José James - Interview

Randy Weston

Morocco: Africa-Thelonious Monk Connection

 

Brooklyn native and jazz pianist Randy Weston did not only incorporate African music into his compositions but settled in Tangier, Morocco, where he operated his African Rhythms club for seven years. Below he talks to Marian McPartland on NPR about Monk and the Duke...

... about how he wanted to live in Africa. There's a bit in there about how he might have ended up in Nigeria, which he visited in '63-4, but there was the Biafra war going on. So he ended up going back to Morocco which was the last country he toured in '67.

Weston on the Africa-Thelonious Monk connection:

 My good friend, the bassist Ahmad Abdul-Malik's people were from the Sudan, and he played the oud, which has this thing of playing notes between the notes," Weston says. "I couldn't get that sound on the piano. But when I heard Thelonious Monk play, I heard this same magic on the piano; even his way of swinging had that same element."

 

 

 

Caketrain Issue 07. DEC 2009

 

 

The 2010 Caketrain Chapbook Competition is now open to entries in the fiction genre.

Deadline

October 1, 2010

Final Judge

Deb Olin Unferth, author of Minor Robberies and Vacation

Awards

publication, $250 cash prize, and 25 contributor copies to winner

publication and 25 contributor copies to runner-up

Eligibility

This competition is open to English language fiction manuscripts (both novellas and collections of shorter works are acceptable). While previously-published stand-alone pieces or excerpts may be included in a manuscript, the manuscript as a whole must be an unpublished work. Translations and previously self-published works are ineligible. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable; please note, however, that reading fees are non-refundable, and Caketrain is to be notified as soon as possible if a manuscript is accepted elsewhere. Manuscript revisions will not be considered during the reading period. Please do not include cover artwork or photographs with your submission. The author must not have a close personal or professional relationship with Deb Olin Unferth or any Caketrain Journal and Press staff member; if an author is unsure whether this policy applies to him or her, Caketrain will gladly address inquiries.

Reading Fee

Entrants may choose between two reading fee amounts: either $15 for consideration or $20 for consideration and a copy of the winning chapbook upon its release in May 2011. (The $20 option is available to domestic U.S. entrants only.)

Guidelines (for print submissions)

Print entries must be postmarked no later than October 1, 2010. Please submit 40 to 80 pages of typed fiction. Include page numbers, table of contents, and, if applicable, an acknowledgments page. Submissions should include two cover pages: one with the manuscript’s title, the other with the title, author’s name, postal address, and e-mail address. The author’s name should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript. Print manuscripts will be recycled at competition conclusion. Please submit manuscripts through the United States Postal Service. A reading fee of either $15 or $20 (entrant’s choice, as detailed above) must accompany each submission, made payable to Caketrain Journal and Press. Submissions may include an SASE for notification of competition results. Results will also be announced via e-mail and posted at www.caketrain.org in January 2011. Submit print entries to Caketrain Journal and Press, Box 82588, Pittsburgh, PA 15218.

Guidelines (for Electronic Submissions)

Electronic entries must be received no later than October 1, 2010. Please submit 40 to 80 pages of typed fiction as an e-mail attachment in either DOC, PDF, or RTF format. Include page numbers, table of contents, and, if applicable, an acknowledgments page. Submissions should include two cover pages as the first two pages of the attached document: one with the manuscript’s title, the other with the title, author’s name, address, and e-mail address. The author’s name should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript. Once the manuscript has been sent, the reading fee of either $15 or $20 (entrant’s choice, as detailed above) can be paid by credit card through Paypal by using the following links: $15 reading fee, $20 reading fee with copy of winner. A reply e-mail will be sent once the manuscript is downloaded and verified intact. Results will be announced via e-mail and posted at www.caketrain.org in January 2011. Submit electronic entries to caketrainjournal@hotmail.com.

Cord Blood Banking Contest

Funniest pregnancy story wins Free Cord Blood banking or $1000 cash!

Send us your funniest pregnancy story!
In 200 words or less tell us about a funny story that happened to a pregnant you, friend, or loved one for the chance to win free cord blood banking or $1000 cash!

Entries accepted between Monday June 7, 2010 at 12pm EST and Monday October 25, 2010 at 12pm EST.

