, Congressman McKeon naturally only cares about the alleged "diss" of the straight troops, and doesn't give a flying flunderton about the "diss" of the LGB troops that is DADT.
Other Republicans said the military was a unique institution and its rules sometimes had to differ from civilian society.
"We are dissing the troops, that is what we are doing," said Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee.
Gleeful Moment
I've never watched Glee so I'm not familiar with the plot line or the characters, but after seeing this clip, I'm hoping there are some fans of the show out there who can enlighten me.
Okay, I'll admit right off it chokes me up. For one thing, I'm really glad to see this kind of speech in a hit TV show. It's happening more and more, but it's always welcome. But most importantly, I can hear my dad or my mom delivering this speech. Every word.
I may have struggled with growing up gay, but I never for a moment doubted that I could count on the love and support of my family. And that has always brought me my own glee.
Cross-posted.
Question of the Day
You have just been given a $X million budget (whatever you need, no more and no less) to produce a Bechdel Test-passing project—a film, a television series, a play. What is your project, and who do you cast?
Photo of the Day
Actresses Tyne Daly (L) and Sharon Gless (R) attend the Alliance For Women In Media's 2010 Gracies Awards on May 25, 2010 in Beverly Hills, California. [Getty Images.]You know, Hollywood, since you've given up on new ideas, how about remaking Cagney & Lacey? I'll even help out with a casting suggestion: Starring Jill Scott and Miriam Shor. Every lady I know (and most of the dudes) will watch that shit, bozos!
More images of the amazing Daly and Gless below.
DADT Deal: Military Has Final Word?
On Tuesday, I noted my concern that the "deal" the administration had reportedly struck to repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy banning gay soldiers from open service was so vague that "a new Republican administration would mean a new policy at the Pentagon."
It actually appears to be worse than that:
[Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] said yesterday that he's comfortable with proposed legislation that seeks to repeal the law that bans gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the military because it includes "very clear language" that gives senior leaders the final say in whether it's implemented.So, essentially, even if the Democratic majority passes the repeal, after midterm elections are already over, the military—and/or, "the military"—can then decide to make that legislation worth less than the paper on which it's printed. Gotcha.
...Implementation wouldn't take place until after a Defense Department study assessing its impact is completed, the chairman explained, and military and defense leaders get to weigh in on the findings.
...After reviewing results of the study, Mullen, the service chiefs and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would provide their recommendations to President Barack Obama. "So having that information will inform me and our leaders about what our recommendations will be," he said.
Mullen called the "certification trigger" provided in the proposed amendment critical.
"The language in there right now preserves my prerogative – and I believe, my responsibility – to give the best military advice," he said.
"That trigger is to certify whether we should move ahead with that change, even if the law were to repeal it," he told a reporter following the session.
Either this is the real deal, or Mullen's talking out his ass and the administration is so incapable of getting its ducks in a row that the chaos threatens to undermine an extremely important piece of radical and long-overdue legislation.
Either way, my contempt for this administration plummets to heretofore uncharted depths.
Dolly
I may have mentioned once or twice, ahem, cough, that I love Dolly Parton.
Now, one of the many things I love about Dolly is her sense of humor about herself, one of the expressions of which is her well-known fondness and appreciation for the drag performers who "do Dolly."
And this has to be the greatest thing evah:
Dolly admits she once lost a Dolly Parton lookalike contest in Santa Monica. "Lots of drag queens dress up on Halloween like Dolly, and that was back when everybody was dressing like Cher or like me. So I thought how fun would this be?" she says. "I just kind of over-exaggerated everything I am—bigger hair, bigger beauty mark, bigger boobs, if you can imagine."OMG. I love her to pieces. There's something just indescribably great about a lady who enters a lookalike contest in which contestants are trying to look like her, and is genuinely tickled by not being considered a serious contender.
Standing just over 5 feet without heels, Dolly says she was the smallest contestant there. "Here all these big drag queens are at least 6 feet tall with their high heels," she says. "I was kind of lost in the shuffle. They didn't take me serious at all."
Dolly ended up coming in second place. "I did it just for fun," she says. "It was just fun to tell the story."
You rock, Dolly.
Celestial Homomentum
Updated
This is better than the Virgin Mary showing up in a tortilla.
