Monthly Archives: February 2014

Freedom, others have faced lawsuits before

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Over the past decade, Freedom Industries, its officers and associated companies have faced several lawsuits in Kanawha and Putnam counties, most of which were dismissed for various reasons.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Over the past decade, Freedom Industries, its officers and associated companies have faced several lawsuits in Kanawha and Putnam counties, most of which were dismissed for various reasons.

Freedom Industries now faces about 40 lawsuits after a chemical leaked from its storage tank into the Elk River and fouled the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginians last month. The company filed to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy a week after the spill.

On Dec. 31, 2013, four companies merged under the umbrella of Freedom Industries: Freedom Industries Inc., Etowah River Terminal LLC, Poca Blending LLC and Crete Technologies LLC.

Freedom markets and distributes chemicals that are mixed by Poca Blending in Nitro. Etowah River Terminal is the storage facility on the Elk that leaked the chemical. It has about a dozen tanks, each of which can hold tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals. It was formerly a Pennzoil facility.

Of the four companies merged in December, Freedom was the oldest. Carl L. Kennedy II, a longtime Charleston businessman, founded it Feb. 10, 1992. Its listed address at that time was 8 Capitol St.

In 2004, Kennedy and Kenneth C. Fox, directors of Eight Capitol Street, defaulted on $8,630 in workers compensation payments, according to documents in Kanawha Circuit Court.

The lawsuit to collect the money was later dropped in 2005 after Kennedy and Fox agreed to repay the money.

Kennedy is a longtime business associate of Dennis "Denny" Farrell, listed as president of Freedom Industries on the company's website. Kennedy is still listed as "incorporator" on Freedom on the West Virginia secretary of state's website.

In 2004, a lawsuit was filed against both Kennedy and Farrell by D-G Airways in Kanawha Circuit Court.

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Freedom, others have faced lawsuits before

WWII soldiers experience abroad fed freedom fight back home

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Breath of Freedom, a documentary airing Monday, reminds us that the world is sometimes a bizarre place, one in which a country can fight a war abroad as the champion of freedom and democracy, while enshrining their opposites in law and practice.

But there is something hopeful in the program, too. The two-hour television special is the story of black American veterans who experienced greater freedom while serving in Germany than theyd had in the U.S., and came back determined to change circumstances at home, playing significant roles in the modern civil-rights movement.

The story is told in film clips and interviews through the experiences of Americans and Germans, black, white and mixed race, including retired King County Superior Court Judge Charles Johnson, who served during the occupation.

Hosea Williams, a close associate of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s, was a sergeant in a unit that fought under Gen. George Patton. Williams earned a Purple Heart after being severely injured in a Nazi bombing raid, but he wasnt safe at home after the war.

He was still in uniform traveling home after the war when he drank water from a bus-station fountain reserved for whites. An angry crowd beat him so badly they thought he was dead and called a hearse. He was just barely alive, but had to be driven past white hospitals to a veterans hospital more than 100 miles away where he was hospitalized for a month.

Nothing about that makes sense, but it wasnt just a matter of a few people behaving badly, it was part of the systematic subjugation of black Americans rooted in laws those veterans would help change.

Johnson, who grew up in Arkansas, joined the Army in 1948 and served almost four years in a segregated unit in Germany. While he was there, he had a German girlfriend with whom he traveled all around the country. It opened a whole new world to him, he says in the documentary, but when he came home, he returned alone.

I asked him about that last week and he said, She wanted to come here, but I knew I couldnt live that kind of life here in the United States. Its something you just didnt let yourself think about because you knew it couldnt work here. Interracial marriage was banned in most states until the Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court ruling in 1967.

The Germans hadnt suddenly given up the racist ideas that led to death camps, but the power equation was different. Johnson said Germans didnt always like seeing him and his friends dating German women, but they had to tolerate it.

Johnson came home with a mission, to get a law degree and get out of Arkansas. While he was finishing college after the war, he told a professor he wanted to attend law school and was looking for a place where hed be able to get a job. The professor had earned a Ph.D. from the University of Washington while working nights at the post office.

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WWII soldiers experience abroad fed freedom fight back home

Scientific racism's long history mandates caution, experts warn

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Racism as a social and scientific concept is reshaped and reborn periodically through the ages, and according to a Penn State anthropologist, both medical and scientific researchers need to be careful that the growth of genomics does not bring about another resurgence of scientific racism.

