Robin Nadeau, Rest in Peace

The late Robin Nadeau at Democratic Headquarters in St. Johns County

My friend Robin Nadeau died last night.

Robin Nadeau was nearly 87 years old, and she lived a wonderful life. She lived all over the world with her late husband Bern, who was a Foreign Service Officer and a diplomatic courier. They met on an airliner in Latin America, where Robin was a stewardess, working in the civilian equivalent of a C-47 in the early days of passenger flights. Bern proposed to Robin within 18 hours, because he was afraid they would never meet again.

After Bern’s retirement from the State Department, and after they ran a trailer park in Gainesville, Robin and Bern moved to St. Augustine Beach.

Like Thomas Jefferson, Robin Nadeau designed her own home. It was nestled among the trees in St. Augustine Beach.

Robin served on the St. Augustine Street Tree Advisory Board and the St. Augustine Beautification Committee.

Robin was a co-founder of TREES, an environmental group.

Robin Nadeau was an early and strong supporter of the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. She spoke to our County Commission in support of the National Historical Park and National Seashore on November 1, 2011 – that was the first time Commissioners had discussed the park idea in 71 years, since 1940. (Pestered by tumultuous Tea Party apparatchiks, St. Johns County Commissioners didn’t support the Park and Seashore that day, but I reckon that they will eventually support it, and they will thank Robin Nadeau for being right.)

On December 13, 2006, Robin called me and encouraged me to help stop the Anastasia Mosquito Control District of St. Johns County from buying a luxury Bell Long Ranger luxury jet helicopter and commencing aerial spraying of organophosphates. I promised her that I would do my darndest. (No one says no to Robin Nadeau. ) Cut to the chase: we won. It took nine months of struggle, but the people won. Not only was the illegal $1.8 million helicopter purchase cancelled, we got a full refund from Bell Helicopter. We won on the purchasing issue – there was no competitive bidding.

Then, under the leadership of Mosquito Control Commissioners Jeanne Moeller, John Sundeman, Janice Bequette, Catherine Brandhorst, et al., we eventually won the bigger fight on organophosphate poisons. Thanks to Robin’s leadership, our Anastasia Mosquito Control District of St. Johns County has not sprayed organophosphates for 2.5 years – a tribute to her determination. AMCD now controls mosquitoes using environmentally-friendly means.

Robin was an avid reader and a well-informed voter. She was active in the Democratic Party and the League of Women voters. Robin was a passionate supporter of “kicking the moneychangers out of the temple” – instating public financing and ending the increasingly corrupt system of elections bought by what she and Abraham Lincoln called the Money Power. Robin supported national health insurance – single-payer style – and was a strong supporter of it until she passed away. She was always sharing articles with me, and stimulating me to do better.

In February 2004, an unhappy misogynist-mossback wrote a ululating letter to the St. Augustine Record attacking Robin, (before the Record adopted civility rules for letter writers that bars them from personally attacking other letter writes). Naturally, I leapt to Robin Nadeau’s defense, and the Record’s Editor entitled my letter, “Thanking the Robin Nadeaus of the world.” I stated in pertinent part:

Thank you, Ms. Robin Nadeau, for your perceptive letter quoting Lincoln on “the money power."

Faster than a speeding tree killer's dump truck, with cliches by the carload, an unhappy Mr. Stewart R. Canfield wrote Feb. 3, condemning "the Robin Nadeaus of the world" for disagreeing with him, praising Bush for protecting "the strong," smirkily adding "Bush won."

Unfairly demanding unearned respect for President G.W. Bush, Mr. Canfield has written disrespectful letters full of swagger, accusing FDR of "Marxism," complaining of "Bush-bashing," stating that some of America's "enemies" are "walking the halls of Congress," and complaining about "bellyaching of NAACP and the Democrats" about the 2000 election.

Mr. Canfield's uninformed, irascible views are mostly intolerant and uncivil. Lincoln was no "woman." Mr. Canfield is no gentleman.

As Christians, let's forgive his Philistinism but expose his errors.

Our Constitution, in its majesty, protects Mr. Canfield's free speech rights -- rights that he disrespects whenever exercised by better-informed people who disagree with him.

As philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."

Thank God for "the Robin Nadeaus of the world” who care more for working people than war profiteers…..

On January 6^th each year, Robin Nadeau held a traditional Twelfth Night party at her home, where activists and politicos mingled, celebrating the last night of the Catholic calendar for Christmas.

Last year the Twelfth Night party was not held because Robin had suffered a stroke. In 2010, I fondly remember Robin at the Twelfth Night Party, resplendent in a red dress she had made decades ago. Robin was seated, just inside her front door, talking with our former Democratic Presidential nominee, Senator George S. McGovern – engaged in public spirited discussion about how to improve our country and protect our people.

Truly, Robin Nadeau was both a “force of nature,” and a lover of nature, and a lover of democracy, equality and justice. In the spirit of St. Francis and Catholic Worker movement founder Dorothy Day, she spoke her truths and inspired future generations.

After the November 1, 2011 County Commission meeting, I promised Robin Nadeau that we would win enactment of the St. Augustine National Park and Seashore Act. I said what I meant and meant what I said. Tonight is Twelfth Night, and we fondly remember Robin.

