Tonight, I hope you can join me and the talented folks at DTE for a very special showing of Marc Gauthier’s documentary Gulf Coast Blues - Oil In Our Veins at the Garland Theatre which kicks off the Sustainable September Film Festival.


Photo by Matthew White.

If you attended the premier at the Magic Lantern, you were either sad, angry, proud of Gauthier, inspired to look for solutions or if you're like me, it was a combination of all these feelings. This truly is a great film with raw footage of the damaged eco-systems previously unseen, apathetic clean-up personnel and more that is hard to get out of your mind.

Out of work in Spokane after the close of Natural Start Bakery and not content to helplessly sit on the sidelines, Gauthier traveled to Grand Isle, Louisiana when the news broke of the Deepwater Horizon Spill to find the real story. With no connections and on a shoestring budget, he hit the road, driving through middle America as the magnitude of the spill had yet to sink in. Along the way, he talked to a fresh-faced good ol’ boy with no qualms about the spill since God plans, well, everything and shots of wind turbines showing a clean, bright energy future. America is on display. He arrives in Grand Isle with his kayak and paddles to restricted areas the Coast Guard does not want us to see. Each day, it gets worse until things fall apart. First, an oil sheen. Closed beach. Posturing politicians and Coast Guard employees more concerned with finishing their beer. He tries to help but is turned away. He speaks at a press conference about the pelicans, a turtle, and a dolphin coated in oil, washed up dead on the shore where sands bubble with goop under the Louisiana sun. The community is devastated. Searching for answers, Gauthier became so nauseous from the toxic fumes, he proceeded to vomit, his urine turning orange. “I can’t put that stuff out of my head. I feel like a war veteran, as if I served a tour of duty. All these emotions of leaving friends behind, the dead fauna, the idea that those estuaries are dying, all of it is in my head, ” he told Paul Haeder in the story “Battle Fatigue” from Dispatches From Disaster. (Check his excellent review HERE.)

He begins the film with a definition of addiction which is the narrative thread here. “We in the lucky countries of the West now regard our two-century bubble of freedom and affluence as normal and inevitable; it has even been called the ‘end’ of history, in both a temporal and teleological sense,” wrote Ronald Wright in “A Short History of Progress.” “Yet this new order is an anomaly: the opposite of what usually happens as civilizations grow. Our age was bankrolled by the seizing of half the planet, extended by taking over most of the remaining half, and has been sustained by spending down new forms of natural capital, especially fossil fuels. In the New World, the West hit the biggest bonanza of all time. And there won’t be another like it…”  It’s no easy task to get people to believe the truth. We live in a time when the truth does not win out on its own; it must have champions. Gauthier is one of those champions.

What’s in your water? The University Of Idaho is leading the way for sustainability in education. Now, they’re offering a water quality training so folks can start monitoring across northern Idaho. Given the region’s mining history and clean-up challenges, this is very necessary. Those interested in becoming Master Water Stewards are urged to attend an informational meeting Wednesday, Sept. 15, 6:30 p.m., at the University of Idaho Coeur d’Alene, 1031 North Academic Way. “We’re using a format similar to the Master Gardeners to educate watershed groups and other citizens who seek proficiency and certification as water quality monitors,” said Ashley McFarland, Extension educator for Benewah County who spearheaded development of the Idaho program. “We also hope to target K-12 educators, 4-H leaders and other adult volunteers that work with youth so that the next generation understands their role in maintaining watershed health.” Courses scheduled to certify volunteers will take place in the classroom, the laboratory and the field on the evenings of Sept. 28, 29 and 30. Master Water Steward training was developed in response to input from over 100 County Commissioners across the state – many of whom listed water quality as a priority, said McFarland. Each individual wishing to become certified must attend a workshop for $25. This fee helps offset the cost of training, meals and snacks. The informational meeting Sept. 15 is free of charge. Contact McFarland, the University of Idaho Extension Educator, (208) 215-0407, amcfarland@uidaho.edu .

Feeling corny? Local favorite The Elk is famous for its delicious side dish, corn pasta. Tom Phillpott from Grist has taken some flack for being an “anti-corn elitist” although his criticism was aimed at people pumping it in monocrops for meat and car-fuel factories. So he responds in hilarious and, for me, informative fashion: Sharing his corn pasta recipe. The dude is pro-corn. Full story HERE.


Fixing Puget Sound. As somebody who grew up in the area and loved to swim, fish, and dig Daniel Jack Chasan’s latest column at Crosscut is a wake-up call. In 2007, Gov. Gregoire convened the Puget Sound Partnership with the objective of making it safer for those activities by 2020 but the group that's supposed to fix Puget Sound is broken, he writes. Her support was nothing more than a Sound bite and the beautiful body of water needs better “eco-monitoring and new land-use patterns. And that will require the hardest change of all: cultural change.” Full story HERE.

Drama. Yeah, I feel guilty about posting this but when a film about the trapped Chilean miners is released, it might be HBO that comes running for the rights with an entertaining twist:

One of the trapped Chilean miners is going to have some explaining to do after his wife ran into his mistress at the mine's entrance.

Britain's Sun newspaper reports the wife of Yonni Barrios was stunned and upset to find his girlfriend also conducting a vigil for him.
　
It’s going to be a long four months. Full story HERE.

"I really love my bike commute." Thanks to Rachel for the beautiful pics over at Cycling Spokane. Fun bike project: Send in your bike commute pics to jamespauldillon@gmail.com and I'll post on DTE.

 

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