Love the Gulf
May 26th, 2010
In the weeks since the Deepwater Horizon explosion, I’ve had amazing conversations–in real life, by email, on blog posts, on Twitter. In my worry, anger, confusion, sorrow, desperation, and celebration of the places I love, I have been so heartened to know that the Gulf of Mexico means so much to so many people.
Certainly it matters to the people who live near and work in its waters every day. They are grieving an end to way of life the Gulf represents as much as the environmental and economic devastation created by the disaster. Not that there’s one way to live a Gulf Coast life–the Gulf is crucial to the health of five states, many industries and towns ranging from New Orleans to Sopchoppy, Florida. Not that we know yet what the total sum of the damage will be.
The Gulf matters to countless others, too, who have taken refuge on vacations here, who have amazing memories of magical places like St. George Island, Cedar Key, the Gulf Island National Seashore. And those who care about the dolphins, turtles and birds of the Gulf. Who care about the industries that drive the economic health of several states and the hard-working families who make them viable. Those who know that the gushing oil in the Gulf has hurt the entire world and who just care that this wreckless, preventable disaster happened.
Some of these conversations sparked an idea to provide a way for bloggers to link posts about the Gulf in one place. There is power and resonance to our voices when they are gathered. Perhaps you’ve already written about the Gulf; perhaps you have more to say. Perhaps you need to celebrate its stunning and diverse beauty, commemorate its place in your heart and life, write a requiem, or pound out a rant. Do you have photos and thoughts?
We want to gather them up like shells found on a long walk at sunset and line them on the porch railing.
We want to use them to raise awareness to keep the Gulf on everyone’s mind, this Memorial Day weekend, and beyond.
Here’s what you can do to join the Love the Gulf Blog Carnival:
- post your link using the widget here or at the blogs of hosts Caroline at Morningside Mom and Maria at Mommy Melee
- grab a badge to use in your post or your blog
- consider helping if you can with a donation through organizations such as EarthShare, Network for Good, or Oxfam
- spread the word about the Love the Gulf carnival and the posts you read
- go to the beach, to the mountains, to the places you love, with the people you love. Now. Truly, everything is so very precious.
Love the Gulf Blog Carnival
Grab a Love the Gulf badge
designed by Maria at Mommy Melee
May 27th, 2010 at 7:03 am
Thank you so much for organizing this, Deb. You are awesome.
May 27th, 2010 at 7:50 am
Such a grand idea, Deb. You are, indeed, awesome.
May 27th, 2010 at 8:24 am
love me…love my gulf.
thank you for doing this & thank you for including me.
May 27th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Posted, Linked, Badge added, and twittered, etc….
May 27th, 2010 at 9:47 am
Great idea. Added my link.
May 27th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
I think this is a wonderful idea. Sometimes wonderful things are born out of horrific situations. May we use this time to re-evaluate our lifestyles and make more conscious decisions in our everyday lives about the energy we use and the companies and practices we support.
I look forward to many inspired minds sharing their thoughts about this beautiful area, the disasters that have recently occured and most importantly what I would really love to hear is…. what the hell it’s going to take for us to stop the havoc we are causing on our beautiful earth.
Thanks Deb!
May 27th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
I wrote a post about this morning about the spill. I’ve lived on the Texas Gulf coast my whole life and my heart is aching. Every time I think of the men on the rig that didn’t survive, the ones that tried to stop the damage I have to wipe tears from my eyes. I feel like the Earth is bleeding and they aren’t stopping the flow of blood.
May 27th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
I did a photo post a few days ago, I have yet to write up a real post about it though. Its taking me time to pick through my emotions over this.
May 27th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
[...] The project is called Love the Gulf. [...]
May 27th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
This is an AMAZING idea, thanks to all of you. I have so many photos, so many not scanned in though and in boxes. I grabbed what I had and threw a post together. And cried.
May 27th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Proud to add my post to this collection.
May 27th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
[...] [...]
May 28th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Thank you for this. You and Maria and Megan and the others tell these sad, angering stories with such beauty, though.
May 28th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
This is a great idea. At this particular point in time I’m torn between anger and sadness. I appreciate that you are letting everyone share.
May 29th, 2010 at 7:33 am
I’m in.
May 29th, 2010 at 8:08 am
Dear Bloggers, I hope to meet you all one day, face to face, right up close to thank you for all that you do to help shake things up a bit in the world of media. If I had to rely on the mainstream for the stories of the heart, I’d turn up largely empty handed like having rummaged through a stack of Golf Digest magazines in the dentist’s office. Ever hopeful but consistently finding that the life has been sucked out and safely stored away elsewhere.
Instead, we have you.
I’m not the blogger in the family and chances are I won’t ever meet you because unlike my precious, Deb, I don’t favor conferences and the like. Still, I truly appreciate you all and want to encourage you to write, write, write. Tell these stories so that anyone who ever thought for a moment about listening. Will.
May 29th, 2010 at 9:26 am
I am heartsick that an entire culinary way of life is threatened, could be a thing of the past. And more so that generations of shrimp and oyster fishermen’s livelihood, may go up in smoke. As a resident of a gulf coast state, I can barely watch the news without feeling the need to hurl. Thanks for this post and the suggestions for where-to-donate.
May 29th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
THANK YOU SO MUCH. I am writing a paper on real people’s reactions to the situaltion in the Gulf and this is the perfect resource for me. Thank you!
May 30th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Thanks you so much for hosting this.
May 30th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
What an awesome way to use the power of the blogosphere.
May 31st, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Thank you for creating this community! I think that there is great power in knowing that there are so many other dedicated, articulate, and passionate people out there who love the Gulf!