Robin Nadeau will be best be remembered by enacting the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore Act of 2012, preserving our history and nature forever. www.staugustgreen.com

LGBTQ Nation: Republicans Want to Legalize Anti-Semitic, Anti-Christian and Anti-Gay Bullying in the State of Tennessee

Kyle Luebke

Views & Voices

LGBTs, Christians and Jews to be persecuted in Tennessee?

By Kyle Luebke

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In its upcoming session, the Tennessee Legislature may consider a bill which would allow bullying if such bullying is based upon a bully’s “expression of religious, philosophical, or political views as long as such expression does not include a threat of physical harm to a student or of damage to a student’s property.”

The legislation, as proposed, is supposed to correct the “harm” that anti-bullying policies may place upon students who believe that being gay is “against God.”

The bill, heavily lobbied by the Family Action Council of Tennessee, is supposed to “make sure [the law] protects the religious liberty and free speech rights of students who want to express their views on homosexuality.”

Not only does this bill establish a special right for religious individuals to persecute, harass, and demean LGBT people, but it also can be turned on its head, and harm the people that is is supposedly crafted to protect.

As the legislation says, bullying is acceptable as long as it is based upon a students “religious, philosophical, or political beliefs.”

Thus, if a Christian was bullying a Jewish person, calling them a “Christ killer” and a “worthless heathen who is going to hell,” that is completely acceptable, because it is based in religion.

Conversely, Christians can also be bullied by their peers for believing in the “fairy tails” of Christianity, such as the virgin birth and the resurrection. Even African-Americans can be bullied, for the bully could claim that their distaste for African-Americans is based upon the curse of Ham contained in the book of Genesis.

This is why this bill failed in Michigan, because instead of giving the bully special protection for their bullying, the bully was open to persecution himself.

The failure of this bill in Michigan give an inkling for the real reason for such legislation (give Christians special rights to make others feel worthless), yet when the unintended consequences of the legislation are made apparent, lawmakers want to distance themselves from the “religious persecution” bill.

After a lot of media criticism, the Senate sponsor of the bill, Republican Senator Jim Tracy of Shelbyville, has decided to “narrow” the bills scope.

I wonder what such “narrowing” entails, and if that narrowing will give specific license to bully LGBT Tennesseans.

About the Author:

Kyle Luebk, is a political science major at the University of Memphis.
For more by Kyle Luebke, visit his blog at An Enduring Visi

FOLIO WEEKLY re: Jacksonville Naval Air Station pollution -- NAS JAX is a repeat orffender

Blast from the Past

Repeat air and water quality violator NAS Jax lands on a watch list of national polluters and repeat offender

Published January 3, 2012

Jacksonville isn’t covered in a smelly fog like Tonnawanda, N.Y. or coated with a black mist like Ponca City, Okla. But like those cities, Jacksonville is home to a polluter that’s on a list of chronic or serious violators of the U.S. Clean Air Act. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers 464 facilities so problematic that they were placed on an internal “Watch List” created under the Bush Administration in 2004.

The Watch List was a secret document until the EPA published it on its website in the fall of 2011, in response to a Freedom of Information request from National Public Radio and the Center for Public Integrity. EPA has used the Watch List since 2004 to identify what it describes as “recidivist and chronically non-complying facilities.” A site is added to the Watch List if nine months pass after a Clean Air Act violation occurs without any enforcement action.

Naval Air Station Jacksonville is not only on the Watch List, it’s one of 1,600 sites that EPA says has committed “High Priority Violations” of the Clean Air Act, or violations that demand urgent action. NAS Jax is the only site in Northeast Florida on both lists, and one of just four sites in the entire state.

EPA cautions that landing on the list doesn’t mean that a facility has poisoned the air around it, or even necessarily resisted enforcement action. Some Watch List violators are the worst polluters in the country, to be sure, but others are breaking rules in ways that don’t endanger human lives. Indeed, the existence of the EPA’s list of chronic polluters may be as much evidence of the weakness of the Clean Air Act as it is an indictment of the facilities on the list.

Twenty-one years after the act was supposedly strengthened, industries in the U.S. still expose the people who live near them to dangerous concentrations of hazardous chemicals. The Watch List shows how little is done to curtail or punish those who violate the terms of their permits. Some facilities identified as committing High Priority Violations have been on the list for more than 10 years. And since the EPA relies almost exclusively on industry self-reporting of violations, most incidents have literally gone up in smoke before regulators respond.

In the case of NAS Jacksonville, the violation that landed the facility on the Watch List was a failure to secure needed permits, not one in which it was emitting pollution far beyond what existing permits allowed. In May 2009, one of the commands at the base sandblasted paint off the rivets of an airplane wing in a blasting booth not permitted for wing work.

Base environmental director Kevin Gartland says there were no hazardous emissions, but he acknowledges NAS Jax didn’t seek or receive the required permits. The command center also failed to keep a record of when the sandblasting booth was fired up and for how long, the metrics that EPA uses to estimate emissions. According to correspondence from the enforcement file, a supervising officer first raised questions with EPA when he saw the blasting facility was being used for airplane wings. When he discovered that additional permits were needed in May 2009, Gartland says, the operation was immediately halted and additional permits were sought and secured.