"What we are facing is a time when genomic knowledge widens and gene engineering will be possible and widespread," said Nina Jablonski, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. "We must constantly monitor how this information on human gene diversity is used and interpreted. Any belief system that seeks to separate people on the basis of genetic endowment or different physical or intellectual features is simply inadmissible in human society."

What worries Jablonski and the sociologists, psychologists and evolutionary biologists in her session at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, on February 14 in Chicago, are people who believe that they can use genetic traits to describe races and to develop race-specific interventions for each group. One particularly disturbing approach, although currently suggested as beneficial, is application of genetics to create special approaches to education. The idea that certain individuals and groups learn differently due to their genetic makeup, and so need specialized educational programs could be the first step in a slippery slope to recreating a new brand of "separate but equal."

Similar approaches in medicine that are based not on personal genetics but on racial generalizations can be just as incorrect and troubling, especially because human genetic admixture is so prevalent.

"Our species is defined by regular admixture of peoples and ideas over millennia," said Jablonski. "To come up with new reasons for segregating people is hideous."

Classification of humans began innocently enough with Carl Linnaeus and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who simply classified humans into races in the same way they classified dogs or cats -- by their physical characteristics. These were scientists classifying the world around them and realizing that the classifications were not immutable but had a great deal of diversity and overlap. However, in the last quarter of the 18th century, philosophers, especially Immanuel Kant, looked to classify people by behavior and culture as well as genetics. Kant suggested that there were four groups of people, three of which because they existed under conditions not conducive to great intellect or achievement were inferior. Only the European race was capable of self-improvement and highest level of civilization.

Kant's ideas, widely accepted during his lifetime, set up the idea of European superiority in the future. Coupled with the great rise and profitability of slavery at the time, his views were adopted and morphed to legitimize the slave trade.

In the late 19th century, after Darwin's ideas became accepted, many applied his principles to the cultural, political and social spheres, developing the concept of Social Darwinism. Darwin's nephew, Francis Galton, suggested that in parts of the world there were still "pure races" and that these needed to be preserved. This line of thought led to the eugenics movement and eugenic engineering ideas of the early 20th century. Included in this were the rise of European superiority and the trappings of eugenics and racial purity.

"The most odious of all was the rise of Nazism and biological justification of Nordic supremacy," said Jablonski. "Emphasis was placed on the need to maintain the purity of all races, but especially the Nordic race and to improve the races."

The reasoning given was that the quality of a race could be improved by preventing reproduction of those deemed physically or mentally undesirable either by sterilization or extermination.

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Scientific racism's long history mandates caution, experts warn

Tito Ortiz Steps Down as Cris "Cyborg" Justino's Manager

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Appearing on AXS TV's Inside MMA, former UFC light heavyweight champion and current Bellator fighter (more or less) Tito Ortiz stated that his days as the manager of Cris "Cyborg" Justino are officially over. "I can live with [UFC president Dana White] not liking me but what I cant live with is Danausing me to hurt someone else," he said. "Ive taken abuse and maybe I deservedsome of it but Cris is a beautiful person and great athlete and doesntdeserve to be insulted like this."

He continued,

"I never said she would die if she made 135...we just repeated what the doctor said, that Cris shouldnt make a career at 135, we offered a 3 fight dealthey said no 7 fights or no deal...Regardless I wont stand in the way from the fans getting a fight theywant and I wont hold Cris back. So Im stepping down as Cris manager."

The news comes shortly after a media event where UFC president Dana White said that "Cyborg" looks like former Pride champion Wanderlei Silva.The development is interesting, but the question is if it will translate into an increased likelihood of the former Strikeforce women's featherweight champion.

Without a doubt, Justino (formerly known by her married name, Cris "Cyborg" Santos) is one of the greatest female fighters in MMA and can be easily regarded as the best on the planet. Fans and media alike have clamored for a matchup between Justino and UFC women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey for years now (our own Jonathan Snowden discussed the idea in-depth here).

Ortiz speculates his presence is what is holding up a potential stint in the UFC for "Cyborg," but that may or may not be true. In addition to the possibility that Ortiz is attempting to save face after being fired, the UFC does not benefit from having Justino for anything less than the remainder of her career.

A one-and-done fight with Rousey is a terrible idea for the promotion. Should Rousey lose, it does nothing more than hurt her potential earning power for Zuffa. Even if she signed on for three fights at 135 pounds as Ortiz mentioned, having a champion for such a brief time is not a wonderful thought for White.

Only time will tell if this development will pay off for Justino, the UFC or fans.

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Tito Ortiz Steps Down as Cris "Cyborg" Justino's Manager