Saturday, June 26, 2010

No oil spill? No drill!

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Twas a typical summer morning today on Ocean Beach in San Francisco ... gray, cold and a little blustery.

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That indefatigable impresario of beach performance art, Brad Newsham, excels at organizing unorganized masses of people in a very short timeframe to spell out messages on the sand. He always appears calm while slightly confused people mill around him. See more at SLASH OIL.

On this occasion 500-600 people assembled to spell out the word "OIL" covered by the circle and slash symbol, the universal "NO". Take that BP -- and the Obama administration too if they intend to drill more.

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Newcomers needed some explanation from Brad's volunteers -- but really all we had to do was lie down within the lines.

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Code Pink provided a lot of participants and a long banner that served as the diagonal slash.

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As we approached the moment when a helicopter would fly over to photograph the message, Brad urged late comers to fill in part of the circle where bodies were still a little far apart.

Here's a shot John Montgomery took from the circling helicopter:
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You can see the rest of Montgomery's pictures here.

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When the helicopter had made its passes over the SLASH OIL tableau, we headed enmasse for the shoreline.

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There we spread out, for more photos, over about a half a mile of beach in a long line, holding hands.

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Bye til next time.

Newsham's occasional events are a wonderfully benign way to form a temporary community and make a statement from the heart. I am grateful .
***
(See a previous Newsham event here.)

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