Gartland had no explanation for why EPA hasn’t issued fines or punishments in the case over the past two-and-a-half years, other than to suggest that it wasn’t a priority.

“I believe because it was such a minor issue, it went to the bottom of the stack,” Gartland offers. “We immediately stopped it and self-reported.”

But the fact that the 2009 violation landed NAS Jax on the Watch List is due at least in part because it came on the heels of a more serious 2004 Clean Air Act violation. In that case, the Navy was firing up a blasting booth for the first time. During its test run, the booth is required to report actual versus permitted emissions. The NAS Jax booth was permitted to release three pounds of particulate matter per hour, but released twice as much — six pounds per hour. While awaiting test results from that initial run, the Navy fired up the blaster five more times — emitting more than 42 pounds of particulate matter into the atmosphere. NAS Jacksonville paid a civil penalty of $20,800 and was to complete an environmental project, at a cost of $93,100, to install a finer filtration system.

The size and intensity of that violation was the reason state regulators turned enforcement on the 2009 case over to EPA and recommended that NAS Jacksonville continue to be listed on the High Priority Violations List. NAS Jacksonville is the largest Naval base in the Southeast U.S. and the third largest in the nation — 25,000 acres that include aircraft maintenance and repair facilities, a master station for marine work, a Naval hospital, dormitories, a fleet readiness center and pilot training facilities. The site is also on the EPA’s National Priority List — a list of contaminated sites scheduled for cleanup, often subsidized by the so-called “Superfund” — and the Navy is overseeing eight related cleanups just at NAS Jax. The sites contain at least 55 hazardous contaminants that have polluted the groundwater, soil and river sediments.

NAS Jacksonville has run into the most trouble from its repeated violations of the Clean Water Act. This past October alone, the Navy had three spills that required cleanup — two rather small (8 ounces of diesel fuel and 50 gallons of sea dye marker) and one fairly large (200 gallons of diesel fuel spilled at a loading dock). Between October and December ’08, the facility’s wastewater discharge exceeded federal chlorine limits 60 percent of the time. The Navy did sediment borings in the St. Johns River to determine the extent of chlorine contamination from its wastewater treatment plant. A web of trenches was also discovered under one of the older buildings, where runoff from airplane painting operations and wastewater overflows washed before seeping into the groundwater and making its way into the storm drains and into the river.

The combined violations resulted in more than $300,000 in fines from EPA, and an order to reduce the levels of copper and chlorine in the facility’s wastewater discharge. In lieu of paying the fines, NAS Jax will invest in a large-scale water recycling system to handle the 800,000 gallons of wastewater the base produces daily. The sewage will be treated to a slightly higher standard than is currently used, then pumped to the Timuquana Country Club and the Naval Air Station Jacksonville Golf Club, as well as to the grounds of NAS Jacksonville, for irrigation. Gartland says that the base will have zero wastewater discharge by 2014.

While wastewater violations aren’t a cause to celebrate, the result will be a net good for the environment, according to St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon. NAS Jacksonville is the first large facility to commit to zero wastewater discharge in Duval County. “That kind of thinking is what we’ve all got to have to move forward,” he says. “Fixing what’s wrong with the river will not be quick or cheap, but if you start and continue to make progress, eventually we will see some benefits.”

Susan Cooper Eastman

sceastman@folioweekly.com

NPR and the Center for Public Integrity recently ran a four-part series, based on the Watch List and the list of High Priority Violations, “Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities.” The Center for Public Integrity posted additional coverage on its website iWatchnews.org.

Vice Mayor Leeana Freeman's St. Augustine Record Column re: FSDB Eminent Domain Legislation, HB 1037

Guest column: FSDB doesn't need eminent domain

Posted: January 6, 2012 - 12:42am

By LEANNA FREEMAN

St. Augustine

Our lawmakers were sent to Tallahassee to bring about fiscal responsibility and smaller government for state residents. We rely on them to advocate sound financial decisions and legislation that will strengthen municipalities and individual rights. They have been asked to pass House Bill 1037 which will give powers of eminent domain to the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, and remove the requirement that the school’s expansion be subject to City approval. The bill is being lobbied by State Rep. William Proctor, who will retire in 2012.

Lawmakers should not pass House Bill 1037. Our state should not support a bill that negatively impacts our community’s economy. FSDB is located within the City of St. Augustine, a community of 13,000 residents. I have been told by Realtors and appraisers that the impact of the proposal has already devalued neighboring properties and made them less desirable to potential buyers. Reducing property values reduces the city’s tax base. The 13,000 residents who finance a city, which supports five million visitors per year, will be faced with a heavier burden.

The school in recent years purchased and removed from our local tax rolls at least two city blocks. The State funded the purchase of property zoned mostly single family residential for the purpose of building non-single family facilities. I wonder how the multi-million dollar purchase was approved and whether the right questions were asked at the time. These properties were removed from the tax base and again shifted the weight to residents.