The winner will be notified by email no later than Monday November 01, 2010

For more details about the contest please read the Terms and Conditions.

*Name: *Email: *Country: Please send me the newsletter Tell us your story: *Type the characters you see in the picture:

StoryTime: Weekly new fiction by African Writers.

Submission Guidelines:

We welcome all African Writers (writers born in Africa, or having domiciled in for over 10 years, and/or holding citizenship in an African country) to submit, in all fiction genres. The story must be an Original work, nothing that infringes the copyright of, or is derived from, another author's work of fiction, is overly lewd, hate speech, etc. You get the idea... StoryTime runs under a Creative Commons 3.0 (Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivativeWorks) License. Works submitted may be:

1) Short stories: 1500 - 8000 words.

2) Excerpts from Novels, novellas or novelettes: 1500 - 5000 words.

3)No - Simultaneous submissions or Multiple First time Submissions.

African Roar

For entry into the selection process for African Roar, StoryTime's annual book anthology please see 1 above and, no excerpts and/or previously published work will be selected. If your submissions is accepted it will first be published in StoryTime and then if selected, become only available in the anthology. All selections are made from eligible works published over one year from 31st August to 31st August.

Welcome to StoryTime!

Let the clatter of your keyboard echo across the world.

Mail all story submissions and inquiries to:

postonstorytime@gmail.com

StoryTime is a registered serial publication: ISSN 2072-9359.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rekindling Dreams: The Swenkas

Posted: May 7th, 2010 | Author: kamau | Filed under: books, fashion, film, globalization, magazine, migration, music, photography, poverty | 1 Comment »

Thanks to a post on Kate Bomz’ lovely tumblrlog I happily obliterated a recent Friday evening discovering the culture of the Swenkas of South Africa. Swenkas?:

The swenkas are a small group of Zulu working men which formed in South Africa following the abolishment of Apartheid.
These well-dressed men are proud and considered to serve as an inspiration to others. On Saturday nights, these men leave their work clothes behind and don highly fashionable quality suits to impress a judge, who is a randomly picked. Traditionally, the prize for the most stylish suit is cash, but on special occasions such as Christmas, the winner may receive a goat or a cow. This traditional fashion show still happens today, but it is unclear as to precisely when it was instigated. The men follow certain set values of Swanking, such as physical cleanliness, sobriety and above all self-respect.

It is not clear what the precise roots of the swenka culture are. There is the acapella Iscathamiya music, where the performers, inspired by African-American ragtime/jazz fashions took a sense of formality and elegance. Also like migrants everywhere else the workers needed to buy swanky outfits for their return home to show those they had left behind that they had made it in the big city, regardless of what the daily reality was (is) of life in the mines, the construction sites, and white homes where they worked. Regular competition seems to have raised it all into an art form and a subculture.

The three video clips below highlight the various threads that make up Swenka.

Mini-feature on the Zulu ISICATHAMIYA choir competitions in Johannesburg

“artsworld” feature on Iscathamiya choral and Swenka fashion competitions in Johannesburg

Trailer for 2004 documentary “The Swenkas” by Danish director Jeppe Ronde. Synopsis here

Screen shot from Vice magazine site featuring the Swenkas. © M. Shoul

See also: Vice magazine: Swanky Swenkas Snip from article from Adolphus Mbuyisa on swenking:

I am one of the organizers of the Joburg swenkas. I don’t know how many suits I own, maybe 20 or 30. If I see a suit I like, I simply must have it. I also have lots of shoes, ties, and shirts. It is important for everything to match if you want to win a competition.

….

I live in a room in Soweto. My family is very supportive of me and my clothes. They don’t mind that I spend so much money on suits—they are proud of me and they like it when I look smart.

Screen shot from designer Paul Smith’s web site

Speaking of Swankiness, See Also: Underscoring the power of the imagination in subcultures like the Swenkas and sapeurs, fashion designer Paul Smith has a new fashion line for spring/summer 2010 called “Mainline” influenced by Congo Brazzaville’s sapeurs:

See Also: Through all this I can’t help but think of Hugh Masekela’s song “Coal Train” (aka “Stimela”) about a train carrying men from the hinterlands of southern Africa (all of Africa these days?) who uproot themselves from their homes, lands and loves in the pursuit of dreams of wealth and comfort. The dreams that crash into the reality of migrant life and that are rekindled in Swenka fashion and Iscathamiya music/performance.

