Louisiana Voice

Earlier this week we sat down with best selling author John Barry, former vice president of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority, to discuss the authority’s litigation against 97 oil and gas companies. Because of the importance of the pending litigation and the opposition of the Jindal administration to efforts to hold the oil companies responsible for the damage done to the Louisiana coastline, this story is being posted simultaneously by CenLamar, Something Like the Truth, LouisianaVoice and Forward-Now.

He glances down at the cellphone lying on the tabletop in the State Capitol restaurant and says almost apologetically, “I never had one of these until two years ago.” He laughs at his own reluctance to accept modern technology. “When I got it, somebody sent me a message welcoming me to the 20^th century. Not the 21^st, but the 20^th.”

That is the first impression one gets of John M. Barry, the soft-spoken point man in the ongoing lawsuit by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (SELFPAE) against 97 oil and gas companies over the destruction of the state’s coastal wetlands.

He speaks in a voice so low that we were forced to move to another table, away from the television that had been directly above us and which kept churning out obnoxious lawyer ads, an irony not lost on the restaurant’s only two customers.

Barry, a gifted researcher and writer is author of several bestselling books, among them 2005’s The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, which was named the year’s outstanding book on science or medicine, and his stark 1998 chronicle Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America. Rising Tide won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians for the year’s best book of American history. It was also named as one of nine pieces of literature essential to understanding America by GQ.

He owns a home in Washington, D.C. and when asked if he is originally from that area, he confides that he was born in Rhode Island but also owns a home in New Orleans. Then he dropped a small biographical bombshell: one of his first jobs was as an assistant football coach at Tulane University. “I was on the coaching staff of the 1973 team that beat LSU (14-0) for the first time in 25 years,” he said with a trace of understandable pride. The first money he ever earned from writing, in fact, was from a story he sold to a coaching magazine about ways to change blocking assignments at the line of scrimmage. Sports Illustrated in 2006 chose one of his stories about football for an anthology of the best football writing of all time.

Four decades removed from that historic game, Barry is on another history-making quest: that of convincing an oil-friendly state legislature to help make big oil repair the damage done to Louisiana’s fast-eroding coastline and marshlands.

Lest one think he was originally chosen to serve on SELFPAE because of his celebrity status, it should be known that following Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana congressional delegation asked him to chair a bipartisan working group on flood protection and he sits on advisory boards at MIT’s Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals as well as the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and on the board of the Society of American Historians and American Heritage Rivers. He has been a keynote speaker at a White House Conference on the Mississippi Delta and is co-founder of the $100 million Riversphere in New Orleans, the first facility in the world dedicated to comprehensive river research.

“I don’t get paid for what I’m doing now,” he said. “I spend most of my time on the road talking to newspaper editors and legislators, making my case for the lawsuit. I’m living off my savings. I still get royalties from the books, but it isn’t enough to live on.” He chuckles at a suggested comparison to Don Quixote and then continues. “I’m meeting with every individual legislator who will listen.” He is attempting to convince lawmakers not to intervene and terminate the litigation.

Those meetings pit him against Gov. Bobby Jindal and Jindal’s hand-picked front man Garret Graves—at least until Feb. 17 when Graves will step down as Chairman of the Coastal Restoration Authority, to be succeeded by Jerome Zeringue, former Terrebonne Parish levee authority director. There is some speculation that Graves will seek the 6^th District congressional seat being vacated by Rep. William Cassidy, who is running against incumbent Mary Landrieu for the U.S. Senate.

Despite Jindal’s opposition to the lawsuit and his decision not to reappoint him to the authority, Barry refuses to disparage the governor “I’ve known him since before he ever ran for office. I don’t agree with him on the issue of the litigation but on balance, he’s been a good governor,” he said. “He could be a great governor if he would get the oil companies to take responsibility for the damage they’ve done to our coastline. The lawsuit isn’t the problem. The problem is the loss of our coast land.

“It’s not my suit anymore,” he is quick to add, pointing out that he no longer serves on the authority. But that is not to say he doesn’t have a keen interest in the litigation. Because of his ongoing interest, he has formed an organization called Restore Louisiana to fight attempts by the oil industry to either get the lawsuit declared groundless, illegal or unconstitutional or to resist any movement by the legislature to intervene to stop the lawsuit.

Barry said a 2006 study by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) revealed that 76 percent of the land loss was caused by the oil industry. “The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Louisiana has the lowest enforcement rate in the nation,” he said, adding that DNR has looked the other way too many times when big oil’s interests conflicted with that of Louisiana’s citizens.

Barry said the difference between his fight and that of fictional character Don Quixote is that “everyone knows we are right. Our polls show that 70 percent of the people feel that the oil companies are the problem because they have not lived up to their promises to clean up their messes,” he said. “Garrett (Graves) said the authority’s job is to protect the levees. He said he has $18 billion for coastal restoration but $14 billion of that has been spent on the levees so there is no $18 billion going forward.