Every property owner should ask how the value of their property would be impacted if their neighbors were given powers of eminent domain. I suspect all response would be negative. While visitors love our city because of its “livability,” it is clear that neighboring properties will be much less desirable when neighbors have powers of eminent domain and streets formerly lined with homes are lined with massive institutionally-designed structures.

The school, its students and its employees are unarguably assets to our community. I hear no one speak more fondly of the students and their goals than the residents with whom they have the most interaction, the school’s neighbors. There are about 650 students at the 73- acre school, which is down nearly 10 percent from five years ago. So, why the urgent need for unrestricted expansion?

In Proctor’s letter to the editor he quoted the school president‘s declaration that there “are no current plans to acquire additional properties.” If there are no plans to acquire additional property, enrollment is on the decline and the impact of passing the bill is negative on property values and our community, then why seek eminent domain and why would a lawmaker support the passage? As to building on the acquired property, why not do so in a way that would compliment the neighborhood? How about a structure designed to compliment the neighboring homes? Let’s hope the right questions are asked this time around.

■

Leanna Freeman was elected to the St. Augustine City Commission in 2008 for a four-year term. In 2010, she was elected by commissioners to a two-year term as vice mayor.

MITT ROMNEY PRESS RELEASE: ROBERT BORK IS CHAIR OF ROMNEY'S LEGAL ADIVSORY COMMITTEE

Mitt Romney Announces Justice Advisory Committee

August 2, 2011

Boston, MA — Mitt Romney announced today the formation of his Justice Advisory Committee. This group of distinguished lawyers will draw on their experience in all three branches of government, private practice, industry, and academia to advise Governor Romney in his campaign for the presidency. The committee will advise on the Constitution, judicial matters, law enforcement, homeland security, and regulatory issues. Where appropriate and permitted, some committee members will provide legal counsel to the campaign.

“Our democracy depends on a government that respects the Constitution and the rule of law. Our nation needs a Congress and an Executive branch that are cognizant of the bounds of their powers and a judiciary that will strictly construe the Constitution and refuse to legislate from the bench,” Governor Romney said. “I am proud and honored to have the support of an extraordinary group of attorneys and legal scholars. Their deep experience and wisdom will be invaluable as we address the constitutional and legal issues facing the nation.”

The Chairpersons of the Advisory Committee – Judge Robert Bork, Professor Mary Ann Glendon, and Richard Wiley – issued a joint statement saying, “Mitt Romney deeply understands that the rule of law and the integrity of our courts are essential components of our nation’s strength and must be preserved. He will nominate judges who faithfully adhere to the Constitution’s text, structure, and history and he will carry out the duties of President as a zealous defender of the Constitution. We fully support Mitt Romney’s campaign and look forward to working with other members of the committee as we advise him on today’s pressing legal issues.”

The committee includes such prominent lawyers as Secretary Michael Chertoff, Chancellor William Allen, Chief Justice Thomas Phillips, Steven Bradbury, Maureen Mahoney, Christopher Landau, Wendy Long, David Rivkin, Jr., Lee Casey, Alan Gura, Jay Stephens, Robert O’Brien, and John Sullivan.

The list of the full committee is below.

Members Of Mitt Romney’s Justice Advisory Committee:

• Alex Acosta
• William Allen
• Alex Azar
• H. Christopher Bartolomucci
• Lizette Benedi Herraiz
• Bradford A. Berenson
• Elliot S. Berke
• Brant Bishop
• Michelle Boardman
• J. Caleb Boggs III
• Robert Bork
• Steven Bradbury
• Lee A. Casey
• Michael Chertoff
• Jeffrey Clark
• Gus Coldebella
• Roderick De Arment
• George Dent
• Michael R. Dimino
• Thomas Dupree
• Charles Eskridge
• Allen Ferrell
• Timothy Flanigan
• Sergio J. Galvis
• Deborah A. Garza
• Tom Gede
• Mary Ann Glendon
• Alan Gura
• Jimmy Gurulé
• Catherine Hanaway
• Jennifer Hardy
• W. Thomas Haynes
• Jay Jorgensen
• Jay Kanzler
• Roy Katzovicz
• Richard Klingler
• Christopher Landau
• Stephen Larson
• Katie Lev
• Wendy Long
• Fred Lowell
• Raymond B. Ludwiszewski
• Maureen Mahoney
• Roman Martinez
• Gary McDowell
• Brent McIntosh
• Grant S. Nelson
• Mark Nielsen
• Howard C. Nielson, Jr.
• Robert O’Brien
• Kevin O’Connor
• John O’Quinn
• Elizabeth Papez
• Matthew Papez
• Nels Peterson
• Thomas Phillips
• Stephen Presser
• David Rivkin, Jr.
• Jeffrey Rosen
• Gene Schaerr
• Jay Stephens
• John Sullivan
• Richard Wile

Mitt Romney Legal Advisor, Sexist Ex-Judge Robert Bork, Says Women Aren't Being Discriminated Against!

Check it out -- sexist ex-JUDGE ROBERT HERON BORK, who was rejected by the U.S. Senate 58-42 for a seat on the Supreme Court, says that women aren't being discriminated against and don't deserve protection under the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clauser. Click link above.