Hugh Masekela: “Coal Train Live”

We know Rwanda is the story that matters. Yet still we turn to Rooney

“… If the media covered America the way we cover Africa, here’s what we would know of the United States over the last decade. That in 2000 there were fiercely disputed elections in which the presidency was seized by the candidate who won fewer votes than his rival. That a year later, one of the country’s major cities was rocked by a devastating terror attack, costing thousands of lives. And that in 2005 another key city was submerged in record floods, destroying homes and leaving a thousand dead after the dominant tribe left the minority tribe to their fate. Surely we would speak of America as the dark continent, cursed to face constant suffering." — Jonathan Freedland > http://africasacountry.com/2010/06/30/the-problem-with-foreign-news/

_______________________________

 

Faced with depictions of horror abroad, the urge too often is to switch off. But perhaps these stories are not so foreign after all

• 
• • Jonathan Freedland
  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 29 June 2010 21.00 BST
  • Article history

If the media covered America the way we cover Africa, here's what we would know of the United States over the last decade. That in 2000 there were fiercely disputed elections in which the presidency was seized by the candidate who won fewer votes than his rival. That a year later, one of the country's major cities was rocked by a devastating terror attack, costing thousands of lives. And that in 2005 another key city was submerged in record floods, destroying homes and leaving a thousand dead after the dominant tribe left the minority tribe to their fate. Surely we would speak of America as the dark continent, cursed to face constant suffering.

Much as I would like to, I can't claim credit for that riff, which belongs to my Guardian colleague Joseph Harker, who aired it first in an essay on race and the media. But I have been thinking of it, not least because I was a judge for the One World Media awards which were handed out last week. That meant watching and listening to the work of a dozen broadcast journalists and nearly as many in print, all of whom had reported on the developing world. It was a punishingly hard task and not just for the usual reason, cited by all awards judges, that the standard was exceptionally high. It was hard because no matter how good the journalism – and much of it was exceptionally good – it was almost unwatchable. By which I mean it was unbearable to watch.

Of course that was partly my fault for consuming these reports the way no punter ever would – back-to-back, one after another. But after an hour or two spent seeing children in Kenya speaking of the hunger that drives them to sell their bodies to European sex tourists, paedophiles who pay £5 to violate a 10- or 11-year-old girl on a beach – or watching footage of mass graves filled with the corpses of civilians murdered in Sri Lanka's 2009 crushing of the Tamils, many of them the small, slight bodies of children – there is only so much you can take. When confronted with the sight of men in Papua New Guinea proudly telling how they tortured and killed those they suspected of witchcraft, or with the image of entire Haitian villages submerged by hurricane-caused floods – even before disaster struck again in this year's earthquake – the urge to look away can be almost overwhelming.

The temptation, especially among journalists, is to imagine this is their fault, that if only they made their stories more appealing then they would capture the viewer's or listener's attention. So they try their best to humanise their tale of woe, to replace statistics with an individual. The result can sometimes be achingly powerful: witness the BBC radio interview with a 14-year-old Zimbabwean boy forced to be sole carer for his dying, Aids-stricken mother. Too often, though, this becomes a mere technique in a numbingly repetitive formula: the TV despatch that begins with the crying African baby before cutting to the (usually white) UN expert. Such reports turn all too quickly into cliche, the stuff of Chris Morris parody, and once again the finger is twitching over the television remote.

Others say the problem is not one of form but of substance, that the western media depicts the people of the developing world as victims – whether of poverty, natural disaster, corruption or all three. This casts the people of those countries as perennially, even innately, passive – those to whom life happens. It also accentuates the negative in a way that, for all the press's attraction to bad news, does not happen when the west discusses itself: as Harker pointed out, we know more about America than Florida 2000, 9/11 and Katrina.

The temptation then is to head in the other direction, to highlight the positive. This was the thrust of Jonathan Dimbleby's recent TV series on Africa, showcasing entrepreneurial and creative success stories – replacing the starving child with the cement billionaire. That's welcome. I confess my heart leapt when I came across one entry to last week's award, a TV report on the effort to build in Timbuktu, Mali, a library of great, pre-colonial manuscripts. An item that was not only upbeat, but also emphasised Africa's intellectual heritage, provided a rare contrast.