This must surely be a sign the Senate must vote repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell.If you were out to lunch in the Twin Cities Wednesday and saw a strange streak in the sky, you are not alone.
An unusual rainbow-colored streak appeared across the sky in the Twin Cities Wednesday afternoon.
KARE 11 meteorologist Sven Sundgaard and at least two KARE 11 photojournalists captured images of the strange streak across the sky from KARE's parking lot just after noon in Golden Valley.
Sven's best guess at this point is the streak is a circumhorizontal arc. A circumhorizontal arc occurs only when the sun is high in the sky (above 58 degrees) and hexagonal shaped ice crystals (high clouds or contrails only) are parallel to the horizon at that moment.
A circumhorizontal arc never occurs above or below 55 degrees latitude because the sun is never that high in the sky and rare for mid latitude locations like the Twin Cities. We see less than 200 hours between May and July of the sun at that high angle.
Sven estimates the streak was at about 15,000 - 20,000 feet in the air.
Update: Never doubt the power of a circumhorizontal arc.
HT to Todd S from Minneapolis.
Cross-posted.
What a Difference a Score Makes
[Trigger warning for stalking.]
Below is a trailer for the film 500 Days of Summer reimagined as a "thriller," i.e. a film in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character is recast as a nefarious stalker who targets Zooey Deschanel's character after she dumps him. What's interesting about it, of course, is that the scenes aren't really recut to look like a totally different movie; it's just got a creepy score instead of some charming indie single laid over it. And that makes it a pretty awesome commentary on the oft-discussed stalking-as-courtship trope, which features centrally in so many romantic comedy films.
[A transcript really wouldn't be of any use here, since the video is almost entirely free of dialogue. The paraphrase is as above: Scenes of a romance, a break-up, and the commencement of stalking by a profoundly unhappy jilted dude.]
[Related: If you have not read Sady's post on 500 Days of Summer, you should, and it is here.]
Cities Move to Ban Sale of Companion Animals at Petshops
It's hard to argue with this (not that I was inclined to try, anyway):
To see what really happens when a city bans pet sales, you have to go to Albuquerque, N.M. The Southwestern city banned sales of "companion animals," including cats and dogs, in 2006, and has seen a marked, positive effect, said Peggy Weigle, executive director of Animal Humane New Mexico.Wow.
Since the ban started, animal adoptions have increased 23 percent and euthanasia at city shelters has decreased by 35 percent.
The story includes the requisite "other side," quoting Michael Maddox, vice president of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, a lobbyist group in DC, arguing that "the vast majority of customers who bring home their canine companion from a pet store are supremely satisfied with the experience" (if that were true, shelters wouldn't be full of abandoned dogs), and Dana Derraugh, owner of Le Petit Puppy in Greenwich Village, who asserts that the $700+ pups she sells only come from reputable breeders and she oughtn't be put out of business by shady petshops.
I quite genuinely sympathize with her, but if her specialty is truly finding "high quality" puppies from reputable breeders, then she doesn't need a storefront; she needs a way to market her expertise as a pet matchmaker—a service for which I'm certain people would be willing to pay (and essentially already are paying, given she's running a for-profit business).
[Via Margaret.]
Quote of the Day
"Sex ed has mainly been focused on reproduction, not relationships. But people in the field have been beginning to understand that…it's not just about body parts or pathogens or the mechanics of contraception; it's about what constitutes a respectful, warm relationship."—Sarah Brown, executive director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, quoted in an excellent and highly-recommend article in The Nation about reproductive coercion.
Also quotable: "Two new studies have quantified what advocates for young women's health have observed for years: the striking frequency with which it is in fact young men who try to force their partners to get pregnant. Their goal: not to settle down as family men but rather to exert what is perhaps the most intimate, and lasting, form of control." Read the whole thing here.
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
[Possible non-explicit American Idol spoiler...]
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
"Terrible and Disappointing"
CNN American Morning Anchor John Roberts interviews Managing Director of BP Bob Dudley about the recovery efforts along the Gulf Coast. Dudley's dispassionate spin is absolutely infuriating.
[Transcript below.]
Shaker Anitanola sent me the link to this video this morning, which underlines the patent fuckery of Dudley's claim that BP staff and volunteers are all through the marshlands organizing prevention of further environmental damage and coordinating clean-up efforts.
