Never mind Louisiana;
BP oil executive is suffering
~Jarvis DeBerry
~"I'm a Brit," he said. "I can take it."
~ Jarvis: Of course, I'm not British. I don't have the stiff upper lip needed to get me through such an ordeal. Nor do I have anything approaching the $4.6 million BP gave you last year for being the public face of the company. Louisiana hasn't yet figured out how we're going to survive. But how it warms our hearts, Tony, to know that you're going to be OK.
~Editilla Ravenellas~
~Well, Tony Fey has now made it poisonal.
Fuck the Brits.
HA! As such, I think part of the problem here may be the spill of broken feudalist tarts who would come to our shores to school us in how to "suck it up".
Thus, I asked the South African Ivor van Heerden WTF he meant on NPR, Saturday, stating to an audience numbering in the 50 Million range, that the Oil Impact on Louisiana's coast had been "overstated". {Oh Snap Goddamn! Isn't THAT what BP has been saying all along?} And he replied.
We shall hang it here for our Gentle'rillas on The Ladder.
~A Few things first. Jarvis DeBerry so has our backs that I cannot adequately put into words the feelings of solid Reassurance, Empowerment and InFormation with which he always leaves me --and without which we all would have perished a long time ago in panic like blind mice on a burning oil rig.
This is what is meant by the Rock and Roll of Salvation.
I used to feel that way about the word of Ivor Van Heerden.
Just ask anyone who has faced Editilla's defense of him.
However, Redemption is in the mouths of the damned.
~Second, we asked Van Heerden about his Press Tours.
That has been the consistent burr up Editilla's ass since hearing my former hero disregard apocalypse in evidence.
I have stringently avoided attacking Van Heerden's livelihood, for a number of rhetorical reasons but chiefly because I expected that argument from those who could justify this their roles in this holocaust... but not from the man himself.
But that defense did not fly at Nuremberg, won't shake here and we'll make damn sure will not show up in the coming court cases, some criminal, some civil.
Additionally, aren't we all getting really fed up with those who spin this growing man-made disaster with the toll it is taking on their personal lives. Tony Fey Hayward, Bo Duddly DoRight, and now Ivor van Heerden.
Editilla gets particularly vapid and surely when someone brings their suffering family into a PR discussion. If they want to talk like poor babies, then let us consider the ones yet born into this Hell with defects to a generation of 1000 yard stares.
Everyone in South Louisiana it seems now, except for the independently wealthy, must work for BP, especially those directly involved in the response. This is written into the Unified Command Structure as was explained to me by a 3rd Class Petty Officer named Jonathan Lowery, of the Unified Command Joint Information Center UCJIC (I ain't makin'dis up!:)
...in a phone call to my home not 15 minutes after I called and spoke to Gary Mauseth one of Van Heerden's bosses at Polaris Applied Sciences who told me they are indeed under contract with BP. (Also the only 'answer' from UCJIC.)
~Thirdly~ In his nationally broadcasts Press Embed Saturday, Van Heerden said he's been on this job looking at the coast "the past 40 days". Not only is that before the oil actually reached the rookeries where it continues to kill, but he is pointing out that he has Not been unemployed since his contract with LSU expired in May (and for which he is currently, ironically, suing the university for "firing" him for speaking to the press!). And his speaking to the press is nowhere in his job description, either actually or literally as he attempts to proffer in his email reply.
And that is where I come in, to attack BP PR, whenever it rears its pustular, petulant head, manifested by their total censorship of the Press and thus how we view this crime.
Hence we fell upon this immediately to call it out, at first privately, nicely, then publicly, then more vociferously when he took to the airwaves again yesterday. I'm sorry but don't try to shovel me that you are only interested in "getting out the truth" while legally and definitively under contract with BP --who's PR/Ad/Lobby budgets dwarf the GNPs of all but the top 30 nations in the world. We cannot compete for survival with their messaging/branding resources --obviously!
It is Not a rhetorical question for me to ask Why and How Ivor van Heerden has such Press Access, while other contracted clean-up response workers do not?
Or to better q'wit:
"Who let this vandal take the handle on the Press?"
~Finally~ My hero dun'wrote me a Letter~I compiled the entire thread onto a page for space-sake.

