My friend Ben Greenberg and I share activist fathers in civil rights during the 50s and early 60s. He sent me the following. Ben is actively pursing the murderers who are still alive, and is mentioned below. He has tremendous respect for Jerry Mitchell who wrote this column. I support Ben 100% in his work, and I will report on the results as they come in.
http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20090215/NEWS/902150356/1001/news#pluckcomments
This is important work and I am glad to know Ben.
Regards, David Fillingham
I regret to say that my project in Tampa turned out to be not possible. Here is some basic info. The project was mostly poor Hispanic working people, with some drug dealers, guns, and open broken gates allowing outside people in. There are some good people there but the owners would not take any responsibility to fix some problems or to lower the price so we could secure the fence and gates, etc.
Why would I be able to do such a conversion? I was the CFO and VP of Renwood Properties that managed 49 low income projects mostly in the south, some just like this. Richard Wood taught me how to turn around projects that had problems like this. But the capitalization needs to be practical, and the owners wanted just too much money.
I have had a lot of criticizim from people that don't know me, and I hope you can in the future contact me directly so that I can give you my side of the story. I am a peaceable man, who worked hard to get Obama elected, I am amazed and very happy that he was elected.
I hope that you will try to understand me a little more instead of jumping to conclusions on very little information.
I am currently focused on alternative energy, and our company is quite busy at the moment in CAL, HI, and Arizona. We hope to do more business in other states.
President Obama has done a lot in his first few terms. He has outlawed torture, pledged to close Gitmo and give a real trial to each persons there. He has announced sunshine laws for all gov't activity, and he is not ducking the committments to unions and to gay and lesbian people. He is struggling against a terrible legacy, and he has my sympathy for all the people trying to go backward instead of forward with green energy and green jobs, stop giving away money to groups that do not care about the country or the people who live in it. He is trying to stimulate the economy, and we all know that tax cuts for businesses are no stimulus. So many unemployed, so many homeless, we need to focus on basics like healthcare, housing, infrastructure, and hunger/poverty.
I support Obama and I wish him peace and love from his family as he goes through this terrible time. May we all have hope as we go into a future we did not make, but we now have to deal with.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Louisiana State University announced the selection of the lower Mid-City neighborhood for the site of their new hospitals. [Mid City Houses] see http://my.preservationnation.org/images/content/pagebuilder/62942.jpgThese homes are some of the 165 family houses slated for demolition in New Orleans' Mid-City Neighborhood under the VA's plan. The National Trust for Historic Preservation and our partner the Foundation for Historical Louisiana view this decision as a serious error, as much better alternatives exist for these medical centers that would provide the same benefits while saving the neighborhood and reusing Charity Hospital. The new hospitals would needlessly destroy 70 acres of the neighborhood, including 165 historic buildings where residents have been rebuilding and restoring their community since Hurricane Katrina. The VA and LSU have other available sites nearby, yet they chose the most time-consuming, difficult, expensive and destructive route to deliver health care to the region’s veterans and a medical teaching facility to the community. With this decision, the bulldozing of homes and businesses could start as soon as the day after Christmas. Take action now and strongly urge the VA and the state of Louisiana to reconsider and take another look at other, less harmful alternatives on the table.TAKE ACTION -- With Only 30 Days Left, You Must Act Now:° Email Governor Bobby Jindal and Louisiana Secretary of Health and Hospitals Alan Levine at http://my.preservationnation.org/site/R?i=OM3LeAmYh6GcQa7GTedUvg..° ° Email The Honorable James B. Peake, Secretary of Veterans Affairs at http://my.preservationnation.org/site/R?i=_dt1ZoyjFWYMlFc3H0euBA.. MORE ABOUT THIS ISSUE:° Learn about Charity Hospital and why we listed it as an 11 Most Endangered Place this year at http://my.preservationnation.org/site/R?i=hKuJEw7dPc5BZZcfYR39iQ..° ° View our slideshow "What's At Stake in Mid-City?" at http://my.preservationnation.org/site/R?i=pCBU7V_fhC4b7ZEGKWlUrw..° ° Read our Five Unanswered Questions for Federal, State, and Local Officials regarding this issue at http://my.preservationnation.org/site/R?i=8RZ74wvpJN5V2x8ovLfLLg
I work with disabled veterans, and they are outraged by this.
Thanks, and I hope you all had as restful a Thanksgiving as possible.
Nulear power is one of the most expensive and unsuitable sources of power existing. There is a simple metaphor to illustrate. It is the same as ringing a doorbell with a cannon. But you cannot just fire the cannon, it would destroy the door and what is inside. So then you have to take a thick metal plate and put a hole in it just big enough to allow the tip of the cannonball to protrude out the end and ring the bell. Then you have to mount the plate on the wall with special supports that can cushion the metal plate when it is hit with the cannonball.
Nuclear power is used to boil water to turn turbines. There are so many better and inexpensive ways to turn those turbines. And less dangerous to the general public.
Please do not allow any more of these to be built.
One of Barak Obama's first bills he signed on was with Sam Nunn. It focused on Non-Proliferation.
We have a crisis right now. Gates has announced he is going to rearm the Nuclear Heads on the US Missles so that they are up to date. In my opinion this was done for two reasons: to give the arms industry more money to waste, and secondly to rekindle the arms race. This is the exact opposite to what must be done. There are many armed missles in the former USSR that need to me destroyed, as well as in the US and in Europe. They are all out of date, and they are worthless except to threaten. They can be sold to terrorists, to unstable governments, etc.
Along with all the other many problems which we have to focus on, this one cannot be forgotten.
