News From DC

I'm at a coffee shop yet again.  My plan is to do some video editing, although I havn't done any yet.  I've been chatting with my contact in DC, Grady Lenkin.  He's been sharing with me his opinions and ideas around the oil spill.  in short we talked about government's reliance on BP to solve the crisis, the magnitude of the oil's impact, and both our different perspectives which have been influenced by our location.  First off, grady said that congress could be stepping up more, and that if we don't act extremely soon we will have missed our chance to change the outcome.  Grady says, "the problem is that everything just moves so slowly here".  The response needs to fit the urgency of the need, which is very large.  As I write an untold amount of oil is spewing out of the well and more places are becoming affected.  Who knows if the beaches that have already been hit will recover from what has already hit them.   Every day we waste is very valuable...  With respect to bp it is a new frontier of disaster management.  Never before has anyone had to deal with a disaster of this nature.  I am hopeful, but things also seem very gloomy.  The government should step in and give fixing this problem the respect that it deserves.  As Grady alluded to, the politicians that are talking the talk about solving this crisis need to connect their words to their action and DO SOMETHING!

Sign by local Grand Isle teenager, Hanna Lemoine, age 17

Oil at Ground Zero

 
 
 
 

It's a small world

So much to tell. We are driving back from a somewhat succesful day trip to Venice, LA. The scenery is much different than anything we've seen so far. Stagnant bayous, steele colored industrial plants, and large marinas filled with swaying fishing boats. We arrived in Venice around 1 pm and immedietly sought out somewhere to eat. We arrived at the riverside restaraunt my first catfish. It was better than I thought it would be. Soon after I sat down and started looking at the seafood filled menu,, I noticed a dark haired lady standing next to me taking a photo of the hand written fisherman relief posters that were fastened beside the door. A man stood stood next to her, busy paying for their meal. I was instantly intrigued and knew they were from a news agency, or at least someone from out of the area who was interested in the oil spill. After a moment I decided I would introduce myself.
"Hi I'm Jared carlson. Were from colorado and we're trying to film a documentary around the oil spill. Where are you from?"
The man says, "I'm graham smith and this is mellisa block."
The lady, who I now knew as Melissa block, tells me they are from NPR.
hmm, that seems to ring a bell. Something clicks, oh yea, I listen to her radio program "all things considered" sometimes when I'm drive home from school. It was a pretty cool experience meeting a famous national news reporter. I was inspired by the fact that we were both out here doing the same thing. After they left and we were still waiting for our food, another man entered the restaraunt. He was carrying a MacBook and sat down near us. I glanced over and saw that he was doing video editing and I decided to introduce myself to him as well. I quickly found out that his name is Scott lehmann and that he is a photographer/videographer for the U.S. coast guard. We talked for a while and he gave us a few leads to follow down in Venice. He was eager to help. We payed our bill and we were on our way down to big buds boat rental, driving over inudated roads and through marshy bayous.

None of our leads turned out... No one we found had much to say to us. However, I am still hopeful for some good interviews. Afterall, we havn't followed all of our leads.

Anyhow, We're back in n.o. and we've got to go off to film our first interview!
Wish us luck.