The BP gusher "has already spilled more oil than the Exxon Valdez disaster—possibly more than twice as much, making it the largest oil spill in U.S. history."
Bob Dudley, Managing Director of BP: What you have is this titanic arm wrestling match between the well and the heavy muds that we're driving into the well—two flows essentially going at each other with a stream that comes out of the well. And while you can't draw conclusions from the plume other than it is drilling mud, sometimes it will be stopped for awhile. Sometimes you may see some oil and gas. So you can't draw conclusions from what you see. Right now, what you see is a water-based, nontoxic mud—
John Roberts, CNN Anchor: Right.
Dudley: —that is coming out of the top.
Roberts: So you'll keep pumping that in until there is sufficient weight—I guess the theory goes that there's sufficient weight to that mud holding down the oil—you can stop pumping it and it should stabilize?
Dudley: That's right. That's the objective here is that the flow rate is high. We can't pump in with too high a pressure as it will create other damage. So it is truly an arm wrestling match, a very closely balanced forces. Assuming we can wrestle the well to the ground, after that we would pump in cement to be able to really kill it.
Roberts: Is there a chance that if this doesn't work this well could be gushing until you get that kill well drilled, and that won't be until August?
Dudley: Well, those options are not way down the line. We've set out on the seabed all around where the activity is today. So that we determine we just can't overcome it in the "top kill" operation, we will immediately go into the phase of putting out, cutting off the top and putting a containment device in it. That might take two to three days before we would have that in place. If we did that, we think we would then be able to float the oil to the surface and measure it at that point.
Roberts: Yes.
Dudley: But what we really need to do is try to kill this thing.
Roberts: Yes.
Dudley: And so far that operation is proceeding like we expected.
Roberts: According to Jindal and other officials, nobody's been back there to even try to clear that out. Why isn't BP back there trying to mop up this mess?
Dudley: Well, I know, John, from the operation center there that they have—there really are thousands of people. The Coast Guard, and the BP people as well as local volunteers they're all around through that area—
Roberts: Well, with respect, Mr. Dudley, there were none in this particular area and there haven't been for days.
Dudley: Well, there are pockets in there where they are prioritizing where they are focused. There are pockets where people haven't been yet, but I assure you there are people all around through those regions working hard, and cleaning it up, putting it away for hazardous material disposal. The marshes are sensitive and difficult. And once it's in there, that is what we really want to keep out and not allow that area to increase.
Roberts: And as you look at these pictures you can see that the grasses are dying already, which kind of brings to mind a statement that your CEO Tony Hayward made in recent days that he thought that overall the environmental impact of this would be, quote, "very, very modest." Are you still sticking with that assessment?
Dudley: Well, he made those statement some time ago. And at that point we had been able to keep all of the oil off the beaches everywhere. And we were disappointed to see them break through some of those defenses. And so there is no question that he is devastated to see that. We're redoubling our efforts. The Coast Guard and BP are mobilizing people from the other sides of the gulf now in Louisiana.
Roberts: So, if I were to ask you now what you thought the environmental impact of this would be, what would you say?
Dudley: Well, I mean, for the people of southeast Louisiana, this is clearly, clearly a terrible thing. It's terrible for the wildlife in that area. It's disappointing for all the teams who are working so hard and they have been working for a long time down there in that hot weather.
Roberts: Sure. Sure.
[crosstalk]
Dudley: I'm just energized to try to minimize it, to make sure that more doesn't get through, but we do have damage, there's no question.
Roberts: Yes. I'm sorry, Mr. Dudley. I mean, terrible and disappointed. Those are interesting words to use to describe what people are feeling, but in terms of the actual environmental impact, is this minimal? Is it moderate? Is it going to be a disaster? How would you put it?
Dudley: Well, there are 30 acres there right now of marshland. It's clearly a disaster for that area. The beaches, the tide brings in the oil, we have the teams to clean up the oil and then the tide brings it back in. It's a continuous cycle. I think that we'll be able to clean and get those beaches clean. The marshes will take more time to recover. This has happened before in areas of Louisiana. They take time to recover. And then we've got to understand the impacts of the dispersant and the oil in the gulf and we started—we'll start a massive study program with scientists from all over the gulf region and this will take a decade. We'll support that. We need to understand so we learn from this for the future. Not only for the Gulf of Mexico but everywhere in the world.
