46th Anniversary

Quick, what were you doing when you heard the news?

If you're asking What news?, you're probably under 50 years old. Today, November 22, is the 46th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assasination in Dallas, Texas.

Those of us old enough can attest that it had the same effect on us as the 9/11 attacks of 2001 had on us--and those born in the interim--all those years ago.

I was in school, getting ready to head home. As a "walker", I had to wait with the other walkers until the buses left with the bus kids. This was a yin/yang type situation: the bus kids got to leave a few minutes before the walkers, but the walkers usually managed to get home before the bus kids. We also got to do stuff for our respective teachers, such as running the day's roll to the office, clapping the dust off the erasers (way cool when you're 6 or 7 and the teacher has given you this responsibility).

The bus kids had were in the process of boarding their rides as I ran the roll to the office for my fifth grade teacher. Another walker, heading back to her classroom from the office, tears on her horrified face, sobbed, "The president's been shot." No way, I thought, unable to fathom such a horrible deed. I knew Lincoln had been assasinated almost a century earlier. But Kennedy? Who would do such a thing?

I had to announce myself several times to the office staff, as students were to physically hand the day's roll to one of the secretaries. Everyone in the office, secretaries, principal, teachers, were listening to a radio in stunned silence.

At home, minutes after leaving school, I found my mom with the TV on, something she rarely watched during the day. She had tears in her eyes and her voice was shaky as she told me the news.

The television stayed on the rest of the day. In a move that was unprecidented for the time, the networks broke from their daily schedules to bring updates on the assasination.

The remainder of the day went by in a numbing blur, the same numbing blur that most of us remember all too well during the days following the 9/11 attacks. Most of us were in shock, wanting this to be a horrible nightmare.

Since JFK's assasination, many things have changed--46 years worth of change. The only JFK sibling left alive is his sister Jean Ann Kennedy.

It is our duty, whether in memory of that fateful November day in 1963 or the September morning in 2001, to try to make this world a better place for all of us.

If not for the memory of the past, then do it for the future.

Exxon-Mobil Pleads Guilty to Killing Migratory Birds in Five States

Exxon-Mobil Pleads Guilty to Killing Migratory Birds in Five States

WASHINGTON – Exxon-Mobil Corporation, the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Denver to violating the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) in five states during the past five years, the Justice Department announced today.

The company has agreed to pay fines and community service payments totaling $600,000 and will implement an environmental compliance plan over the next three years aimed at preventing bird deaths on the company’s facilities in the affected states. According to papers filed in court, the company has already spent over $2.5 million to begin implementation of the plan.

The charges stem from the deaths of approximately 85 protected birds, including waterfowl, hawks and owls, at Exxon-Mobil drilling and production facilities in Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas between 2004 and 2009. According to the charges and other information presented in court, most of the birds died after exposure to hydrocarbons in uncovered natural gas well reserve pits and waste water storage facilities at Exxon-Mobil sites in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

The company has entered into a plea agreement with the government, calling for guilty pleas to the five charges and a sentence of $400,000 in fines and $200,000 in community service payments. The fines will be deposited into the federally-administered North American Wetlands Conservation Fund. The community service payments will be made to a non-profit waterfowl rehabilitation foundation in Colorado and the congressionally-chartered National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, designated for waterfowl preservation work in each of the affected states. During a three-year probationary period, Exxon-Mobil must also implement an "environmental compliance plan" designed to keep birds from coming into contact with oily waters at its facilities in the five affected states.

"The environmental compliance plan that Exxon-Mobil has agreed to in this multi-district plea agreement is an important step in protecting migratory birds in these five states," said John C. Cruden, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

"We are all responsible for protecting our wildlife, even the largest of corporations," said Colorado U.S. Attorney David M. Gaouette. "An important part of this case is the implementation of an environmental compliance plan that will help prevent future migratory bird deaths."

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, enacted in 1918, implements this country’s commitments under avian protection treaties with Great Britain (for Canada), Mexico, Japan and Russia. The Act creates a misdemeanor criminal sanction for the unpermitted taking of listed species by any means and in any manner regardless of fault. The maximum penalty for a corporate taking under the MBTA is $15,000, or twice the gross gain or loss resulting from the offense, and five years probation. The birds killed in the five cases include ducks, grebes, ibis, passerines, shorebirds, owls, martin and a hawk. None of these species is listed as endangered or threatened under federal law.

Migratory birds often land on open wastewater ponds at oil and gas facilities and become coated with, or ingest, fatal amounts of hydrocarbons discharged into the water during drilling or production operations. Such killings can be prevented by scrubbing the water of contaminants before discharge, removing the ponds, placing an obstruction such as netting or plastic "bird balls" over the water to prevent contact, or installing commercially-manufactured electronic hazing devices which detect incoming flights of migratory birds and deploy noise and lights to scare them away from the area. Exxon-Mobil’s environmental compliance plan will employ these techniques, tailored to each facility, to prevent future mortality.

The cases were investigated by Special Agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and are being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Robert S. Anderson of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Carey of the District of Colorado.


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This article was taken from the Department of Justice website. The press release, posted here in its entirety, may be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-enrd-795.html . For more news from the Department of Justice, go to www.usdoj.gov .

Scholar's Arrest: How Far Has Equality Come?