“Gambit magazine of New Orleans said I had a lot of courage but what I’m doing doesn’t require courage,” he said. What can they do to me?” At the same time, however, he acknowledged that there has been considerable political pressure on authority members who support the litigation. “Steve Estopinal, an engineer, has had his job threatened and Paul Kemp had to change jobs.

“I’m on the road a lot and that’s not been easy. I don’t like being away from my family but my motivation is simple: I want the Louisiana coast to survive. That’s why I’m on the road 10 hours per day.”

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The death of anti-war activist singer Pete Seeger at age 94 on Monday stirred a lot of memories among people of my generation. We bridged the gap between liking Ike and agonizing over a war in a little Asian country called Vietnam that few could locate on a map but which nonetheless drained this country of its innocence, its financial resources and worst of all, some 58,000 of her young men.

If the loss of 58,000 lives in the jungles of that country was tragic, the damage done to the psyche of the survivors who returned to an ungrateful country was worse by far. Veterans were spat upon, accused of killing babies, and even worse, denied medical and disability benefits by the Veterans Administration, a despicable act of neglect that forced thousands of our veterans into homelessness. Some thanks.

For one of the best histories of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, please read Bob Mann’s superb book A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam. It is without question the most definitive history of our most foolish, wasteful and unjust war ever written, beginning with the Truman administration and bringing us forward through Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford.

One thing that horrible war did give us, though, was some of the finest anti-war songs ever recorded, songs that our political leaders should take the time to listen to again and again whenever they consider sacrificing the lives of our young people by involving us in yet another senseless war for the benefit of the military-industrial complex about which President Eisenhower warned us as he left office more than half-a-century ago.

Seeger’s group, The Weavers, had a monster hit of Goodnight Irene, written by Shreveport’s Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly. Like him or loathe him, Seeger was at the forefront of war protest music with three of his biggest songs that became hits for other artists: Peter, Paul and Mary’s If I had a Hammer (Trini Lopez’s version doesn’t even register), the Byrds’ Turn! Turn! Turn! The third, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? was recorded by many artists, including the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, Johnny Rivers and Joan Baez, among others. His We Shall Overcome was not a song made famous by any one artist or group but instead was the anthem of the civil rights movement.

It was only appropriate that a host of up and coming performers would follow in Seeger’s activist footsteps in waging their campaigns against war and injustice with their music, whether classified as folk, protest or rock. Even blues singer John Lee Hooker got in on the movement with I Don’t Want to Go to Vietnam.

Bob Dylan is probably the elder statesman of the protest movement now that Seeger is gone. His songs Blowin’ in the Wind (also recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary) and The Times, they Are A-Changing define the protest songs of the 60s and 70s.

Arlo Guthrie, son of folk icon Woody Guthrie recorded Alice’s Restaurant in 1967 as an instruction manual on how to avoid the military draft and in the process, an expense paid trip to Vietnam (the secret was to get an arrest record, even for such a trifling offense as littering).

For pure, hard-driving rock ‘n’ roll protest songs, Creedence Clearwater Revival has to be considered the cream of the crop with Fortunate Son, Running through the Jungle and Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

The angriest war protest song of the entire Vietnam era was probably Barry McGuire’s Eve of Destruction and the most poignant had to be One Tin Soldier by The Original Caste. The lines “Go ahead and hate your neighbor/Go ahead and cheat a friend/Do it in the name of heaven/You can justify it in the end” speak as clearly to the greed and power grab mentality indicative of today’s society as it did in the 1970 movie Billy Jack.

When Bernie Taupin wrote the song Daniel, the song originally included a verse dealing with the Vietnam War but for whatever reason, the verse was removed prior to its being recorded by Elton John.

Not all songs about the Vietnam War were protest songs, of course. We will be forever stuck with super patriotic The Ballad of the Green Berets by Barry Sadler and of course there’s that butt-kicking favorite by Merle Haggard, Fightin’ Side of Me.

Johnny Cash got in on the war protest act, but he went all the way back to World War II with The Ballad of Ira Hayes, a chronicle of the exploitation of Native American Ira Hayes, one of the marines who helped raise the American flag over Iwo Jima.

My personal favorite post-Vietnam song is one called Old Hippie by the Bellamy Brothers which shares the mental anguish and disorientation suffered by Vietnam vets years after returning from the war.

Here are a few other classics and not-so-classics from America’s most unpopular war (so far). See how many you can remember:

War by Edwin Starr;

Universal Soldier by Donovan;

Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen;

For What it’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield;

Guns, Guns, Guns by The Guess Who;

I’m Your Captain by Grand Funk Railroad;

Kent State Massacre by Jack Warshaw;

Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) by Melanie;

Requiem for the Masses by The Association;

Sky Pilot by The Animals;

We Gotta Get Out of this Place by The Animals;

Bungle in the Jungle by Jethro Tull;

Give Peace a Chance by John Lennon;

Imagine by John Lennon;

Revolution by The Beatles;

Saigon by John Prine;

Shape of Things by The Yardbirds;

Paint it Black by The Rolling Stones;

Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks;

Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

There are others, of course, many others. The list is much longer and you can probably think of some that are not on this list.