JUDGE BORK is one of MITT ROMNEY's legal advisers. In 1987, my first boss, Ted Kennedy, took to the Senate Floor upon ROBERT BORK's nomination to the Supreme Court by President RONALD WILSON REAGAN. Senator Kennedy said:

Robert Bork's America

Robert Bork's America by Edward M. Kennedy

Senate floor speech made in response to the announcement of Bork's nomination; June 23, 1987

Mr. President, I oppose the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and I urge the Senate to reject it.

In the Watergate scandal of 1973, two distinguished Republicans — Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus — put integrity and the Constitution ahead of loyalty to a corrupt President. They refused to do Richard Nixon's dirty work, and they refused to obey his order to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. The deed devolved on Solicitor General Robert Bork, who executed the unconscionable assignment that has become one of the darkest chapters for the rule of law in American history.

That act — later ruled illegal by a Federal court  — is sufficient, by itself, to disqualify Mr. Bork from this new position to which he has been nominated. The man who fired Archibald Cox does not deserve to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Bork should also be rejected by the Senate because he stands for an extremist view of the Constitution and the role of the Supreme Court that would have placed him outside the mainstream of American constitutional jurisprudence in the 1960s, let alone the 1980s. He opposed the Public Accommodations Civil Rights Act of 1964. He opposed the one-man one-vote decision of the Supreme Court the same year. He has said that the First Amendment applies only to political speech, not literature or works of art or scientific expression.

Under the twin pressures of academic rejection and the prospect of Senate rejection, Mr. Bork subsequently retracted the most neanderthal of these views on civil rights and the first amendment. But his mind-set is no less ominous today.

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court, his rigid ideology will tip the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be.

The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our President. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and on the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a statement by Benjamin L. Hooks and Ralph G. Neas of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights opposing the nomination may be printed in the Record.

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There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN L. HOOKS, CHAIRPERSON, AND RALPH G. NEAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL RIGHTS

There is no question that a very substantial majority of the civil rights community will strongly oppose the nomination of Robert Bork to be Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

The confirmation of Robert Bork, an ultra-conservative, would dramatically alter the balance of the Supreme Court, putting in jeopardy the civil rights achievements of the past three decades. Well established law could overnight be substantially eroded or overturned.

This is the most historic moment of the Reagan presidency. Senators will never cast a more important and far-reaching vote. Indeed, this decision will profoundly influence the law of the land well into the 21st century.

Pensacola News-Journal editorial re: criminal charges against BP

Editorial: Finally closing in on BP?

11:00 PM, Jan. 2, 2012 |

Written by

PNJ editorial

The BP oil spill investigation could be getting serious. News "leaked" last week that federal prosecutors are writing up criminal charges against company employees.

If the charges are eventually filed — and especially if they are proven — it will raise serious new questions about how much trust Gulf Coast residents can put in assurances from big oil companies about how safe offshore drilling actually is, and more importantly about how committed they are to drilling safely.

And the company itself could face criminal charges for violating the Clean Water Act.

According to reports, including in The Wall Street Journal, a federal task force in New Orleans — which has included taking testimony before a grand jury — is focusing on whether BP employees misled federal regulators about the actual risks of the well being drilled by the Deepwater Horizon and whether the employees violated rules designed to maintain safety margins.

In particular, investigators have been looking at how well drillers monitored and maintained a crucial pressure measurement inside the well designed to prevent the kind of blowout that caused an explosion that killed 11 people, led to the destruction and sinking of the rig and gushed millions of gallons of crude oil and natural gas into the Gulf of Mexico.

The import of these charges is clear: If true, BP ignored well-established regulations to engage in risky behavior that eventually resulted in disaster.

We and others have criticized the federal government for failure to rigorously apply drilling regulations to BP's operations. But unless regulators are at every drill site and looking over drillers' shoulders 24/7, at some point the responsibility falls on the companies and their employees to follow the regulations.

There has been much speculation that BP and/or its contractors cut corners on the Deepwater Horizon to save money and time on what was already an expensive operation. If that's what happened, it was a horrific mistake that led to disaster.

Everyone on the Gulf Coast should be watching closely as this case proceeds. Before it's over, we should know a lot more about the kinds of risks we face from offshore drilling.

American Bar Association re: Judge Robert L. Carter, Civil Rights Litigation Hero, Deputy to Thurgood Marshall

Obituaries

Former Judge Who Fought Segregation in Brown v. Board of Education Case Dies at 94

Posted Jan 4, 2012 7:03 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

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A former federal judge who joined Thurgood Marshall in the legal fight to end segregation has died at the age of 94.

Robert Carter died Tuesday of complications from a stroke, the New York Times reports. He is best known for his legal arguments in the landmark school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education. He also worked on housing discrimination and election rights cases in his tenure with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc.

Carter advocated using psychological testimony in Brown v. Board of Education to show that black children fared worse in segregated schools, the Times says. The Supreme Court accepted the argument of Carter and his colleagues that segregation was unconstitutional on its face.

As a federal judge, Carter presided over the merger of the National Basketball Association and the American Basketball Association in the 1970s.