Yet that cannot be the template for coverage of the developing world. That too would be condescending and would never pass muster for Europe or the US. If we cover scandal, disaster and disease in Germany and France, surely we must do the same in Somalia and Congo. The challenge, of course, is to provide the whole picture – good, bad and ugly.

But this challenge cannot fall on journalists alone. The best of the award submissions were about as good as they could be, and still I know the vast bulk of the audience would prefer to read or watch something else.

This is partly a problem of all foreign news. Our curiosity about those far away is finite. As one old-time US hack used to say, "Americans will do anything for Latin America except read about it." But, more deeply, there seems to be a limit to our capacity to absorb human suffering. We know terrible, heartbreaking things are going on all over the world; but to face them, for more than a fleeting glimpse, is more than we can take. This is true of both ends of the market: sure, Sun readers would prefer to read 10 pages on the World Cup than a single story about TB in Africa, but the Guardian's traffic figures suggest our own online readers are much the same.

What might make a difference? Of course, the objective reality could change, and coverage with it. Reporting of the developing world was different in the immediate post-colonial era, when the likes of Julius Nyerere or Kenneth Kaunda were making the weather on their continent. They were active, not passive; actors in their own drama. Too few of the developing world's leaders today meet that standard, whether compromised by corruption or client relationships with the west. Even so, the media does best when it sees the developing world the way it sees its own societies: not as a crude battle of victims against villains but as a subtle mix of conflicting, shifting political interests.

A second change might be too much to ask for, especially in these straitened times. It would help if the media's coverage of, say, Africa were more sustained: a steady supply of small, inside-page stories rather than the occasional special, produced by journalists who parachute in and then leave. Audiences can follow quite nuanced reporting on Israel-Palestine, for instance, because they have already had so much of it: they know the characters, can follow the twists and turns. It's a virtuous circle: the more coverage there is, the more interesting it becomes.

Perhaps more realistic is to insist these foreign stories are not so foreign. The eventual winner last week was Dan McDougall, who wrote three blistering reports for the Mail on Sunday, all focusing on the world's extractive industries. One showed the consequences of our ravenous appetite for lithium, the mineral used to power our iPods and BlackBerrys: those living around Chile's largest lithium mine are parched, as their water is either poisoned or diverted.

McDougall produced similarly eye-popping pieces on the Madagascan mines where the nickel for our coins comes from, and on the badlands of eastern Zimbabwe, where virtual slaves dig for diamonds, jewels that will eventually find their way here.

All these reports made the connection between apparently remote suffering and our own lives. This surely is the way to make the unwatchable watchable, to force us to look when we'd rather look away. The burden on the media, and everyone else, is to realise that all this pain is not only going on over there, in the developing world. We're involved – even here, in our world.

The Problem with Mainstream Media Coverage of Haiti

 

Mainstream media pieces about Haiti are like Swiss cheese, full of holes. This week NPR/Frontline featured a report from Haiti, "The Problem with Giving Free Food to Hungry People," about a rice vendor and the supply chain in reverse from her to the Port-au-Prince port where the rice is delivered from the U.S. The reporter points out that rice is very important in Haiti, as it is a part of every meal. That's an interesting way to put it, but why is it that Haiti is no longer self-sufficient in producing rice? Haiti is the fourth largest importer of American rice. This question is easily answered and was addressed this year in a session of Congress by former President Bill Clinton. Clinton apologized for the "free" trade policies that allowed the dumping of Arkansas and "Miami rice" subsidized by the U.S. government on the market, resulting in the loss of livelihood for over 300,000 small farmers.

"The Haitian peasantry, which not so long ago kept the country self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs, became inconvenient after Washington forced Haiti to accept U.S. government-subsidized rice. Port-au-Prince, a town of about a quarter million in 1960, swelled to at least 2.5 million as small rice farmers were forced off the land and into the shanty-opolis, where they built what they could with the resources at hand. U.S.-imposed “structural adjustment” made Port-au-Prince a high-density death trap.

Somehow, this U.S.-mandated migration – which also contributed to the exodus abroad of many hundreds of thousands – is now numbered among the many “failures” of the Haitian people."

Bill Clinton said that he thinks about this everyday, but Haiti cannot regain food security by cashing in on his remorse.

