Back when my dad was in television there were some really thoughtful and creative programs on the air with actors that stirred the imagination and caused us to really think about the human condition. M*A*S*H comes to find. Following in that tradition - a rare feat these days - is the surprise hit Battlestar Galactica staring Edward James Olmos.
"Commander William Adama" is in the news this week not for his award winning show but for his activism. United Church News and the AP report:
Edward James Olmos, an Academy Award nominee for "Stand and Deliver" (1988), criticized the U.S. and Puerto Rican governments on Jan. 3 for not moving faster to clean up the site of a former bombing range on Puerto Rico's Vieques Island, according to the Associated Press.
Olmos said officials "have done nothing" to clean up the area tainted by dangerous pollutants nearly four years after the departure of the U.S. Navy. The actor wants to draw more public attention to the government's inaction.
"We are not going to stop until we make them see that a (cleanup) is necessary," Olmos said at a news conference in San Juan. Born in East Los Angeles, Olmos has been involved in the Vieques campaign for many years. He was arrested for trespassing in 2001 in an attempt to stop the U.S. Navy's bombing exercises there.
The Navy, which withdrew from Vieques in May 2003 following three years of steady protests, including long-standing support form the UCC General Synod, has begun controlled detonations of unexploded bombs in sections of the 21-mile-long island and nearby waters, Associated Press reports.
This has sparked renewed protests by residents who say the explosions are causing more environmental damage on Vieques, some 6 miles off the southeastern coast of mainland Puerto Rico.
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