The Times calls Carter “a leading strategist and a persuasive voice in the legal assault on racial segregation in 20th-century America.”

New York Times Remembers Judge Robert L. Carter, Civil RIghts Litigator Who Inspired Use of Psychological Tests to Win Brown v, Bd. of Educat

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Robert L. Carter in 2004.

The lawyers for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. From left, Louis L. Redding, Robert L. Carter, Oliver W. Hill, Thurgood Marshall and Spottswood W. Robinson III.




Published: January 3, 2012

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January 3, 2012

Robert L. Carter, an Architect of School Desegregation, Dies at 94

By ROY REED

Robert L. Carter, a former federal judge in New York who, as a lawyer, was a leading strategist and a persuasive voice in the legal assault on racial segregation in 20th-century America, died on Tuesday morning in Manhattan. He was 94.

The cause was complications of a stroke, said his son John W. Carter, a justice of the New York Supreme Court in the Bronx.

Judge Carter presided over the merger of professional basketball leagues in the 1970s and was instrumental in opening the New York City police force to more minority applicants. But perhaps his greatest impact came in the late 1940s and 1950s as a member of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., led by Thurgood Marshall.

Often toiling behind the scenes, Mr. Carter had a significant hand in many historic legal challenges to racial discrimination in the postwar years. None was more momentous than Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that led in 1954 to a Supreme Court decision abolishing legal segregation in the public schools.

Mr. Carter’s well-honed argument that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional on its face became the Supreme Court’s own conclusion in Brown. The decision swept away half a century of legal precedent that the South had used to justify its “separate but equal” doctrine.

Mr. Carter and his underpaid, overworked colleagues at the Legal Defense and Educational Fund argued before the court that the South’s schools rarely offered anything like equal opportunities to black children. But that was beside the point in any case, they said. Segregation itself, they argued, was so damaging to black children that it should be abolished, on the ground that it was contrary to the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal rights to all citizens.

Mr. Carter spent years doing research in law and history to construct that legal theory before it reached the Supreme Court. Though aspects of segregation law had been struck down before World War II, Mr. Carter’s task was still daunting. His challenge was to persuade the Supreme Court to overturn, finally, a looming obstacle to equal rights, the court’s 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. That ruling upheld a Louisiana law requiring racial separation on railroad cars. The South used that decision to justify a wide range of discriminatory practices for years to come.

“We have one fundamental contention,” Mr. Carter told the court. “No state has any authority under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.”

Mr. Carter insisted on using the research of the psychologist Kenneth B. Clark to attack segregated schools, a daring courtroom tactic in the eyes of some civil rights lawyers. Experiments by Mr. Clark and his wife, Mamie, showed that black children suffered in their learning and development by being segregated. Mr. Clark’s testimony proved crucial in persuading the court to act, Mr. Carter wrote in a 2004 book, “A Matter of Law: A Memoir of Struggle in the Cause of Equal Rights.”

As chief deputy to the imposing Mr. Marshall, who was to become the first black Supreme Court justice, Mr. Carter labored for years in his shadow. In the privacy of legal conferences, Mr. Carter was seen as the house radical, always urging his colleagues to push legal and constitutional positions to the limits.

He recalled that Mr. Marshall had encouraged him to play the gadfly: “I was younger and more radical than many of the people Thurgood would have in, I guess. But he’d never let them shut me up.”

Robert Lee Carter was born in Caryville, in the Florida Panhandle, on March 17, 1917, the youngest of nine children. His family moved to New Jersey when he was 6 weeks old, and his father, Robert L. Carter, died when he was a year old. His mother, Annie Martin Carter, took in laundry for white people for 25 years.

Mr. Carter recalled experiencing racial discrimination as a 16-year-old in East Orange, N.J. The high school he attended allowed black students to use its pool only on Fridays, after classes were over. After he read in the newspaper that the State Supreme Court had outlawed such restrictions, he entered the pool with white students and stood up to a teacher’s threat to have him expelled from school. It was his first taste of activism, he said.

He attended two predominantly black universities: Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he enrolled at 16, and Howard University School of Law in Washington. He then went to Columbia University as a graduate student and wrote his master’s thesis on the First Amendment. He used parts of the thesis in preparing for the school segregation cases in the 1950s.

Mr. Carter joined the Army a few months before the United States entered World War II. His military experience made a militant of him, he said, starting with the day a white captain welcomed Mr. Carter’s unit of the Army Air Corps at Augusta, Ga. The captain, Mr. Carter said in his memoir, “wanted to inform us right away that he did not believe in educating niggers.”

“He was not going to tolerate our putting on airs or acting uppity,” Mr. Carter said.

In spite of repeated antagonisms, Mr. Carter completed Officer Candidate School and became a second lieutenant. He was the only black officer at Harding Field in Baton Rouge, La., and promptly integrated the officers’ club, arousing new anger. He was soon transferred to a training base in Columbus, Ohio, where he continued to face racial hostility.

He left the service in 1944 and got a job as a lawyer at the Legal Defense and Educational Fund, then the legal arm of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. (It later became an independent organization.) He had become Marshall’s chief deputy by 1948, and soon became active in school segregation cases, notably Sweatt v. Painter, in which the Supreme Court ruled in 1950 that the University of Texas Law School had acted illegally in denying admission to a black applicant.