But one thing is certain: Pete Seeger led the way. He was an original. All others only aspired to his ability to communicate and to channel his outrage in a song.

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“Today, we take the first step towards building a better Louisiana where our ethics laws are the gold standard.”

—Gov. Bobby Jindal on Feb. 10, 2008, as he signed into law Senate Bill 1 which revamped the Louisiana Ethics Board’s procedures for handling ethics complaints.

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The decades-long controversy surrounding New Bethany Home for Girls in Bienville Parish was renewed last Friday, Dec. 6 when seven former residents of the home returned to Arcadia so that two of the women could file formal charges of sexual assault against the now-defunct home’s owner, Rev. Mack Ford.

(CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE):

A seventh arrived on Saturday to file her complaint.

Although only two of the six who flew in from North Carolina, Nevada, Florida and Texas, claimed to been sexually abused while living at the home, the others said they were there to lend moral support to the two, one of whom is said to be terminally ill with an inoperable brain tumor.

Sheriff John Ballance, who had his own experience with the home during his career as a state trooper some 30 years ago, met with the women, took the statements of the two claiming sexual abuse, and promised to do everything possible to resolve the matter.

An earlier statement of one of the alleged victims was turned over to state police in Bossier City in October, Ballance said.

In September, Ballance told LouisianaVoice he had picked up a runaway from the home decades ago when he was a state trooper. Instructed by the sheriff’s department to return her to the facility, he said he refused to force her to go back because of her claims of abuse.

Allegations about beatings, handcuffing and other forms of punishment of girls at the home first came to light when the Baton Rouge Advocate began an investigation of the home in 1974. Editors, however, quickly killed the investigation before any stories could be written and the issue lay dormant until the late 1980s when the Louisiana Department of Health and Human Resources began looking into abuse allegations. In 1988, the state raided the unlicensed home located south of Arcadia on LA. 9 and removed 29 girls from the facility.

Simultaneous to that raid, the Bethel Home for Wayward Children in Lucedale, Mississippi, was closed down by officials in that state. Six months after the New Bethany raid, however, it remained open and was not closed down until 1992.

There were claims of girls at New Bethany having to clean toilets with their bare hands, being locked in isolation with only a bucket for a toilet, girls being handcuffed to their beds and being made to stand all day with no restroom breaks, beatings with wooden dowels, PVC pipe, paddles, belts and limbs.

A state game warden, interviewed by the Advocate in 1974, said he would take confiscated deer that had been killed illegally by hunters to the home. “On one occasion,” he said, “Ford asked if he could have my handcuffs.”

New Bethany Baptist Church (foreground); girls’ windowless dormitory (background).

The public face of New Bethany, however, was quite different. Girls’ quartets would be clad in long dresses and paraded before church congregations to sing, figuratively and literally, the praises of New Bethany in efforts to generate “love offerings” from church members.

A father who pulled his daughter out of the home said, “He (Ford) would have those little girls sing hymns and give testimony to churches and the church members would hit the floor with their knees while reaching for their wallets” to give Ford money for his home.

The claims of physical abuse and rape are not new to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Church with which New Bethany and Ford are affiliated.

The First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, received a great deal of notoriety over the sexual trysts two of its ministers had with female church members over a period of several years. Their misconduct was subsequently repeated at other churches where they ministered.

And when their behavior was revealed, it was the women victims who were required to stand before the congregation and apologize and ask forgiveness for tempting the men, who invariably went unpunished and indeed, continued to receive near idol status from the congregation.

Likewise, group homes where abuse has been documented tend to receive devout support from area churches. Instead of asking those who run the homes to explain their behavior, their accusers are routinely treated as pariahs while the accused are welcomed as heroes at church rallies on their behalf.

Adherents to IFB dogma, for example, discourage intermarriage or even any contact with those of other religious beliefs, distrust government, favor home schooling, and believe that spankings should commence as early as 15 months of age.

Tampa Bay Times reporter Alexandra Zayas last year was allowed to do what the Advocate refused to do. She wrote a lengthy investigative series on claims of physical abuse at several group homes in Florida. http://www.tampabay.com/faccca/

Just as she found in Florida and as had been found earlier in Texas, Louisiana homes are unlicensed and unregulated by the state, thus allowing the operators free rein in the areas of discipline and education—so long as it is done in the name of religion.

The group homes employ the same textbooks that rely heavily on the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) and BJU (Bob Jones University) Press curricula—the same resources used by many of Louisiana’s voucher and charter schools being approved by the Louisiana Department of Education. The textbooks eschew traditional science and history courses, choosing instead to apply Old Testament interpretations in their teachings.

Encaged walkway over public road discourages thoughts of escape while walking from one area of New Bethany to another.

Following their meeting with Sheriff Ballance, the women drove to New Bethany and attempted to confront Ford, who instead, refused to talk to them and walked away.

Sign displaying times of services remains outside church 21 years after New Bethany’s closure.

Clear message that visitors are no longer welcome at New Bethany Home for Girls or at New Bethany Baptist Church.

And just in case one misses the sign…

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