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Heroes

See how the beaches in the Gulf of Mexico look today, 5 years after the disastrous BP oil spill.

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The Wilderness Society

It's been more than five years since the epic oil spill that devastated the Gulf of Mexico.

The BP-owned oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, near the Mississippi Delta and spilled an estimated 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over the next 87 days until it was capped. You probably saw all the awful photos of storks and dolphins dripping slick with black sludge.

"Active cleanup" efforts officially ended in April 2014; to hear BP tell it, "there is no data that suggests there are any long-term population-level impacts to any species." But that's in part because we simply don't have comparable data for a disaster this size.

So here's what $50 billion in cleanup costs and fines looks like today, according to the Gulf beachgoers of Instagram:


1. Walking barefoot on hot sand is bad enough without having to avoid the tar balls, too.

Just a "little" tar ball is all. #beach #tarball #oilspillremnants #igdaily #igaddict #gross #fuckyouBP #BPoilspill #donttouchthese #notmyhands #beachproblems #lookslikeagiantturd
A photo posted by Paul Irizarry (@that_kid_paulie) on


2. This low tide smells like sulfur.

Residuals from BP oil spill in the Gulf? Last night and this am at low tide this black "sticky" stuff accumulates with the tides. Will they hold up their reparations or bail out again? Not cool. #BP #bpoil #BPrefinery #bpoilspill #theGulf #AlligatorPoint #FL #StickySituation #CorporateEthics
A photo posted by Keeli Crewe (@keelicrewe) on


3. Well. Have fun sifting through the sand, I guess...

#scene #BP #itsclean #tarballs #oilspill #pcolabeach #lookatit #killingourbeachfromunderneath
A photo posted by Cameron Patterson's Perception (@pattersonsperception) on



4. It's kind of like mud! Just with oil instead of water.

Can anyone spot the sand in this oil. #bpoilspill
A photo posted by Me'le'sa (@moonlite_) on



5. Another tar ball! This one was found more than 300 miles from the Louisiana border in Port Aransas, Texas — lest you thought the effects of the oil spill were contained to a small part of the Gulf.

Tar balls. Natural oil seepage, oil tanker crashes and oil rig spills deposit oil into the Gulf of Mexico and over time this oil solidifies and washes up on shore as #tarballs. These tar balls are found all along the beaches from Louisiana to Mexico and are as common as sea weed and sea shells nowadays. What are we doing to our planet? Let alone our animals and food source? We need to wake up and realize that oil is a fossil fuel .. It won't be there forever so eventually we won't have it to fuel our lives.. It's past time we switched our energy source to something more earth friendly instead of something earth deadly. #ourworld #planet #earth #oil #petroleum #beach #sand #nature #animals #oneworld #energy #fossilfuel #oilspill
A photo posted by Timothy Knapp (@love2evol) on



6. As for this little sludge-streaked beach? It's all the way in Cuba.

malecon #cuba #bpoilspill #petrolio #dontswimhere
A photo posted by @sanchezjjose on


Sure, maybe we can't prove that this is all BP's oil, but we know that the immediate impact was felt in Havana and that there's some contention going on right now about further drilling off the Cuban coast.

While the "official" cleanup efforts might be over, it's clear there's still plenty of work left to do.

"There is nothing to suggest other than that the Gulf is a resilient body of water that has bounced back strongly," a spokesperson from BP said. "The Gulf has not been damaged anywhere near the degree some people feared it would have in the midst of the spill."

Sure, the oceans are resilient, and there's so much about them that we still don't understand. But the aftermath is more than just a few unsightly tar balls or some oil streaks uncovered in the tide. The Deepwater Horizon disaster was unprecedented in scale, and it's impossible to predict the lasting effects of an oil spill of this magnitude. All that oil has to go somewhere, right?

In the meantime, BP has already returned to the scene of the crime and is back to drilling the Gulf of Mexico. And now they have their sights set on the Great Australian Bight as well.

But there's still a chance to stop them and to prevent future dangerous drilling to occur in the Arctic Ocean or any of these other important U.S. wildlife reservations. You can also support any of the charities who are continuing in the Gulf recovery efforts.

