not to belittle ms. hannah's efforts, but surely her efforts could be used in the u.s. the citizens of the u.s. seem to ignore the problems at home. charity starts at home (terence) there is hunger, pollution, health problems, housing problems ect. right here. or....is it just easier to go global?

I personally appreciate it when someone uses their celebrity to get attention for a cause. Though there are plenty of problems back here at home in the US, the Equador oil problem is one of those painfully huge issues that might be totally overlooked by citizens of the world in general if there isn't a face on it. I think that the oily hand shot is perfect. It isn't just a little spilled petrol here and there on gas station cement, it is something that, were we there, we could not ignore.

I applaud Daryl Hannah's environmental work as a home effort - the earth is her home.
American's have created the lust for an industrial-petrol based economy/lifestyle on a worldwide basis. It is American overindulgence that has fueled the corporate policies to take natural resources Whatever and Regardless of the cost to the indigenous people and species that live in that resourced area.
It sometimes takes fame to get anyone to even begin to listen - so Hannah's work is to connect the dots for consumers. She is using her face recognition so that we understand that THIS and worse are the result of our continued indulgence in non sustainable energy use, and our willingness to allow corporations to keep us supplied without requiring that they adhere to safe, fair, healthful practices in the process - wherever they get the raw materials.

Perhaps she thought their need was more pressing, you racist elitist ethnocentric bonehead.

I guess it's pretty easy to be someone else's conscience when you have nothing constructive or relevant to say.

Fix your shift key and shut up lest I taunt you further!

Lick Me jbs! Go Hannah! More actors should be doing work like you! Hey jbs, I'll bet your back yard needs a mow! If you make the news world wide, will it get played at home? Maybe better than it would if you had tried the same stunt at home! Looks like its working! What media attention do local efforts get around here? NONE! News, oil, pharma, Agro, weapons and security forces, they are all the same companies now. They are the best US superfund site makers! They just bill the US and the US doesn't go after them, that's policy! The Media won't tell you where to fight at home, or cover you if you do, just elsewhere, its safer.

US celebrities do no good work in the US, because the media and far-right turn on them. So celebrities go overseas and do the humanitarian thing over there. Well, at least someone is doing it.

Yes, looking at your own back yard is important to see what needs fixing, but it is vital to look beyond our borders at the problems we have allowed to be be created through our energy consumption. If we are global citizens, then Ecuador is our back yard. Indigenous people of North America know all too well how "civilized" people have not only marginalized us, but out right killed us and destroyed what land was left to us. Must the indigenous people of South America be taught this as well? As North American citizens we cannot continue to allow corporations such extreme latitude when it comes to the environment and human rights. The indigenous people of Ecuador have a right to live in their traditional home without it poisoning them. We must also lay some of the blame at our own feet, for we are all consumers of oil.

What is the value of the resources destroyed? That should be what is owed by Texas Oil Company to the people of the region and the world.

oh...i see... i am welcome to your opinions, but welcome to my opinion

Just take a look at what she has been doing for the environmental movement on her show dh love life, http://www.dhlovelife.com/v2/show/archive/index1.html

She obviously cares about issues in her backyard as well larger, global issues. I think we're quite fortunate to have someone with the resources to tackle environmental injustice from the local level all the way to the global level.

How about that! we get more out off purchasing a Hannah Movie ticket as far as payback then we do from our most of our governments with all their taxes.
Want to put Daryl Hannah on a political ticket ? Maybe Al Gore and her?

JBS - Not to belittle you or suggest that you are uninformed or possibly one of those hacks that the Heritage Foundation pays to post misinformation on progressive sites, but Daryl Hannah has worked with local groups in Los Angeles like the South Central Farmers (once the largest urban food-producing garden in the U.S.), and has given time, talent and resources on behalf of the homeless, the battered and abused, and political refugees, among other causes.

Not to suggest that you don't, but it's always wise to check your facts before you post your screed, though this may not have been covered in Propaganda 101 at Bob Jones University.

Thank you Darryl Hannah. Beauty is truth.

I have seen the devastation in this part of Ecuador. It's apocalyptic. I am glad to see someone with media pull making it an issue.

I've read the comments from the American citizens about charity begins at home..

Well stop invading and illegally occupying other sovereign countries for the greed of 1% of the population..

And voting scum like GW bUSh crime inc into power..

In Britain we are getting rid of scum bag Tony Blair, get a backbone....

I'm glad when celebrities use their status to highlight problems like this that otherwise get swept under the rug. You can bet Equadorian authorities have tried intimidating her (thats the way its done in those places).

Excuse me, but at the moment, Ecuador has a progressive president.

Geez, I hate ignorance. The US has cast it in bronze.

Her efforts may be more effective in foreign countries, nothing can be accomplished in the US. Just how long has it been since the courts penalized Exxon for the Valdez disaster? And how much have they actually paid? A future Democratic administration may take a tougher stance, but it's not a given (perhaps not even probable). The Valdez ran aground in March of 1989.

to jbs "charity starts at home". Tell you what ; you go and do DH's job in Equador and she'll be glad to stay and help sleepy , tv-drugged Americans do what you suggested in comfy-cozy USA .

Read and understand some history : Florence Nightingale cleaned up the hospitals in Turkey and THEN came back HOME to England and cleaned them up there.