June 2nd, 2010 at 11:16 am
I haven’t been able to compose a post yet – my anger, my fears, my sadness – my words are failing me. I also had hopes that by the time I typed it, the well would be plugged. I’m still hopeful, but my optimism is begining to falter.
Badge going up.
June 2nd, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Deb, I love this movement and even though I missed the official weekend carnival, I joined in today because the “awareness, action and hope” needs to continue for longer than we want it to.
Thinking of you and your Gulf…
Lee
June 2nd, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Added the button to my site. Thinking of everyone, and everything, affected by this monumental disaster.
June 2nd, 2010 at 3:21 pm
[...] read the story and the ad, and thought about the e-mail Deb Rox sent me last week asking me to write a love letter to the Gulf and link up to a blog carnival [...]
June 2nd, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Thanks so much for this. Many of us are so saddened by what is going on. So much to lose, it is just scary.
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:57 pm
I am bracing myself for when the oil reaches Clearwater Beach
The corporatization of the the world is destroying us.
Remember IxToc and the Bay of Campichee spill into the Gulf in 1979 – 1980? The responsibile party was Pemex, they spent over $100 million on the capping and cleanup operations, but dodged most compensation claims by asserting sovereign immunity against U.S. courts. BP is a foreign Corporation…will history repeat itself???
June 3rd, 2010 at 11:42 am
Thanks for putting this together. This is absolutely terrifying, that this is happening.
June 5th, 2010 at 9:09 am
[...] are so many sensible, compassionate thoughts on this issue currently in circulation online and cap or no cap, it’s still going to take [...]
June 6th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
[...] Thanks to my friend Country-Fried Mama for telling me about the online “Love the Gulf” effort. Post your own Gulf memories through Deb on the Rocks. [...]
June 8th, 2010 at 8:52 am
There are so many beings, humans and otherwise, the big and the small, affected by this catastrophe, and the consequences of it years from now are unknown. I am heartbroken.
June 8th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
[...] [...]
June 9th, 2010 at 7:25 am
Got the bagde, will write something for it later.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:24 am
Put the badge on my blog, will be writing a post about it in the coming week.
June 13th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
check out our facebook page. join and share your thoughts, photos and links. Thanks
I have my badge on the page!
June 14th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
The badge will go on the very top of my blog. My thoughts are with all of you.
June 20th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
I am a Gulf Stream and an ocean away from all of you, but my heart bleeds for your pain and my mind knows that nothing will stop this thing reaching across the ocean to impact the entire continent of Europe and perhaps the world as well. Good luck with the work you are all doing and may god shine the light of his love on all!!!
June 25th, 2010 at 4:15 am
I love that you’re doing this. I put the badge on my blog, and I plan on linking up next week.
I’m a Gainesville, Florida blogger.
June 26th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Thank you Deb!
June 28th, 2010 at 2:34 am
Thanks Deb for inspiring all of us.
I *finally* got around to getting my post up. (Dr’s Excuse, I promise!)
We need to meet up for lunch soon. xo
June 28th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
I live about 2 miles from the “Beach of Clearwater” and everyone here is in wait for the oil and the scare of the ‘Gas Bubble’ letting go… it’s so upsetting to us all what the future of the Gulf may be? So many lives hurt from the “dirty oil need” of the human race. We need “Clean Energy” and we need it now!
I’ve posted this very important button on my blog.. thank you
Sandy
thewondersofdoing@blogspot.com
June 28th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
This breaks my heart because I’ve lived on the ocean here in Canada all my life.
I can remember the one year I lived away from the ocean — I was in the Yukon, three hours of some pretty hairy driving away from the ocean. I remember my heart going through the floor the first time I got a whiff of that saltwater after all that time away.
And they can’t do that on the Gulf now.
They smell oil and flame, or that’s what I imagine they smell, and it saddens me. It breaks my goddamned heart.
I can’t fathom that happening here. And to know my beautiful Canadian Rocky Mountains had just given British Petroleum permission to drill right before the Deepwater Horizon well blew… that just scares the crap out of me.
Keep fighting the fight, South.
—-
My posting was this:
http://cuntinglinguist.com/2010/06/an-open-letter-to-our-planet.html
June 28th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Went on a rant today about money being the root of all evil. Valuable lesson to teach my son. Too bad it comes at such a cost. Just stumbled onto this tonight and more than happy to link up.
June 29th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
I have been working on my Gulf blog post in my mind for about a week now, but haven’t started typing it. Our family has been going to Gulf Shores for about 20 years now and my parents live there now. So many people are broken-hearted and now will be without jobs, which doesn’t help the already horrid economy! Thanks for doing this!!!
July 3rd, 2010 at 10:23 am
Grew up going to St. Pete every summer, now we love taking our boys to Pensacola.
I don’t really do many buttons/badges on my blog, but I’m putting this one where everyone can see!
Thank you for caring.
July 5th, 2010 at 11:53 am
BP merits to hold for the reason this incident. They have got decimated the Gulf of Mexico.
July 6th, 2010 at 6:10 am
thank you for this great work
July 26th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
I’m so happy to see this. I grew up on the MS Gulf Coast and still hold it near and dear to my heart. I was so saddened when I heard of the rig explosion, and angered when I heard of the devastation to follow. At least now I can feel like I’m taking part in an effort to spread the word online. Thank you for that.
August 30th, 2010 at 3:14 am
Привет ! Дизайн вашего блога не очень. Я специально для вас закачала кучи шаблонов для вашего блога там и фото их есть
Пользуйтесь ! Всегда рада !
narod.ru/disk/24227525000/WordPress.rar.html
Не надо благодарностей.