Decades of Spills
Thursday, July 01 2010
Decades of spills
Nnimmo Bassey
For the past couple of months we've heard a lot about the oil in the Gulf of Mexico, the way that it threatens both the environment and the people who depend on fishing. The Niger Delta is a similar kind of landscape. People there rely on the shrimp and the fish that have sustained them for generations, and their area is also rich in oil. World oil companies have been drilling there since the 50s - and the region has been polluted for decades by spills that get little international attention. Nnimmo Bassey runs a Nigerian NGO that works to hold oil companies accountable for the oil they spill. He talks with Dick Gordon about how he was drawn into working on behalf of people in the Niger Delta and what keeps him going, despite the danger and hopelessness he’s faced over the years.
- Learn more about Nnimmo’s work
U.S. Senator Robert Byrd: Mountain Fiddler
Barry Poss (credit: Kent Thompson) and the album
Senator Robert Byrd passed away earlier this week. He served nine terms in the U.S. Senate and will be buried this weekend after a service in West Virginia’s state capital. Barry Poss knew the senator well - not from the halls of Congress, but as the music producer for an old-time fiddle album released in 1978, "U.S. Senator Robert Byrd: Mountain Fiddler." Barry talks with Dick about the musical side of the former Senate Majority Leader - and how Senator Byrd's life as a musician and a politician were actually one and the same.
- See Barry with the Senator
- Hear a song from the album
- Learn more about the album
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