Not in Manchac's Backyard !

If you are upset about the proposed Syrah Resources graphite product plant at Port Manchac you should be.  It is obvious the South Tangipahoa Parish Port Commission has not done their research concerning this proposal.

There is a complete lack of information regarding the effects of the production of graphite products in the US by Syrah Resources because currently their largest production plant is in the African Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado.

Under an agreement with China, the Australian owned company, Syrah Resources, will provide 30,000 tons of graphite to Jixi BTR Graphite Industrial for the production of lithium ion batteries.

The South Tangipahoa Parish Port Commission needs to focus its attention on China to learn the true facts about the pollutive nature of a graphite product plant.

In October, 2016 The Washington Post did an investigative story on the pollutant effects of graphite dust on a town located near a plant that produces it.  The story entitled “In your phone, in their air” was written by Peter Whoriskey and can be easily Googled.

I have quoted some of its highlights below:

‘At night, the pollution around the village has an otherworldly, almost fairy-tale quality.  ‘The air sparkles,’ said Zhang Tuling, a farmer in a village in far northeastern China. ‘When any bit of light hits the particles, they shine.’

Beside the family home is a plot that once grew saplings, but the trees died once the factory began operating, said Zhang’s husband, Yu Yuan.
‘This is what we live with,’ Zhang said, slowly waving an arm at the stumps.

By daylight, the particles are visible as a lustrous gray dust that settles on everything. It stunts the crops it blankets, begrimes laundry hung outside to dry and leaves grit on food. The village’s well water has become undrinkable, too.

Zhang and Yu live near a factory that produces graphite, a glittery substance that, while best known for filling pencils, has become an indispensable resource in the new millennium. It is an ingredient in lithium-ion batteries.

At five towns in two provinces of China, Washington Post journalists heard the same story from villagers living near graphite companies: sparkling night air, damaged crops, homes and belongings covered in soot, polluted drinking water — and government officials inclined to look the other way to benefit a major employer.

In addition, plant managers and party officials sometimes sternly discouraged journalists from speaking with villagers. At three of the villages, the taxi carrying the Post journalists was followed.
Whatever the obstacles, the villagers who would talk offered remarkably consistent accounts of the pollution. The graphite, they typically said with disgust, makes everything mai tai, a regional expression meaning dirty.

Since the graphite factory opened in Zhang’s village about five years ago, the graphite has become more than a nuisance. The couple live near Jixi, a city less than 50 miles from the Russian border. The dust has covered their corn crop, so much so that walking by a row of cornstalks leaves their faces blackened. And it seems impossible to keep it out of the house — at the dinner table, it often leaves them chewing the particles in their teeth.

They worry, too, about the health consequences, especially of breathing it in. Inhaling particulate matter can cause an array of health troubles, according to health experts, including heart attacks and respiratory ailments.

But it’s not just the air. The graphite plant discharges pollutants into local waters, Zhang and Yu said — a nightly event that they can detect by smell: The discharges leave a chemical odor that irritates their noses and throats. Those emissions have not only made their water undrinkable, they said, but also kept the local river from freezing in winter. They also think the discharge poisoned the poplar trees they were growing for lumber outside their home, just beyond their coops for ducks and geese and chickens.

‘All the trees were fine until the graphite plant started,’ Yu said. ’It killed my trees.’
‘We want to move, but we don’t have any money,’ Zhang said.”

This is the reality of what could happen if this project is allowed to continue.  I’m sure that the company will respond that this is a situation that exists in China known for their lax enforcement of environmental safeguards and that they along with our state will ensure that this doesn’t happened here.  Do you want to trust this company and the state of Louisiana to protect you and the environment? Mr. Zhang in China did and look how that ended.

We ain't stupid

Everyone in administrative positions in Louisiana state government has a boss.   It is hard for me to conceptualize that since 2008 when Mike Edmonson was appointed head of the Louisiana State Police, by Governor Bobby Jindal, no one ever heard any rumors or complaints about Edmonson’s questionable, unethical behavior.   The powers to be want us to believe that they were so well hidden that even John Bel Edwards had no knowledge of them when he chose to let Edmonson continue his reign.  How dumb does the Baton Rouge crew think we are?

 

This entire new fiasco smacks of the same type of behavior that was permitted to occur with our former head of the Angola Prison System, Mr. Burl Cain.  Again, hard to believe that Cain’s boss, James Leblanc,  head of the Louisiana Department  of Public Safety and Corrections, had no knowledge of his questionable abuse of taxpayers’ resources.   LeBlanc still remains in his job thanks again to our present governor.