Speaking of the loss of livelihood for the small farmers in Haiti, the U.S. Census Bureau released estimates about Haiti's population on Monday. The Bureau expects "Haiti's population will continue to grow quickly despite the tremendous loss of life in the January earthquake. According to the report:

"Haiti's current population at 9.6 million, based on an estimated quake death toll of 230,000. It projects the country will recove...r and surpass its pre-quake population level by 2012. By 2050, the bureau says, Haiti will have 13.4 million people. The Dominican Republic, with a nearly identical population, is expected to keep up the same pace."

This might be seen as good news, but the Washington Post story goes on to say that: "By contrast the populations of now-similarly sized European countries like Sweden and Belarus are expected to decline over the same period."

Then the story gets interjected with an element of the aforementioned holes, when it states that: "Overcrowding is already blamed by aid workers and experts for many of Haiti's woes, from environmental degradation and hunger to the deaths of thousands crushed by stacked concrete homes during the earthquake."

Haiti is not over-populated... the city of Port-au-Prince is crowded, no doubt, but these census takers fail to mention that there are huge tracks of land which are uninhabited in Haiti. The reason the "ti paysans" moved from the countryside to the city are two-fold, and both have to do with policies implemented by the U.S. and forced on Haiti.

1) "Free trade" policies forced on Haiti that allowed the dumping of cheap, subsidized food from the U.S. into the Haiti market, destroying Haiti's self-sufficiency at food production.

2) The eradication of the Haitian black pig. Many believe this was done to force the independent, proud farmers (who had resisted being forced off their lands up to that point) to abandon their land and come into the city to work (for slave wages) in sweatshops--something the U.S. had been unable to do prior to the killing of the pigs and loss of the livelihood of the farmers.

USAID/U.S. Embassy and their directors in the democrat and republican parties and their co-conspirators in the rich Haitian oligarchy who run the sweatshops and other slave wage enterprises only have themselves to blame for the conditions that led to so many people crowding into the cities. For most the jobs they were promised never materialized and they ended up in the slums of Sité Soley, Bel Air, Martissant... etc.

The cheap subsidized rice replaced Haitian rice and now Haiti is the fourth largest importer of rice in the world, whereas in the past farmers in Haiti grew sufficient rice to feed the entire country. This loss of food security is traced by the experts directly to U.S. trade policies.

The good news is that an effort is being made to repopulate Haiti with "a new variety of pig with the same beneficial qualities as Haiti’s Creole pig.

As for the Haitian farmers, they are in a new battle for their survival with Monsanto "generous" donation of its pesticide covered hybrid seeds, which Monsanto says are not the Genetically Modified (GMO) seeds banned in Europe and other parts of the world, but are just as insidious in that they require sterile land that require specific expensive pesticides and fertilizer. And by the way, they are not good for replanting, so the farmers will have to go back to Monsanto to repurchase seeds.

 

About

The Writer
The Zen Haitian
Chantal Laurent

This blog is an attempt to document the struggles--past and present of Haitians living in Ayiti and in the Haitian diaspora. Haitians have a proud history that is often misunderstood and discounted. It is my hope to tell that story while shedding light on what is happening now.

Other topics often covered by this blog include politics, news, economics, culture and current events in America and the world.

It is important to have a counterpoint against the propaganda that often prevails in the mainstream media about Ayiti. Very often, what passes for "news" are outright lies and disinformation. In particular, the political coups undertaken by various groups in Ayiti, which are always represented in the mainstream media as "rebellions" and "unrest" are often supported with money, training and political maneuvering- by the West. The US, Canada and France have the power and support of the UN security council at their disposal. Voices that have raised concern about the West's illegal actions in Ayiti in the global south, have been ignored. No accountability. No investigation. No problem.

Why must Haitians continue to struggle for their freedom? Perhaps it is because Ayiti is viewed as an obstacle to hegemony and empire? Ayiti is an enduring symbol of freedom. Haitians were the first to rebel against the shackles of slavery. For their temerity, Haitians have made some very powerful enemies. Ayiti and its people have contributed enormously to world history and continues to be of great relevance to some very powerful interests. Ayiti is a unique and inspiring example of what the unconquerable spirit of a courageous people is capable of accomplishing against great odds. Ayiti's historic deed was to defeat the slave-holding countries of the world in the world's first ever successful slave rebellion.