Of course , you gussed it , all kinds of people whined like you about what she was doing.

Have a nice day.

We can no longer care only to our borders... the planet is an entire ecosystem... our communities are global now. These oil companies fuel OUR CARS!!!! It is because of the US and other developed nations that they exploit the native populations all over the world.

IF we really wanted to do something productive... we (and I include myself in this) could STOP USING OIL!

However, we are so tied into that.. that we are screwed.

Peak oil will solve that problem... but I fear that we are too immature to handle the change and will hoard and kill and fight more skirmishes...

Darryl Hannah lives very sustainably. She lives according to her values.. .She doesn't live in some big fuel guzzling mansion... ...

I admire her more and more....

Peace
Caelidh

Go Daryl Hannah, and all the celebrities, artists and progressives that are making a difference and using their riches to show the light on these things to affect change. My heart aches that my children are going to live in an United States that is a hypocritical, gluttenous body of humans too lazy to be well read and how we are being used. How do all of you process your anger and disgust with the corruption, misinformation, and lack of leadership of our politicians?

To JBS, thanx for asking the obvious question...... For if we all agreed, it would be all to easy to agree. Learn something everyday, thats what I say!!!

Perhaps opinions based on propaganda and nativistic brain-washing should be countered with opinions based on truth and compassion for fellow humans.

Her domestic activism:

"On June 13, 2006, Hannah was arrested – along with Joan Baez and Julia Butterfly Hill – for her involvement with over 350 illegal squatters and their supporters, confronting authorities trying to bulldoze the nation's largest urban farm in South Central Los Angeles. She chained herself to a walnut tree at the South Central Farm in south-central Los Angeles for three weeks in order to protest the farmers' eviction by the property's new owner. The farm had been established in the wake of the 1992 LA riots to allow people in the city to grow food for themselves. However, the land's new owner, who had paid $5 million for it, sought to evict the farmers to build a warehouse. He had asked for $16 million to sell it but turned down the offer when the activists raised that amount. Hannah was interviewed via cell phone shortly before she was arrested, along with forty four other protesters, and said that she and the others are doing the "morally right thing". [1] She spent some time in jail. [2]"

yes thanks for bringing that in ioletty. it was just this year that she chained herself to that tree in south central la to try and save that urban farm in LA. what courage! what an inspiration! and now here, thankyou ms hannah for educating us on the rapacious nature of these oil companies. trashing the rainforests and poisoning the earth. i have nothing but praise for your actions. and thanks common dreams for this story. oy gevalt these companies are awful! i'll be riding mass transit again tomorrow and biking. i want little to do for the profits of oil companies and want to be part of the solution for better air quality in my city.

NM Bill...When one such a youself post some B.S. such as I read this evening...serves to remind me that myopic, cognitive impairment, still co-exist with intelligence. The damage done goes far beyond "property/resources". It is about what the Peteroleum Fascist are able to "settle" their way out of. This behavior is aobut "I don't give a f..k about anyone else's backyard, not to mention the physical, mental damage, and perhaps DNA damage to future generations of the region.

Pissed Off in Texas

I applaud Daryl Hannah for putting herself on the line for a cause she feels needs her voice and her face.

The Iraqi's also need a voice. One of the "benchmarks" in the newly passed war funding bill says that if the Iraqi's don't agree to allow the multinational oil corporations access to Iraqi oil, the US will not provide reparation money. This is criminal, and it was passed by our Congress... Republicans and Democrats! We should all be screaming!!!

The other one I'm watching is Robert Redford. We must never underestimate the power of personality in politics. If folks like Hannah, Redford, Martin Sheen, etc. would come out as Green or some other third party advocates, it would provide real political stimulus. The Democrats just ain't cutting it, becoming part of the problem rather than the solution.

Daryl Hannah is doing good and important work both at home and abroad.

She's living her environmental ethics through the work she chooses to do (and not do), her organic farm, her vegetarian (vegan?) eating, her activism in LA, the Amazon, and elsewhere.

I'm glad she's still making a Splash!

the reason she is in Ecuador is she's probably still considered a "celebrity" there. She's come a long way from playing an android hooker in Blade Runner.

Celebrity junkies have a desperate need to be the center of attention anyways, why not use it for something useful?

Never figured out why she had a man's name though...until she started to look more like a man...culminating in her wonderful portayal of a one eyed transexual in Kill Bill.

jbs,

I don't know why people ripped into you - I think your opinion is valid. I've long been of the belief that one should tend to his/her own back yard before pointing to what's wrong with others'.

Personally, I don't give much credence to personalities - especially the Hollywood variety.

I do think that Darryl Hannah or anyone else has the right to focus their attention on anything they choose, but it does take some authority out of anything they do when their own country is in such a god-awful mess. The rest of the world has plenty of problems, but I have plenty of messes right here in River City to focus on before I raise my finger to them.

It should be obvious to American's this is what happens when regulations on companies are relaxed and in some cases become non-existant. They polute to their hearts content. Never bothering to clean up the mess they make. We have the same kind of mess going on in this country thanks to the Bush Administrations policies. This is one of the many reasons why I stopped voting Republican years ago. That's all they want to do deregulate everything to the point where companies rape the consumer and make billions more in profits. Privatize still more so big business is running and robbing everyone blind.

Environmentalists Without Borders!

Go Daryl!