AMERICAN ADMIRALTY BOOKS PROJECT REPORT
THE LONG OVERDUE SERIALIZATION AND LONG TERM RELOCATION OF
BLOOD ON BROWN WATER
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| Alexander Von Humbolt II, Photo by Hans George Schroder
Last Summer the National Mariners Association attempted to stir public opinion to get the Congress to do something to end the unnecessary carnage among America's Jones Act Merchant Seamen who in large numbers in the Gulf of Mexico off shore service vessel industry and the inland towing industry are laboring under Third World working conditions. The tool that the National Mariners Association hoped would propel the effort into public visibility was a book called BLOOD ON BROWN WATER. Here is a link to a YouTube musical video published by Jerry Collins , lyrics by Larry W. Jones, Music by Jerry Collins titled "TIDEWATER MARINE YOUR BOATS RIDE LOW". We urge you to click in, watch and listen, and like it on FaceBook. It will give you a lot of the sights and feel for the offshore service vessel industry and the lives of the crews that bring you America's oil. We hope it becomes the unofficial theme song of the campaign for occupational safety regulation of this industry bloodied by so many accidents. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbeC8y7ulxg Below is the original press release.
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For
Immediate Release
National
Mariners Association announces the Release of "BLOOD
ON BROWN WATER".
The
National Mariners Association (NMA) long noted for lengthy documented
and foot-noted reports on maritime occupational safety and health
issues, especially in the inland towing and offshore workboat
industries, has released its first publication intended for the
general public. Their publisher Marine Education Textbooks (MET) of
Houma, LA, has long produced Coast Guard license exam-prep textbooks,
the American Admiralty Bureau's series on marine legal topics, and
similar works of a technical maritime nature. This is MET's first
venture into a general interest publication though the subject is
maritime. BLOOD
ON BROWN WATER
is the story of personal injury and ill health caused by working
conditions under the two-watch system in use throughout the industry
told in language free of technical jargon and legal citations
intended to alert the general American public to working conditions
in certain sectors of the maritime industry that the book describes
as "Third World."
The
opening statement in the book is the expressed hope that BLOOD
ON BROWN WATER
will result for the mariner working on certain commercial vessels of
less than the 1,600-ton range the same type of protective movement
that Richard Henry Dana's "TWO
YEARS BEFORE THE MAST”
inspired for 19th.
century merchant seamen.
74p.
Coil bound. 8½x11.” $15.80 +S&H.
Order
from Marine Education Textbooks, 124 N. Van Ave., Houma, LA 70363.
985-879-3866
We knew the claims of the National Mariner's Association (NMA) as contained in their numbered report on the issues and in their "Second Request to Congress" were accurate, and the injury to the work force unacceptable. With the permission of the NMA we reprinted the book in installments in our blog. We didn't really know what we were doing editorially but over the space of a month or so we managed to post the entire 74 pages on the blog. The result while readable, was very truncated. We had hoped to find a semi permanent place where people could read it for free in our special pages. There we hoped to display it in a single scroll that could be read without having to jump around the dated appearances in the original daily blog postings which so often had unrelated material in between chapters and chapter sections. So much time went by trying to figure out where to put and how to get the cut and paste and editorial work done that we began to feel that the time had passed. We did not reckon with our grid locked Congress. Now nearly a year later we have learned that absolutely no progress has been made on the NMA's Second Request to Congress. The time is not past, it is yet to arrive. The Congress will struggle with an unsatisfactory non solution relative to the "Fiscal Cliff" they invented for themselves until this present Congress closes out. The struggle for necessary maritime safety and health regulation will begin again in the Spring. We still believe that BLOOD ON BROWN WATER is the simplest explanation for the general public of what America's domestic fleet merchant mariners need and want. Perhaps now with a year of experience under our belt we will be able to do a better job of bringing the contents to the general public. In the blog space over the next several days we will be bringing various elements of our earlier presentation. While we are doing that the entire 79 page document is being edited and relocated where our readers will be able to easily find it and read it in its entirety in one sitting of desired.
We knew the claims of the National Mariner's Association (NMA) as contained in their numbered report on the issues and in their "Second Request to Congress" were accurate, and the injury to the work force unacceptable. With the permission of the NMA we reprinted the book in installments in our blog. We didn't really know what we were doing editorially but over the space of a month or so we managed to post the entire 74 pages on the blog. The result while readable, was very truncated. We had hoped to find a semi permanent place where people could read it for free in our special pages. There we hoped to display it in a single scroll that could be read without having to jump around the dated appearances in the original daily blog postings which so often had unrelated material in between chapters and chapter sections. So much time went by trying to figure out where to put and how to get the cut and paste and editorial work done that we began to feel that the time had passed. We did not reckon with our grid locked Congress. Now nearly a year later we have learned that absolutely no progress has been made on the NMA's Second Request to Congress. The time is not past, it is yet to arrive. The Congress will struggle with an unsatisfactory non solution relative to the "Fiscal Cliff" they invented for themselves until this present Congress closes out. The struggle for necessary maritime safety and health regulation will begin again in the Spring. We still believe that BLOOD ON BROWN WATER is the simplest explanation for the general public of what America's domestic fleet merchant mariners need and want. Perhaps now with a year of experience under our belt we will be able to do a better job of bringing the contents to the general public. In the blog space over the next several days we will be bringing various elements of our earlier presentation. While we are doing that the entire 79 page document is being edited and relocated where our readers will be able to easily find it and read it in its entirety in one sitting of desired.
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