Mr. Carter was also involved in housing discrimination cases, the dismantling of all-white political primaries in several Southern states and the ending of de facto school segregation in the North.

Mr. Carter was disappointed when Marshall passed him over and chose a white staff lawyer, Jack Greenberg, to succeed him as director-counsel of the fund in 1961. Mr. Carter moved to the N.A.A.C.P. — by then a separate entity — as its general counsel. He considered that a demotion, and resented what he saw as Mr. Greenberg’s undercutting him.

Mr. Carter resigned in protest from the N.A.A.C.P. in 1968 when its board fired a white staff member, Lewis M. Steel, who had written an article in The New York Times Magazine critical of the Supreme Court. After a year at the Urban Center at Columbia, he joined the New York law firm of Poletti, Freidin, Prashker, Feldman & Gartner. President Richard M. Nixon nominated him to the federal bench for the Southern District of New York in 1972 at the recommendation of Senator Jacob K. Javits, Republican of New York.

On the bench, Judge Carter became known for his strong hand in cases involving professional basketball. He oversaw the merger of the National Basketball Association and the American Basketball Association in the 1970s, the settlement of a class-action antitrust suit against the N.B.A. brought by Oscar Robertson and other players, and a number of high-profile free-agent arbitration disputes involving players like Marvin Webster and Bill Walton.

In 1979, his findings of bias shown against black and Hispanic applicants for police jobs in New York City led to significant changes in police hiring policies and an increase in minority representation on the force.

Mr. Carter, who lived in Manhattan and died in a hospital there, married Gloria Spencer of New York in 1946. She died in 1971. Besides his son John, Judge Carter is survived by another son, David; a sister, Alma Carter Lawson; and a grandson.

Well into advanced age, Mr. Carter retained the fire of a civil rights agitator who believed that much remained to be done in the pursuit of racial equality.

“Black children aren’t getting equal education in the cities,” he said in an interview with The Times in 2004. “The schools that are 100 percent black are still as bad as they were before Brown. Integration seems to be out, at least for this generation.”

But, he said, “I have hope.”

“In the United States, we make progress in two or three steps, then we step back,” he added. “And blacks are more militant now and will not accept second-class citizenship as before.”

Dennis Hevesi contributed reporting.

Folio Weekly re: Robert Hall's Work to Stop St. Augustine From Being Turned Into A Hysterical Version of Disney World

Old and In the Way St. Augustine’s colonial history stands in the shadow of new, modern-scale construction Once a visual and historic landmark, the old gates to the Ancient City are now overwhelmed by the two- and three-story buildings behind them. Published January 3, 2012

Twenty years ago, the old gates to the Ancient City were a visual and historic landmark. Today, tourists are likely as not to simply pass by the coquina sentries, which are overwhelmed by the two- and three-story buildings looming behind them.

The new construction resembles colonial architecture in some respects, but the size of the buildings dwarfs true colonial scale. And it is the height of those buildings that has St. Augustine resident and retired Flagler College art professor Robert Hall sounding the alarm.

In truth, Hall has been sounding the alarm for the past 38 years. He has long advocated that the city restrict development in its core to only 18th-century Spanish Colonial-style architecture. Hall has so often spoken on the subject to the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board and the St. Augustine City Commission, he’s literally been told to “go away.” Instead of opting for small-scale buildings and strict adherence to the architectural styles of the 18th Century, Hall says, the city has allowed property owners to do what they wanted, as long as their buildings had a historic flair. The result, he says, is architectural fakery no better than Disney World.

“Commercial pressure has always been a problem in this town,” he says. “Everyone wants to enlarge their business, enlarge their home, put another story on it, put another building next to it. As a result … the buildings are not the correct scale. They’re not on the correct foundation. They’re just fake.”

Hall is not quite ready to give up, however. He recently rewrote and self-published a 106-page booklet of research and commentary, “St. Augustine: Historical or Hysterical?” While Hall admits that he’s failed all these years to communicate the importance of establishing and following a set of historically appropriate architectural guidelines, he’s hopeful the booklet will have some effect. On the eve of the city’s 450th anniversary, he says, only isolated examples of Colonial architecture remain, including those in the Spanish Quarter, a few buildings on St. George Street and elsewhere. To Hall, it’s a tremendous lost opportunity.

“These are the places where people want to come to when they visit St. Augustine,” he says of the Spanish Quarter. “They say, ‘Ooooh, this looks real,’ ” says Hall. “Instead, we’ve got a lot of fake material and misguided efforts.”

Hall points to a laundry list of buildings that offend his sense of how St. Augustine should have evolved — from the building of the Columbia Restaurant in the 1970s to the recent construction of a Hilton Hotel between Charlotte Street and Avenida Menendez, and the new two-storied balconied building behind the Old City Gates. Although the city’s Architectural Guidelines for Historical Preservation specifies that new construction, “whenever practical, should follow old foundation lines in order to preserve the original scale and pattern,” all three buildings are way out of scale for an 18th-century town, and were erected without regard for the building techniques and materials from that era.