Hi Ivor,
I would like to humbly submit that you really jumped the shark by doing BP PR Press Tours on NPR Saturday.
Please see my post about it today: http://noladder.blogspot.com/2010/06/ivor-van-heerden-works-for-bp-editilla.html

I personally don't have that much problem with you working for BP. Rest assured however that that defense did not fly at Nuremberg and it won't work now. "Just following orders" will not get it here. Working for them is bad enough, but it is what you said that is breaking my heart. I have defended you and your cause before some pretty mean adversaries. I have thrown my blog completely behind your quest to regain your job at LSU (which receives copious funding from BP btw)
It is the misinformation that you laid down on NPR that really bothers me. Tens of Miles? I suppose the Governor didn't take the same plane rides that you say you have the past 40 days with BP.
Of course, whatever you do discover while working for these bastards Will NOT Become Public. I am certain that is in your contract, if it is in the contract of mere clean-up workers to Not Speak To The Press.
So, why is renowned coastal wetlands scientist Ivor van Heerden speaking to the press for BP?
To say I am confused would put it mildly, to say I am disillusioned with the unbridled and total support I've given to your cause would be closer to the point, to say I find your statements repugnant would hit the nail on the head.

I refuse to believe (as an increasing number of people) that you lied on NPR as yet, despite photographic evidence to the contrary.
Please do not think that you have one single day longer to let this breech of veracity stand.
Please respond, if not to me then to Sandy Rosenthal and levees.org who have their own honor on the line here with others who support you. At least respond in public somehow.
But I am dying to know where you think the impacts of this oil crime have been, in your own words, "overstated".

Editilla~New Orleans Ladder
Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 3:02 PM

~~~To which, Ivor van Heerden replied thus:

Dear Editilla:

let me start by thanking you for your support over the years, something I have appreciated greatly. There seems to be some confusion out there as to my role in trying to ensure the BP oil spill impacts are scientifically and correctly dealt with.

As you are aware I don’t have a job and of course my family has had to make major changes to try to survive on our savings. Be that as it may when the spill occurred I looked around for what would be the best way I could serve the state and its inhabitants in bringing what expertise I could to the table. I could not be involved as a LSU professor, obviously. A company Polaris Applied Sciences, out of Seattle, that specializes in Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Techniques (SCAT) contacted myself and other Louisiana scientists to help out in determining the extent of oiling and its cleanup. Polaris specializes in responding to oils spills all over the world irrespective of who the culprit is. They were asked to come in and undertake SCAT surveys. They then reached out to some of us and a number of Louisiana scientists are involved, all as hourly workers. There are no benefits and no medical. -Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 9:37 PM (Follow at link.)

~My retart en route to what we have heah'ya today:
a fail'ya ta'comoonicate.

Dear Ivor,
thank you. I will place it well.
You should know I've never approached your need to support your family as everyone else in South Louisiana: for BP.
I work for a living too, Ivor, hell everyone I know does too. We just don't have the placement to go on a boat with a pack of journalists and contradict photographic evidence while under contract.
I have been consistent in this question.
It is the Press Tours, and Spokesperson role that disturbs me.
Your scientific work is completely separate from that or it is a lie. Or else why do it?
But in stating impact estimates you involve yourself in future litigation when stating that this oil impact was "overstated", when that will become very much the question in court per the Exxon Valdez settlements.
When I phoned one of your bosses about this yesterday, I got a call not 15 minutes later from Unified Command Public Affairs. Not 15 minutes.
Gary Mauseth was nice, and said he would get back. But it turned out to be a PR Flack from you-know-where.
Please peruse the Ladder. You are wrong to say that this oil impact has been "overstated". Because when I asked Unified Command how much oil how many miles to-date, the flack couldn't answer, and then got lost in how you are in Unified Command Structure.
Isn't this boring yet?
In the mean time you have access to the Press under contract with BP, where NoOne else has such access, and are in fact censored. Ill clean-up workers are not allowed to speak to the Press, anyone under contract with BP.
Even tourists are getting hassled for cell phone pics of the beaches.
I'd like to see you stop the Press Tours, and the BP/Whatever Spokesman on National News Media. That is the problem here. I can't see where that is part of your job description as a Coastal Scientists in the midst of this crisis. At best you are blindly playing into BP's Devil's bargain, and at worst... I don't even understand.
Press embeds with NPR the day after Pelicans were photographed in Blobs of Oil on that very Grand Terre Island the day before struck me as painfully ironic.
After the press left the oil kept coming in.
Queen Bess is in trouble.
That's all I'm saying. Why do you have to give them an opening?
Editilla
Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 11:50

So there it is in blackend white unvarnished truth.
All I have left to say is this... Hélas la Louisiane Sinn Féin!

Gulf Stories - Part 4 - Ivor van Heerden from TakePart on Vimeo

Exxon Valdez Lawyer: Louisianans, 'To Use A Legal Term,' Are 'Just F--ked'
~Sam Stein

Slicked and SLABBED – and just flat overwhelmed

Scientists challenge BP containment claims

Golden Jubilee! Today in BP Oil Disaster: Day 50 ~Gambit
~Chris Rose on BP: Beeched

LeveesOrg to speak at conference and lead tour
Sandy Rosenthal and Harry Shearer on Weather Channel!

New Orleans - It Aint For Everybody ~Deb Cotton