By Glynn Wilson – After protests turned violent in North Dokota with a private company using pepper spray and attack dogs on Native Americans, the Obama administration intervened on Friday and blocked the construction of an oil pipeline on federal land. The prospect of a $3.7 billion pipeline crossing four states bordering on native lands…
Will the City Government Side With the People or Industry? By Joe Womack – The “okey-doke,” as defined by Urban Dictionary and Africatown folklore means to pull the wool over your opposition’s eyes, to outsmart your opposition, to say one thing and mean another or to gain the upper hand by using trickery. President George…
By Glynn Wilson – MOBIlE, Ala. – While the national news is rife with stories about the death of the Keystone XL Pipeline out west, the ongoing climate talks in Paris and the low price of oil internationally, a local petroleum industry front group and the politicians and media they are trying to buy seem…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – After a couple years trudging through the weeds and thickets of laws, regulations, technical standards, hazard assessments, health effects, economic impacts and other consequences of petroleum storage tanks, Mobile has arrived at nearly the same place it began this trek. On June 11 a three-member subcommittee presented its…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – The tank farms became a hot potato, singeing any official who touched them. Residents near sites for new or expanding tank farms fired complaints at the city’s planning commission, which readily tossed the heated hassle to the city council. A majority poised to pass a moratorium on construction…
Will the City Government Side With the People or Industry? By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — The citizens of Mobile, especially those in the historic Africatown community along with members of the Mobile Bay Sierra Club, have held public meetings and spoken up: They do not want the Mobile Planning Commission and the City…
Africatown News – By Joe Womack – On December 16, 2014 the Africatown Community attended a meeting hosted by The Yorktown Baptist Church to voice their opposition to local industries attempt to re-zone a section of Africatown just North of The Community Gardens from residential to industrial. More than 150 Africatown residents, supporters and friends…
Planning Commission Denies Rezoning By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — More than 140 residents of Africatown turned out at a town hall public meeting Tuesday night to oppose an industrial rezoning that would open the way for a steel storage warehouse right across the street from a proposed tar sands crude oil tank city…
Africatown News – By Joe Womack – The historical value of Africatown’s Hog Bayou was carved in stone long before the Oil Barons of the world discovered Africatown’s valuable wetlands. Africatown’s Hog Bayou will forever be known as the place in Mobile where the “African” slaves taught the “American” slaves how to feed themselves and…
Africatown News – By Joe Womack – A Renaissance is unfolding surrounding the Africatown Community here in Mobile County Alabama. The Africatown Community received a visit from a member of the Council for The Preservation of National Historical Treasures located in Washington,D.C. to determine dangers posed to Africatown by decisions made by businessmen and politicians.…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Remember those photos from Pakistan several years ago? Squadrons of unruly lawyers in suits and ties, some with flowing wigs left over from British imperial days, wielding brief cases like cudgels in the streets to protest an insult to themselves and the constitution by autocratic rulers? Now picture…