Haitians have a saying; "Ayiti Cheri." It is a term of deep affection that many can only say from afar because many are now part of a diaspora that is spread worldwide. Those who say it are often exiled from their beloved island. Haitians who live abroad are in constant survival mode also--as evidenced by those who are reviled, murdered, virtually enslaved and discriminated against in the Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos islands, Bahamas and other often hostile environments abroad.

The lives of Haitians on the island and elsewhere are a desperate struggle for dignity, sovereignty/democracy, education, a decent standard of living and a good future. The sad truth is that many Haitians are living a nightmare.

The powerful interests mentioned above have a plan for Ayiti. I have three simple questions for them: Why is a real democracy in Ayiti a threat? What is your plan for Ayiti? Will more Haitians have to die to fulfill it?

NOTE: In order to avoid confusion over who the Haitian Blogger is I've removed biographical info about Ezili Danto, although I will be posting her writing with her permission.

Please visit Ezili Danto at her website ezilidanto.com for her original writings. Thanks!

BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales

hccreekkeeper | June 26, 2010

This was the most emotionally disturbing video I have ever done!
A flight over the BP Slick Source where I saw at least 100 Dolphins in the oil, some dying. I also photographed a Sperm Whale covered in oil all around it's blow hole.
Please spread this around the world. Send me any links to places it gets posted so I can follow. 
I want to piss off the world. Who will answer for these gentle creatures?

==========================================

BP Oil Spill Is Now The Largest Ever In Gulf

Gusher Passed 140 Million Gallon Mark, Eclipsing Record-Setting 1979 Ixtoc Oil Spill Off Mexican Coast

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• • 

    The shadow of a helicopter passes over oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in waters less than ten miles off the coast of Grand Isle, La., June 28, 2010.  (AP PHOTO)

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• Play CBS VideoVIDEOWeather Hinders Spill Clean Up

  Tropical storm force winds and heavy rain are severely hindering BP oil spill clean up efforts along the Gulf coast. Don Teague reports from South Padre Island, Texas.

• STORIES
• Huge Skimming Ship Headed for Gulf Oil Spill
• Alex Thwarts Skimming, Sends Tar Balls Ashore

(CBS/AP)  Updated 11:53 a.m. EDT 

The blown-out well that has been spewing oil for two and a half months has now sent some 140.6 million gallons of oil into the Gulf surpassing the 140 million gallons from a spill off the coast of Mexico in 1979 and 1980. Even by the lower end of the government's estimates, at least 71.2 million gallons are in the Gulf. 

The calculation is based on the higher end of the government's range of barrels leaked per day, minus the amount BP says it has collected from the blown-out well using two containment systems. 

The growing total is crucial to track, in part because London-based BP PLC is likely to be fined per gallon spilled, said Larry McKinney, director of Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi's Gulf of Mexico research institute. 

"It's an important number to know because it has an impact on restoration and recovery," McKinney said. 

The oil calculation is based on the higher end of the government's range of barrels leaked per day, minus the amount BP says it has collected from the blown-out well using two containment systems. Measuring it helps scientists figure out where the missing oil is, hidden below the water surface with some even stuck to the seafloor. Oil not at the surface damages different parts of the ecosystem. 

"It's a mind-boggling number any way you cut it," said Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University environmental studies professor who consults for the federal government on oil spills. "It'll be well beyond Ixtoc by the time it's finished." 

And passing Ixtoc just before the July Fourth weekend, a time of normally booming tourism, is bitter timing, he said. 

Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf 
Huge Skimming Ship Headed for Gulf Oil Spill 
Fears Over Slick Spread Along Coast 
Alex Halts Skimming, Sends Tar Balls Ashore 
Bad Weather Halts Spill Relief 
U.S. Accepts International Help with Spill 

The BP spill, which began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion killed 11 workers April 20, is also the largest spill ever recorded offshore during peacetime. 

But it's not the biggest in history. 

That happened when Iraqi forces opened valves at a terminal and dumped about 460 million gallons of oil in 1991 during the Persian Gulf war. 

As the Gulf gusher neared the record, Hurricane Alex whipped oil-filled waves onto the Gulf Coast's once-white beaches. The government has pinned its latest cleanup hopes on a huge new piece of equipment: the world's largest oil-skimming vessel, which arrived Wednesday. 

