Monday, July 5, 2010

HANDS ACROSS THE SAND / "SLASH OIL"

JUNE 26, 2010 -- Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California


(Click on any of these beautiful John Montgomery photos to enlarge)






June 26, 2010 -- Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California








HANDS ACROSS THE SAND / "SLASH OIL" -- On June 26, 2010, at 800 locations around the world, tens of thousands of people gathered in groups at their favorite beaches and held Hands Along The Sand in order to:

-- call attention to the unparalleled disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

-- demand an end to all dangerous oil drilling.

-- demand that our leaders begin to actually help us end our insane addiction to oil (enough talk -- time for some action!) and begin to move us toward a renewable-energy economy.


At 7 a.m. at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, a small group of volunteers began to etch into the sand an outline for the "Slash Oil" image pictured at top.

By 11 a.m., approximately 500 participants had shown up, including a couple dozen women from CodePink, who -- thank goodness -- brought the long swatches of pink that form the slash through the OIL lettering. (The organizers were prepared for a much bigger crowd -- look closely at the photos and you'll see faint triangular shapes etched in the sand around the outer edges of the circle. If 2,000-3,000 people had attended, those triangles would have filled in with bodies and created a "sunbursts" effect.)

At 11:30 a helicopter arrived overhead and, after the on-board photographer captured "Slash Oil" imagery, the crowd moved down to the water and held hands in a breathtaking, third-of-a-mile ribbon along the surf.

Organizer Brad Newsham says that there is always some message that We the People need to communicate to our leaders. He is considering organizing a similar event at Ocean Beach every year (with a different message and different image each time), to be held on the Saturday either before or after the summer solstice.


For more information or to request postcards from the event, contact Brad Newsham at:

email: newsham@mac.com

website: www.bradnewsham.com

postal:

The Ocean Beach Series
4096 Piedmont Ave., # 415
Oakland, CA 94611

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