As an African American woman, I started elementary school during the Jim Crow Law era. I went to middle school and high school after the Civil Rights movement helped end the law. As an adult, I have watched the country still practice the philosophy that we, Americans and all people that live here, are “separate but equal.” 

I have watched the people of this country that I love, go about the business of “play acting” that the laws of Jim Crow no longer exist. That minorities, specifically, Black minorities, have the same rights as the white person that they live next to, that they work with, worship with and sit next to in school. We as a people, have been able to “try to get along” with each other, especially in public, regardless of our real thoughts in private. 

Tuesday's announcement that the Three Mile Island Unit One nuclear plant will close unless it gets massive subsidies has vastly strengthened the case for a totally renewable energy future.

That future is rising in Buffalo, and comes in the form of Tesla's massive job-producing solar shingle factory which will create hundreds of jobs and operate for decades to come.

Three Mile Island, by contrast, joins a wave of commercially dead reactors whose owners are begging state legislatures for huge bailouts. Exelon, the nation's largest nuke owner, recently got nearly $2.5 billion from the Illinois legislature to keep three uncompetitive nukes there on line.

I first saw Betsy Ross at the Blind Engineer's CD release party at Ace of Cups in July of last year. I only managed to catch a couple of songs, but I remember being impressed by the band and especially the playing of their bass guitarist. So when I heard that they were opening up for the Oklahoma City act Skating Polly at the Rumba Cafe last Monday I headed on over. I'm fond of Rumba anyway – it's walking distance from my house and I can drink all the whiskey I want. And their shows tend to start on time.

The show started with the Time Cat, a power trio from Akron that plays that vague mixture of punk/pop/rock that has dominated the indie scene for the last several decades. They did a lot of stop/starts and were well rehearsed, and beyond that they were about what you would expect.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- When the U.S.-Vietnam War ended on April 30,
1975, a Central Intelligence Agency officer's two best military
sources committed suicide and an American diplomat endangered the
lives of escaping staff and CIA personnel, according to James Parker
the last CIA officer to evacuate Vietnam.
   Earlier, off the coast of Danang, South Vietnamese who evacuated
onto a U.S. ship shot, stabbed, raped, trampled and executed each
other during onboard revenge attacks and panic, Mr. Parker, 73, said.
   "As for my experiences back in Vietnam at the end, the absolute
chickenshit character of the men in the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, how
they were so petty and self-indulgent, so pedantic and so distant from
the fighting," contributed to the U.S. war's failure and chaotic end,
Mr. Parker said in an interview.
   "Their pusillanimity disrespected the men, American and Asian, I
had known who died fighting the good fight.
   "I'm speaking about all the Americans at the U.S. Embassy in
Saigon, though this does not include the Americans from the CIA that

Free Press Hero – State Representative Bernadine Kennedy Kent

Rep. Kent is a Freep Hero for introducing House Bill 137. Currently, 49 states require law enforcement officers to be mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect. Ohio stands alone as the only state without this requirement. Teachers, medical personnel, attorneys and other professionals are already required under Ohio law to report cases of child abuse and neglect. Kent has firsthand knowledge, as a former school administrator and tutor, witnessing credible evidence that young children were being molested and raped. The police detective assigned to the case never wrote up an incident report or contacted Children’s Services. Kent and House Bill 137 will correct this large oversight.