Officials hope the ship can scoop up to 21 million gallons of oil-fouled water a day. Dubbed the "A Whale," the Taiwanese-flagged former tanker spans the length of 3½ football fields and is 10 stories high. 

It just emerged from an extensive retrofitting to prepare it specifically for the Gulf. 

"It is absolutely gigantic. It's unbelievable," said Overton, who saw the ship last week in Norfolk, Va. 

The vessel looks like a typical tanker, but it takes in contaminated water through 12 vents on either side of the bow. The oil is then supposed to be separated from the water and transferred to another vessel. The water is channeled back into the sea. 

But the ship's never been tested, and many questions remain about how it will operate. For instance, the seawater retains trace amounts of oil, even after getting filtered, so the Environmental Protection Agency will have to sign off on allowing the treated water back into the Gulf. 

"This is a no-brainer," Overton said. "You're bringing in really dirty, oily water and you're putting back much cleaner water." 

The Coast Guard will have the final say in whether the vessel can operate in the Gulf. The owner, shipping firm TMT Group, will have to come to separate terms with BP, which is paying for the cleanup. 

"I don't know whether it's going to work or not, but it certainly needs to be given the opportunity," Overton said. 

Meanwhile along parts of the Gulf, red flags snapped in strong gusts, warning people to stay out of the water, and long stretches of beach were stained brown from tar balls and crude oil that had been pushed as far as 60 yards from the water. 

Hurricane Alex churned up rough seas as it plowed across the Gulf, dealing a tough setback to cleanup operations. It made landfall along a relatively unpopulated stretch of coast in Mexico's northern Tamaulipas state late Wednesday, spawning tornadoes in nearby Texas and forcing evacuations in both countries. Alex weakened to a tropical storm Thursday morning as it moved across Mexico. 

CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports that winds from Alex were too strong Wednesday for BP to spray dispersants, meaning that for the course of the storm, new oil pouring from the well and heading to shore will be thick crude. 

Alex is far from the spill, but cleanup vessels were sidelined by the hurricane's ripple effects. And huge waves churned up by the hurricane continued to splatter Gulf coast beaches oil and tar balls Thursday 

There were plenty of those tar balls on Grand Isle Beach - and not wasn't a cleanup worker in sight 

"They're not as tough as we are that's why," said resident Leoda Bladsacker, who was cleaning the beach herself. "We'd be out here cleaning up ad they have to run from the weather." 

BP critics are furious. The compnay's cookie-cutter oil cleanup and containment plan from before the spill never even took hurricanes into account, Strassmann reports. And forecasters predict this year's hurricane season will be very active. 

Oil deposits appeared worse than in past days and local officials feared the temporary halt to skimming operations near the coast would only make matters worse ahead of the holiday weekend. 

"I'm real worried about what is going to happen with those boats not running. It can't help," said Tony Kennon, mayor of Orange Beach, Ala. 

Although skimming operations and the laying of oil-corralling booms were halted across the Gulf, vessels that collect and burn oil and gas at the site of the explosion were still operating. Efforts to drill relief wells that experts hope will stop the leak also continued unabated. 

In Florida, lumps of tar the size of dinner plates filled a large swath of beach east of Pensacola after rough waves tossed the mess onto shore. 

Streaks of the rust-red oil could be seen in the waves off Pensacola Beach as cleanup crews worked in the rough weather to prepare the beach for the holiday weekend. 

In Grand Isle, La., heavy bands of rain pounded down, keeping cleanup crews off the water and tossing carefully laid boom around. However, oil had stayed out of the passes. 

"All this wave action is breaking up the oil very quickly," Coast Guard Cmdr. Randal S. Ogrydziak said. "Mother Nature is doing what she does best, putting things back in order." 

Natural microbes in the water were also working on the spill. The result was a white substance that looked like mayonnaise, that washed up on some spots along the Grand Isle beach. 

"People will be fishing here again," Ogrydziak said. "It may take a while, but people may be surprised that it's not taking as long as they thought. Look at the (Ixtoc) oil spill in Mexico. It was massive and now people are back to using those waters." 

>via: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/01/national/main6636406.shtml?tag=nl.e875