The reality for the existence of these poor excuses for public servants is that they were just part of the ‘good ole boys’ culture, an informal system of friendships and connections through which men use their positions of influence by providing favors and information to help other men.  This is simply the way it is in our state government.

It is apparent that both these public servants were “nice guys” who would do a favor for you if you asked and expected only that you reward them by staying out of the day-to-day operation of their departments.   In other words, don’t hold them accountable for the way they did things as long as they fulfilled the tangible goals expected of them.

I suspect that after all the investigations are completed, Edmonson, like Cain will be permitted to quietly draw his lucrative state sponsored pension for the remainder of his life and all this mess will just fade away.  Isn’t that how it always works in Louisiana?  After all we don’t have the national reputation as being one of the most corrupt states for nothing.  Huey Long would be proud of our Baton Rouge crew.

In a just world, both these individuals should receive a court date along with the termination of their bosses, who either knew about the improprieties and ignored them, or didn’t have a clue and should have.

TOPShas lost oringinal intent

Our legislators are once again reviewing the funding for the TOPS program.  However, the Louisiana TOPS program has indeed lost its way.  It was originally funded by Mr. Patrick F. Taylor, a Texas born oilman, to reward students who had outstanding academic performance, coupled with limited family resources, with a college education.  The original proposal was offered to the students of an intercity public school in New Orleans.

TOPS now violates both intents of the original Taylor plan.  In 1989, TOPS had an income cap of $25,000, about $47,850 in today’s dollars.  Today, thirty-seven percent of TOPS recipients come from homes with an annual income of $70,000 to $150,000.  One in five comes from a family that makes more than $150,000 a year. 

 Academically, the original standard for TOPS set by Mr. Taylor was a 3.0 GPA, a B average.  When the state took over it immediately lowered the academic requirement to 2.5, a C plus, hardly outstanding academic performance. It also added the requirement of a composite score of 20 on the ACT, a national college test taken by high school seniors.  This score falls at the 50^th percentile nationally, again simply an average, non-noteworthy score.

The most startling finding that clearly indicates just how bastardized the Louisiana TOPS program has become is the fact that if the GPA qualification for TOPS were returned to the original 3.0 and the ACT requirement was raised to 22 corresponding to the 63^rd percentile, 80% of this year’s crop of TOPS recipients would no longer qualify.

Thanks to our esteemed legislators TOPS has become nothing more than an entitlement program for average performing students from middle and upper class families in Louisiana and a cash cow for our state’s junior colleges, trade schools, and universities.  Additionally, its present implementation is an insult to the students currently receiving the program’s benefits that would have initially qualified based upon their high academic performances, higher ACT scores, and family needs.

Originally, it was a respected, prestigious honor to be selected as a TOPS candidate.  Now it’s just an expected God- given right of Louisianans.

Once you give the masses an expected financial handout, it’s almost impossible to take it away; the downside of all entitlement programs.  TOPS continues to drain our state budget and I doubt that it will ever return to its original intent, for there’s no genuine desire to do so among our legislators and a very vocal part of the public.

If in fact this is a true assessment maybe our legislators ought to put the funding for TOPS to a vote of all their constituents to determine if they would be willing to add a special tax to fund it.  Good luck with that!

President Trump has learned his lesson well

It’s no secret about President Donald Trump’s love and admiration for dictators and autocrats. Throughout his run for president and after assuming office he has praised them as “strong leaders unlike what we have in this country.”  He systematically ignores the atrocities that these leaders have committed to rise to power and maintain it.

The list of Trump’s favorites includes: Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines; Xi Jinping, President of China; Abdel-Fattah el- Sissi, President of Egypt; Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey; Kim Jong Un, President of North Korea; and Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.  Trump has even praised the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.  Anyone, including Trump, can just Google these guys to read about the atrocities they have committed.

 

President Trump, unlike all his previous predecessors, avoids all discussion of human rights issues when he meets with these leaders.  The most cited reason is his many business ventures and agreements with these countries, which always take precedent over his influential responsibilities as Leader of the Free World.

However, if one closely examines the governing style of Trump, he has learned valuable lessons about leadership from his dictator friends as was recently pointed out on the John Oliver TV show.

In full disclosure, Oliver’s show is definitely leftist biased in its reporting on Trump’s actions, but sometimes even the biased shows can give one an “aha moment.”