Because it's not just about the beaches — it's about the future of the planet.

Family

Dad found out his son bullied a kid at school and came up with a brilliant teaching moment

"I told him that we have the opportunity to make things right."

@thehalfdeaddad/TikTok

Dad on TikTok shared how he addressed his son's bullying.

What do you do when you find out your kid bullied someone? For many parents, the first step is forcing an apology. While this response is of course warranted, is it really effective? Some might argue that there are more constructive ways of handling the situation that teach a kid not only what they did wrong, but how to make things right again.

Single dadPatrick Forseth recently shared how he made a truly teachable moment out of his son, Lincoln, getting into trouble for bullying. Rather than forcing an apology, Forseth made sure his son was actively part of a solution.


The thought process behind his decision, which he explained in a now-viral TikTok video, is both simple and somewhat racial compared to how many parents have been encouraged to handle similar situations.
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Family

Badass bikers show up for abused children, offering advocacy and protection

They become an abused child's "biker family," and they let the child—and everyone else—know that NO ONE messes with their family.

Bikers Against Child Abuse/YouTube

When you are a child who has been abused by people who are supposed to protect you, how do you feel safe?

That question is the heart of Bikers Against Child Abuse International (B.A.C.A.), an organization dedicated to creating "a safer environment for abused children." With specific training and extensive security checks, the frequently big and burly members of B.A.C.A. serve as protectors of chid abuse survivors, giving vulnerable children people to call on when they feel scared, and even showing up in court when a child asks them to.

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Education

Florida principal forced to resign after showing Michelangelo's 'David' to students

“It saddens me that my time here had to end this way."

Photo by Igor Ferreira on Unsplash

Florida principal fired after showing statue of "David."

If you ask most teachers why they went into education, they'll share that it had nothing to do with the money and everything to do with their passion for teaching. Even with rapid changes in curriculum and policies, teachers who remain in the classroom are lovers of education and are doing their best to help kids learn.

Hope Carrasquilla, the former principal of Florida's Tallahassee Classical School, was one of those teachers who simply enjoyed teaching. As the principal, Carrasquilla was required to teach two classes. During her sixth grade lesson about Renaissance art, which is also a requirement of the school, Carrasquilla showed a picture of Michelangelo's "David" statue.

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, three parents complained about their children being shown the picture. Two of those parents were mostly upset that there wasn't sufficient notice given before the photo of the sculpture was shown. The third parent reportedly complained that the statue of the Biblical figure was pornographic.

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Joy

Facing a tiebreaker, Olympians asked if they could share a gold medal. Pure joy ensued.

@peacockTV/Twitter

When Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy's Gianmarco Tamberi both landed their high jumps at 2.37 meters, they were in the battle for Olympic gold. But when both jumpers missed the next mark—the Olympic record of 2.39 meters—three times each, they were officially tied for first place.

In such a tie, the athletes would usually do a "jump-off" to determine who wins gold and who wins silver. But as the official began to explain the options to Barshim and Tamberi, Barshim asked, "Can we have two golds?"

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Pop Culture

Christopher Walken dancing in over 50 movies all perfectly spliced into a single music video

Most people don’t know he studied dance as a child.

via YouTube

These days, we could all use something to smile about, and few things do a better job at it than watching actor Christopher Walken dance.

A few years back, some genius at HuffPo Entertainment put together a clip featuring Walken dancing in 50 of his films, and it was taken down. But it re-emerged in 2014 and the world has been a better place for it.

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Pop Culture

Guy with a metal detector astonished to find a ring that belonged to the Sheriff of Nottingham

It was authenticated by experts from the British Museum.

via Unsplash

English metal detector hobbyist finds a real treasure near Nottingham.

A retired merchant navy engineer in England has found a treasure that would have made his country’s most popular folk hero proud. Graham Harrison, a 64-year-old metal detector enthusiast, discovered a gold signet ring that once belonged to the Sheriff of Nottingham.

The discovery was made on a farm in Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire, 26.9 miles from Sherwood Forest. The forest is known worldwide for being the mythological home of Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men. A central road that traversed the forest was notorious in Medieval times for being an easy place for bandits to rob travelers going to and from London.

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