One of America's most prominent African-American scholars was arrested last week after an incident with police.

Henry Louis Gates had arrived home from a trip abroad to find the front door to his Cambridge, Mass. house stuck shut. Entering his home from the back door, he managed to force the door open with the help of a car service driver. Gates was on the phone with the Harvard leasing office when a white police sergeant arrived. Stories differ as to what exactly happened next, but the end result was that Gates was charged with disorderly conduct after repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number. The charges were later dropped.

Gates is a Harvard professor, PBS documentarian, acclaimed historian, recipient of a MacArthur "genius grant" and Summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale.

My question is this: Would Gates have been arrested if he had been all of the afforementioned and white? If the answer is a resounding yes, that's one thing. But if the answer is no, then maybe, just maybe, we ought to reexamine how far we've come over the last few decades.

Equality doesn't mean treated better than. Women shouldn't have more rights than men, blacks shouldn't be treated better than whites, the GBLT community shouldn't be seen as needing more rights than straights. The flip side is that women, blacks and the GBLT community shouldn't have less rights, either.

Try this: how about treating each other as human. Now there's a thought for you.


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The information on Mr. Gates' arrest came from MSNBC and can be found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32077998/ns/us_news-race_and_ethnicity/?GT1=43001.

FBI, KCSO (TN) Looking for Bank Robbery Suspect

FBI, KPD, and KCSO, as Part of the Safe Streets Task Force, and the KCSO Major Crimes Unit are Searching for Man who Robbed a Knoxville Bank Late Today

The Knoxville Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Sheriff Jimmy “J.J.” Jones of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) are asking for the public’s assistance in identifying the man who robbed a Knoxville bank late this afternoon, according to a press release issued Friday by the FBI.

At approximately 5:20 p.m., a man entered the First Tennessee Bank located at 10606 Hardin Valley Road, in Knoxville, Tennessee. After displaying a dark, large frame revolver with wooden grips, the suspect jumped the teller counter, obtained an undetermined amount of money, and fled the scene on foot headed east into nearby woods.

Witnesses described the suspect as an unshaven white male in his 50s to early 60s with gray facial hair, tanned arms, approximately 5’7” tall, with a slim build, and weighing approximately 160 pounds. The suspect was wearing blue jeans, a yellow or gold shirt, black gloves, black dress shoes and a black ski mask.

A reward is being offered for information which leads to the arrest of this individual. Anyone with information is asked to call the FBI at 865-544-0751 or the KSCO at 865-215-2243. This matter is being investigated jointly by the FBI Safe Streets Task Force and KCSO Major Crimes Unit.

All defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.








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The article above was taken directly (via cut-and-paste) from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (Knoxville, TN)web site. To view the article on the FBI's site, go to http://knoxville.fbi.gov/pressrel/2009/kx062509.htm.

Other news items from the FBI's Knoxville site can be viewed at http://knoxville.fbi.gov/press.htm.

Unemployment Up in May

Over three hundred thousand people lost their jobs in May, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Employers took 2,933 mass layoff actions in May that resulted in the separation of 312,880 workers, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month," the report stated. Each of the mass layoff actions affected a minimum of 50 employees.


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To read the entire Bureau of Labor Statistics report, please go to http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/mmls.pdf.

Nelson brings oil fight to Panhandle

There comes a time when common sense needs to take the reins away from greed. It appears that Florida Senator Bill Nelson is again trying to grab those reins.

"I don’t think Florida should have to trash its coastline and its $65 billion economy just so big oil can increase its profit margin," Nelson said in a statement. He planned to stop this morning at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa before heading to Tallahassee, Panama City and Pensacola on Monday.

According to an article from Florida Trend, The Aquarium is "home to some of the state’s marine life from the common to the most rare. He chose the aquarium in part because it showcases the richness of Florida’s environment and way of life that will face destruction from offshore drilling in the Gulf."

Nelson, who has fought against drilling in the Gulf, spoke by phone with Florida Governor Charlie Crist about the proposed drilling. Nelson has said that he "will not only argue environmental damage but also a national security angle," stating that drilling will reduce "the last remaining unfettered training range" for military pilots.

"The operative policy and law of the United States is to use much of the eastern Gulf of Mexico as the last remaining training range for our military pilots," he said. "Give that up to the oil boys and you sacrifice national security."

Might I add this: Right on, Bill. Florida needs all the voices of reason we can muster.


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Information for this article was taken from both Florida Trend and TampaBay.com's The Buzz. To read more on this, please check out Florida Trend at http://floridatrend.com/article.asp?aID=51240, as well as TampaBay.com's The Buzz at http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/bill_nelson/.

New Jersey University Hospital to Pay Additional $2 Million to Resolve Fraud Claims

WASHINGTON - The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) has agreed to pay the United States $2 million to resolve federal civil fraud allegations that its hospital defrauded Medicaid, the Justice Department announced (Tuesday). From 1993 to 2004, UMDNJ’s University Hospital submitted claims to Medicaid for outpatient physician services that were also being billed by doctors working in the hospital’s outpatient centers. By submitting duplicate claims for payment, University Hospital effectively doubled billed the government’s Medicaid program.

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To read the entire article that this is from, check the U.S. Department of Justice's website (www.USDOJ.gov) or, for a direct link to the article, go to http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/June/09-civ-566.html.