“No one felt the need to do it correctly,” Hall says. “And this is the one place in the country where we need to do it correctly.”

Hall first visited St. Augustine in 1961 to participate in an archeological dig with Florida State University. After graduating with a degree in art, he secured a position at Flagler College, moved to St. Augustine and immersed himself in its history. He bought the Triay House at 29 St. George St., originally built by Minorcan settler Francisco Triay, constructed between 1768 and 1790, and reconstructed in 1963. He joined the Historic Florida Militia and performed as a re-enactor during city’s 400th anniversary in 1964 and during the Bicentennial in 1976, as well as during other events. Though a city as old as St. Augustine is bound to lose buildings to age, Hall believes the biggest threat to the city’s appearance is the modern demand for bigger and “better.”

Not that Hall objects to the appearance of the new buildings. Next to the Old City Gates and a new three-story balconied inn, he points out, there is an attractive plaza with a fountain and spots for people to sit. It’s lovely, admits Hall, but all wrong. “It would be very nice in Palm Beach or Sarasota,” says Hall. “It has that nice ambience or rich feel. It’s a nice little area, but the trouble is that it is nothing like what was ever here in the 18th century.”

Finally, he asks the residents of St. Augustine to be good stewards of its history. “We have had a National Treasure handed to us,” Hall writes in his booklet. “What in the world are we doing?”

Susan Cooper Eastman

themail@folioweekly.com

Washington Post: Secretary of the Interior Salazar Proposes New National Parks and Landmarks to Honor America's Five Centuries of Hispanic Heritage

Posted at 06:00 AM ET, 01/04/2012

Latinos, national parks and President Obama’s reelection

By Ed O'Keefe

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (BRIAN BOHANNON - AP) Continuing his push to identify more historic sites important to the nation’s Hispanics, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar plans to tout a new report Wednesday identifying several sites tied to Latino heritage in Colorado and New Mexico that could one day become national parks or historic landmarks.

Notably, one of the sites happens to be in Salazar’s back yard.

The report, requested by Salazar, should help his personal goal of establishing more national parks and historic sites tied to minorities. The fact that the sites are in two swing states with burgeoning Hispanic populations means that the report also could be seen as an overture to the nation’s Latino voters, a bloc being aggressively wooed by President Obama’s reelection campaign.

The event also serves as a reminder that whether the White House will admit it or not, the travels and priorities of Cabinet secretaries this year could be used to overtly or covertly benefit Obama’s reelection.

Salazar, the Obama administration’s most senior Hispanic official and Colorado’s former senator and attorney general, plans to visit his home state to formally unveil the report, published late last month, that labels 3.26 million acres in Colorado’s San Luis Valley and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and northern New Mexico as areas that could one day become part of a national park or historic site.

Salazar is a native of the San Luis Valley and his family has farmed in the region for five generations, according to his official biography. The region includes “nationally significant American Latino heritage sites” and Colorado’s oldest town and church, according to the National Park Service.

In October, Salazar said the Park Service needed to identify more sites tied to minorities that could be added to the park system, noting that less than 3 percent of all national landmarks are designated for women, Latinos or African Americans. Last year, he ordered agency officials to identify sites nationwide that could eventually join the nation’s network of parks and historic sites, including California’s “Forty Acres” site used by labor activist Cesar Chavez in the 1960s to raise awareness about migrant farm workers.

“I think when you look at the way Americans most understand the history of Latinos in this country, a lot of it is being told now through the lens of what’s happening with the immigration debate,” Salazar said at an October meeting with reporters. “While that’s an important debate that has security and moral implications, in my view, there’s also a huge history of Latinos in the United States that’s never been told.”

Although the Park Service may not conduct formal studies of potential new historic sites or parks without congressional authorization, the agency said Salazar asked officials to conduct a “reconnaissance survey report” that compiled preliminary studies on resources and other relevant data. The findings may then be used by supportive lawmakers to make the final push to have a site added to the park system.

Salazar is scheduled to be joined at Wednesday’s meetings by Sens. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.). Aides to Udall, who chairs a Senate subcommittee on national parks, did not return requests for comment. Bennet’s office said Tuesday that the senator hopes to work with Salazar and local officials to identify potential sites of importance to the Latino community. Aides to the Republican-led House Natural Resources Committee said they had not yet reviewed the new report, but welcomed any new park proposals introduced by lawmakers.

Again — Wednesday’s event is an official Interior Department event, but its potential political benefits cannot be ignored.

Obama won Colorado in 2008 thanks in large measure to Hispanic voters who overwhelmingly supported his campaign. Ditto in New Mexico, where 69 percent of Hispanic voters backed Obama and helped him carry the state by more than 14 points.

But his approval among Hispanic Democrats nationwide has slipped, according to a Pew Hispanic Center poll released last month. The president’s approval rating among Hispanic voters dipped to 54 percent in the survey, down from the previous year in part because of a 15-point drop among Hispanic Democrats. Despite the declines, Obama’s approval rating among Hispanics is higher than the 49 percent overall approval rating he earned in last month’s Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Follow Ed O’Keefe on Twitter: @edatpost