I had such a moment the other night when Oliver pointed out that Trump and his supporters continually use the following dictator techniques:

Delegitimizing the media

“Whataboutism”

Trolling

Character discrediting (I added this one)

We are all familiar with Trump’s campaign to discredit most news media outlets as “Fake News”.  Accordingly he claims that his tweets are one of the only sources of the real facts.  This is the number one tactic used by most dictatorships, delegitimizing and suppressing all opposition media sources coupled with convincing people their regime’s news outlet is the only true source of facts.

“Whataboutism” is an old Soviet propaganda tool used to marginalize inquiries into current immoral, unethical actions or violations of the law.  It implies all actions share an equal moral equivalence.    An investigation or inquiry is initiated and to cloud the issue the “What about” term is applied to incidents or persons from the past as a comparison to minimize the present illicit activity.  This is a favorite of Trump, and his supporters.   Watch Fox News and count the number of times “What about” is used in their reporting.  It really is very amusing but doesn’t address the fact that the illicit or unlawful behavior is occurring today and should be dealt with accordingly.  The past behavior of others doesn’t legitimize, minimize, or absolve from prosecution someone’s present actions.

Trolling the internet is another technique skillfully utilized by Trump to play upon the fears and biases of our society.  Find out what people fear most, incite mass confusion about it, and provoke anger.  Dictators like Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un love this technique.

The last Trump governing technique is my personal favorite, character discrediting.  President Trump doesn't intellectually debate any of his critics.  Instead he makes fun of their personal appearance and plays upon a personality weakness by assigning each a childish nickname, all in an attempt to discredit them for criticizing his regime. Unlike dictators Trump can’t have them physically assassinated, but he, like his beloved dictators, is obsessed with the destruction of his critics.

If you’ve read this to conclusion and you’re angry with the Trump characterization, just remember you can always invoke Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama as your “What about” to dismiss the realities of the issue and feel better.

The Value of a Student's Life

A reality check is definitely long overdue at our beloved premiere university in Louisiana.

LSU fans and alumni become outraged when the LSU Tigers’ performance on the football field fails to meet their expectations.  It results in condemnation of the head coach, and if the poor performance continues fans and alumni call for the coach’s head.  This was clearly evidenced by the recent Les Miles firing.

However, when it comes to injurious partying at LSU, apparently no one gives a damn.

A young man died at the hands of fraternity hazing and yet there is no outcry for anyone’s head in the LSU administration.

LSU has a designated office in its administration charged with the over-site of fraternities’ and sororities’ activities, including how pledging is conducted.

Apparently this exists in name only for over the years when serious violations occurred at these organizations it was usually the national chapter that imposed the punitive actions on the campus chapters, not LSU.

The LSU administration appears to have only gotten minimally involved when media outlets exposed the activities or some public display of deplorable events occurred.  If LSU did choose to do anything at all, it simply issued a slap on the wrist along with a media release stating that the violators would be required to attend some type of counseling; no big deal for LSU.

According to recent  media investigations, emails, letters and verbal warnings by alumni had little effect in creating a proactive, regulatory approach for the office charged with the over-site of these organizations.

Someone or some administrative office failed to do its job and holding those accountable in addition to the students themselves would certainly show that LSU is as concerned about the well being of its students as it is about its football performance.

What is equally disturbing is how the public continues to absolve the administration of any responsibility for these incidences. 

Guess the easy way out is to just blame it all on the kids, because we all know, “everyone just loves to party,” especially at LSU.

Sadly, I suspect the reason for this muted public outcry is the notion among many adults that drinking is just a part of the “college experience.”   Drunken behavior has always been acceptable in our society.  Some parents even facilitate teenage drinking in their homes with the excuse that they want their children’s first exposure to drinking to be among family so that they can prepare them for college life, or life in general.

However, the bottom line for all college drinking in Louisiana is the fact that the legal drinking age is 21, and 18-20 year olds may only consume alcohol in an alcoholic beverage outlet if they are accompanied by a parent, spouse, or legal guardian who is 21 years of age or older.  Yet drinking is continually permitted at university-sponsored frats and sororities. 

It’s the coach’s fault when the LSU students lose a football game, but it is totally the students’ fault when underage students binge drink at an LSU sanctioned frat or sorority house resulting in property damage, someone’s injury, or death.

Where is the LSU administrative effort to realistically regulate this irresponsible and often destructive behavior, and where is the alumni and publics’ demand to do so?