BP's Rules BP's Schools

The Lens: Five years after Katrina, the return of disaster capitalism?

BP representative Hugh Depland said that while the company wasn’t sure exactly when more workers would be hired, the $239 billion company was spending “a lot of money, time and effort to bring this event to a close.” And to those worried restaurateurs facing rising prices for shrimp and oysters? In the words of fellow BP rep Randy Prescott: “Louisiana isn’t the only place that has shrimp.”

I wonder how much of America understands what an underwater dustbowl this event is. Do they know how big a hit the entire country's seafood supply has taken? Do they know what's happened to the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have depended on the bounty of the sea for generations? I'm guessing they have no idea. I'm guessing in less than a year we're going start hearing about how the desperate out of work people of Louisiana's coastal communities are "lazy" or "waiting for a government handout" when they should have been bootstrapping up their education.

Actually BP is already hinting at this. During Monday night's townhall meeting in St. Bernard, I was amazed to read this tweet from a reporter in attendance.

BP spokesman says " we are looking into getting people some extra college"

Perhaps they'll look into getting them some courses in "other places that have shrimp" That might be helpful. Whatever they have in mind, I hope they weren't planning on "getting people some extra college" at LSU. Pretty soon there won't be anything "extra" there to speak of.

LSU is expected by Monday night ot propose eliminating several academic degree programs and institutes ranging from the School of Library and Information Sciences to bachelor’s degrees in German and Latin.

The “Phase I” plan calls for closing the Louisiana Population Data Center, architecture’s Office of Community Preservation and others.

Also, state funding would be eliminated for the United States Civil War Center, the Center for French and Francophone Studies and the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History.

The proposals, which would save $3 million a year, come at a time of university budget cuts when more budgetary axing is anticipated in the summer of 2011.

This is what we've come to in this state; a "flagship" University that doesn't even teach Latin anymore. I mean, sure, who needs librarians anymore when we've got Job One around to direct people to essential information resources? I get that. But you'd think we'd at least want to pretend to value higher learning as a worthy pursuit unto itself. Surely our state tax dollars should be applied toward something a bit more elevated than a glorified technical college or, worse, some kind of outsourced corporate R & D arm, right?

BP grant money expected to finance dispersant research at LSU

Louisiana State University's School of the Coast and Environment will be the first recipient of a grant from BP under what could become a $500 million, 10-year program to gather scientific information about the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the response to the spill on the marine and shoreline environment of the Gulf of Mexico, BP officials announced Monday.

So not only are we providing oil industry chemists with an entire ecosystem on which to test the effects of their product, but we're also leasing our own scientists and equipment to them to do the research. Brilliant. Once again, a South Louisiana disaster zone finds itself a living laboratory for somebody else's experimental remedy. Anyone familiar with the state of Orleans Parish public schools should understand what that means. Every horror is its own "Vessel of Opportunity" for somebody. I hope the 4th and 5th generation fishermen of South Louisiana take advantage of the grand opportunity being afforded them now.