It's Day 74 and President Barack Obama is laser-focused -- spending his every waking moment -- on the Gulf oil spill. Uhm, plus comprehensive immigration reform. And firing insolent general officers. Oh, and regulating CO2 emissions, too.
Although Obama appears to have ordered a media blackout of the Gulf disaster, a relative few shocking photos have leaked out thanks to enterprising area residents. You won't be seeing these in your local paper, that's for sure.
Maybe after Key West, Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale are coated in oil, the President will begin paying attention.
Update: Spill continues to pump oil into Gulf, but White House successfully plugs leaks -- of information on websites, from journalists and local officials.
17 comments:
I believe the "journalists" are happy to comply with the ban and help save Obama's bacon. If the Bush administration had issued such an edict, what would they have done? Scream about it, ignore it, DARE the government to arrest and charge one of them so they could raise the roof about about the end of the free press every day for weeks and weeks on end. But none of that will happen because the press is HAPPY TO COMPLY.
Logic101
Those pictures are horrific!!!! Okay, no more seafood on the White House menu!!!!
Geez! It's only been a couple months! Lighten up! The President has had some very important golf games and vacation and golf games and photo ops and golf games that required his attention!
What are you talking about? CNN has been updating its photo gallery from the oil spill almost every day, a lot of these photos are similar to ones that are in this gallery:
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2010/05/us/gallery.large.oil.spill/july.1.html
Did you bother to actually search around to see if anyone was posting the photos before you jumped to the conclusion that they were being ignored? Doesn't seem like it.
@anon at 2:02pm --
Reading is fundamental: I said 'local papers', not a 7,000-image web photo gallery from a loser network that has less visitors than my favorite bloggers.
You obviously have no idea how "local" media works then. Local media is just that, local. They understand that people looking for national news will get better coverage by going to those "loser" national media outlets, so they tend to focus on what is happening around them.
Besides, most local media outlets don't have the budgets to send their own reporters/photographers down to cover the story so they rely on AP/Getty/Reuters when they do. Which, by the way, a large portion of those photos are from.
Nothing in this gallery has been censored. And to prove a point that the photos are easily available via the internet, even if your local print edition isn't:
New York Times: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/assignment-35/?scp=1&sq=oil%20photos&st=cse
LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-html,0,6610369.htmlstory
Boston Globe:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/caught_in_the_oil.html
Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/louisiana-oil-spill-2010_n_558287.html
National Geographic:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/06/photogalleries/100608-gulf-oil-spill-environment-birds-animals-pictures/
Times-Picayune:
http://topics.nola.com/tag/oil-spill-gulf-of-mexico-2010/photos.html
Yahoo! News:
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Gulf-Coast-Oil-Spill/ss/events/us/042110oilrigexplode
ABC News:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/slideshow/oil-spill-gulf-mexico-2010-off-louisiana-coast-10509757
And I could keep going and going if you really want me to.
*Sigh* As I said before, most folks do not peruse massive web galleries to consume news. They have neither the time, nor the inclination.
Perhaps you could find a single newspaper that has embedded, say, photo #2 in an actual news article on the spill.
Bonus points for one that mentions our beloved President.
I won't hold my breath.
You show nothing here I haven't seen before so the media must be doing a fine job of covering the mess in the Gulf. I simply cannot understand how any reasonable person can blame the president for what happened. But there's the rub: No REASONABLE person could. As far as the unreasonable rightwing nutjobs -- I fear they'll put another nutjob (Sarah Palin)in the White House in 2012. Does anyone know what time the next Mayflower leaves?
No reasonable person blames the President for the explosion and immediate aftermath.
What any reasonable person can blame the president for:
• For taking weeks to even realize the scale of the disaster;
• After 74 days, there is still confusion among foreign countries regarding the Jones Act and whether their skimmers are allowed to help;
• After 60 days, only 20 of 2,000 skimmers had been deployed;
At this point, I don't really know or care who else is a viable contender to be President. But one thing is certain, anyone who's actually run a lemonade stand has more executive experience than this man, who appears to be intentionally destroying the country -- economically and environmentally.
It's November or never to turn this madness around.
Oh, here's one I just spotted:
• EPA verdict still out on Taiwan tanker, “A Whale”
Don't forget as part of the boycott to short or put BP shares! By doing so, you will cause BP's shares to rapidly fall in value!
http://www.facebook.com/BoycottBP
The call to "Boycott BP" is nothing more than an irrational emotional hyper-sensitive Facebook Response that at BEST won't do ANYTHING, and at WORST will further the damage.
Best Case - Nothing Happens: Unless you are planning on powering your car with Hopes, Dreams, Wishes, and Unicorn Farts, the only way to "Boycott BP" is to stop driving (this includes Public Transportation). If there isn't enough demand for BP Gas, BP will sell their unused oil to another company which DOES have the demand. In other words, BP Still gets their Money, and you still fill your vehicle up with fuel which BP Profited from.
Middle Case - BP Stock takes a slight hit...but congratulations, because you don't have the intellectual capacity to think more than what you can fit on a Facebook Status or Magnetic Ribbon, your refusal to purchase from BP Stations caused the owner of the station (and their employees) their jobs. These aren't BP Executives...these are working stiffs in your own town. With unemployment just under 10% in this country, do you really think it wise to do something which costs a person their job when that person had absolutely NOTHING to do with the oil spill?
Worse Case - Congratulations...you have caused BP Stocks to tank...the company is filing for bankruptcy and their executives have been fired. Just one simple little question my friend...who's going to pay for the cleanup now?
Your post is a perfect reflection of where this country has headed. It doesn't matter if a problem is resolved, all that matters is a public stoning driven by overly-emotional responses and hyper-sensitivity has occurred. Rather than actually working to solve a problem, you'd rather make headlines and "rally the troops" to your worthless cause. Admit it, at some point in your adult life, you've actually sent out a mass E-mail that boils down to "Come on Gang, let's TAKE ACTION". Unfortunately, the action you've taken has done more harm than good.
Or we could power the world on your hot air!!
"you won't be seeing these in your local papers"
You're an idiot, Directorblue. Not only were these in my local papers, they were on my local TV station, and covered the entire web.
How did you manage to type this post after both your eyes and brain were removed?
@anon at 6:54pm...
Tell you what: find photo #2 (or any of the more controversial ones like bathers wearing gas masks) in a local news article (traditional outlet like city newspaper or local radio/tv news site) and I'll PayPal you $25 spanking fresh American dollars.
Maximum number of winners: 1.
Countdown to me dropping $25 in 3... 2... never.
I've seen the photo of the girl in the gas mask four times now: once on CNN, once on here, and twice on my local media stations. As for the other photos, yes they are horrible, and we've all seen things just as bad. President Obama has issued no media ban, and the press is as free as it ever was. Get a clue.
These pictures are so terrible!! This so worse and look at the animals and their lives Please Save them....
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