A while back, the shebeen discussed the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a group of activists fighting a huge plastic plant proposed for a poverty-stricken, environmentally lethal slice of that state called St. James Parish. From the Washington Post:
Then the local landmarks began to disappear. Woodrow’s grocery closed down. The St. James sugar co-op ground to a halt. The cleaners and post office shut their doors for lack of business. Heavy manufacturing moved in. Duck’s Grocery sold out to a rail car and crude-oil storage facility. The high school football field was overrun by subsidiaries of a Chinese company and the Koch family’s corporate empire, which teamed up to build a huge petrochemical plant. Buena Vista Baptist Church now worships a couple thousand feet from a methanol plant and asphalt depot.
The LBB is fighting against Formosa Plastics, a Taiwanese corporation that wants to drop a $9.4 billion mega-plant into this same small place. Anyway, the Brigade tipped us to a ProPublica story about another small place in Louisiana and how a large corporation is trying to bully the town out of its own history.
Edwards’ report detailed how a proposed $400 million grain elevator, almost the height of the Statue of Liberty, would disrupt sites that are both sacred and dedicated to educating people about slavery and its aftermath. These included homes in the 750-person community of Wallace, an African American cemetery and the nearby Whitney Plantation Museum, which serves as a...
A study suggests a form of Munchausen syndrome by proxy may be driving some owners to invent symptoms or deliberately harm their animals Cat and dog owners making false claims that their animals ar...