On the BP oil spill…

A number of things have been making me more angry and frustrated over the past few weeks, and chief among them is the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The stories of deliberate neglect and corporate pursuits of any and all loopholes in order to reduce liability and circumvent the need to install important, blowout-preventing equipment have already hit the news over and over again. I’ve got a personal connection to this tragedy and it hurts me to see some places I love so much destroyed by waves of thick, toxic oil. I’ve been to Venice, Louisiana and gone swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve planted marsh grasses in Lake Pontchartrain and gone canoeing in the wetland bayous. I had wanted, after graduating, to work for a summer on a Louisiana shrimping boat…a dream which seems to be ruined right about now.

After reading how much BP was spending on PR firms, I felt I had to do a little something for the activist effort down in the Gulf South…

Flickr link for all sizes

I made this image in about 30 minutes with Photoshop and Illustrator (much of which was spent creating different image layers and using Free Transform to pull apart different layers of the logo so as to optimize it for stencil making), and I’m making it available for any and all non-commercial activist work. Use it as you like, folks.

Oil Prices and Education Funds

NPR’s got a great article up here on the potential positive effects of a drastic spike in the price of crude oil. Christopher Steiner, in his book “$20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better”, lays out a vision of shrinking cities, a return of manufacturing jobs to the United States and a growth in mass-transit and high-speed rail networks.

As someone who’s worked as a roofer, a pothole filler and held jobs at both the Trail Road waste dump and a recycling plant I can attest to the sheer scope of everyday life which revolves around crude oil products. Take a look around you and think of what you might not have anymore when crude oil prices rocket up.

On another note, remember the piece of street art I put up in memory of Kelly Morrisseau last month?

Well, an education fund has been set up for Ms. Morrisseau’s three children, and donations can be made to it by sending a cheque made out to the “National Indian Brotherhood in Trust” to the Assembly of First Nations, 473 Albert St., Suite 810, Ottawa, K1R 5B4. Please specify that you’d like the funds added to the Kelly Morrisseau Education Fund.

And remember… there’s still a killer out there and on the loose. If you’ve got any info, please call it in. We can catch this SOB.