(Akiit.com) Charles Town, WV…..Charles Town West Virginia national award winning author Bob O’Connor, a Civil War writer who has given us three historicalnovels about the conflict, has changed gears and published a non-fictioncivil war book called “The U.S. Colored Troops at Andersonville Prison.”

The book is a follow up of his fictional account “Catesby: Eyewitness to the Civil War” in which the main character is captured following the Battle of Olustee, Florida and taken to Andersonville Prison.

The new book gives the known biographical information on the 103 black soldiers incarcerated in the famous Confederate Prison at Andersonville, Georgia. The untold story of the USCT troops in the prison includesdocumentation on the origins of the U.S. Colored Troops.

“Of the 179,000 plus black soldiers who fought in the U.S. Army, only 776 are documented as having been in a Confederate prison,” O’Connor claims.“One hundred three of those were in Andersonville, including more thanhalf from either the 8th USCT (Pennsylvania) or the 54th Massachusetts, mostly captured at the February 20, 1864 battle at Olustee (also called Ocean Ponds).

Usually, O’Connor states, colored soldiers were often shot and killed oreven taken back to the South and sold into slavery. In several instances,the black soldiers were killed even while surrendering, with the reportsof the Battle of Fort Pillow being amongst the worst instances of thathappening.

The 103 prisoners include two white officers of the USCT who should havebeen taken to an officers prison. They held instead with the enlisted menbecause they were USCT officers. As such, they were also denied medicalhelp at the prison. Of the 103 prisoners, thirty-four died at the prison. Another 12 survived the prison and were transferred to Florence, South Carolina only to diewithin thirty days after their arrival.
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(Akiit.com) The latest botched act of terrorism raises important questions about U.S. competence in guarding against terror, and yet another American effort to build an important relationship with a fragile, unstable country.

On Christmas Day, a clatter, a puff of smoke and a brief, terrifying flame: Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian passenger on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, had allegedly tried to blow up his airplane. Others aboard the airliner quickly subdued the man, a former University College of London student who claims to have ties to Al-Qaeda and been supplied with explosives from Yemen. The plane landed safely in Detroit, where Mutallab was treated for third degree burns, and where federal police officially charged him with attempting to destroy the jet.

Airport security increased dramatically in several airports in the United States and in Europe as a result of the incident. But this latest botched act of terrorism has wider implications: it raises important questions about sources of new threats to the West, the actual level of U.S. competence in guarding against terror, and yet another American effort to build an important relationship with a fragile, unstable country.

Scrutiny has focused on Muhammad Murtallah International Airport in Lagos, from which Mutallab departed on Christmas Eve. As recently as Thanksgiving 2009, the Nigerian airport was deemed compliant with air safety protocols set by the American Transportation Security Administration and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Association—though over the last decade, it has been intermittently placed on TSA watchlists as one of the least secure airports in the world. Mutallab did not undergo secondary security screening at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam before boarding his flight for the U.S.

Since the failed bombing, reportedly involving PETN, a highly volatile explosive, Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Yemen have claimed credit for training Mutallab—though no U.S. government officials have confirmed those connections. Nevertheless, authorities have called the incident “an attempted terrorist attack“, and president Barack Obama is “actively” monitoring the situation as it develops, according to the White House.
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(Akiit.com) Since being thrust into the mantle of leadership after the ignominious fall of his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, New York Governor David Paterson’s rocky tenure has transformed him into something of a political piñata. A withering recession, the state’s battered finances, New York’s often treacherous politics, and the weight of his own mistakes converged to drag Paterson’s public approval rating to levels that eclipsed even those of former President George W. Bush.

But ever since President Barack Obama made a very public and head-scratching foray into state politics by asking Gov. Paterson to withdraw from the 2010 gubernatorial election, something unusual has occurred: the governor has managed to hit his stride - as he launches broadsides against some of the president’s most important policy priorities.

Since the public falling-out with the president in September, Gov. Paterson has sharpened his critique of President Obama’s initiatives in a way that elevated his profile and advanced his credibility, even as he takes aim at a sitting president from his own party.

Last week, Gov. Paterson joined Mayor Mike Bloomberg in assailing the Senate’s health care reform proposal, President Obama’s signature domestic priority and the culmination of decades of effort by the governor’s own Democratic Party to create a universal health care system. Paterson argues that the bill’s current form would force New York City to shutter numerous health clinics, while costing the state much needed revenues as it grapples to overcome a deepening fiscal crisis.

His salvo on health care came fast on the heels of a widely publicized speech earlier this month, in which he defended Wall Street bonuses that have been in the crosshairs of the Obama administration as it moves to implement far-reaching financial sector reforms. Eyebrows were also raised when the governor voiced dissent over Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try the key perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks in federal court.
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(Akiit.com) As the United States continues to tout itself as the world’s only remaining superpower, a casual observer might at the same time expect Americans to be counted among the world’s most informed and enlightened people. However, with the advent of the 24-hour news cycle and the expansion of on-line communications, the supply of the trivial and inconsequential has unfortunately surpassed the intellectual edge mass media has made available to most Americans.

Proportionate to its growth and development, an escalating trend among commercial mass media emphasizes that which is superfluous to the edification of the American electorate. Deflecting attention away from the corporate interests that seek to influence the legislative process and by media outlets that beat the drums of war through pseudo-patriotic packaging, the ability of the American people to sustain a cogent response to continuous media stimuli is increasingly doubtful.

During his farewell address from office in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the public to be wary of what he called ‘the military industrial complex.’ He warned in part that: “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals….” Although the peacefulness of American policy objectives since that time has been at best questionable, Eisenhower’s late call for Americans to remain ‘alert and knowledgeable’ was nevertheless an important appeal to reason.

While nearly 49 years have passed since that historic Oval Office speech, today, the average American has difficulty defining and becoming fully aware of what is truly in his or her own best interests. With an emphasis on sport and play, and through the melding of news and entertainment into one package, consumers of American based media are being herded away from the cerebral experience. Placing emotional stimulation and shortened attention spans over the intellect, commercial media has become more of a self-serving tool for public relations than it has for educating and informing the public at large.

Commercial media is not a pillar supporting corporate America, the major broadcast networks, print and cable companies are corporate America. Whether owned by media moguls, major entertainment companies or by parent companies that earn hundreds of millions of dollars as defense contractors, to those paying close enough attention, corporate media’s political and economic ambitions are clear.
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(Akiit.com) It’s just to cold around here, as I do yearn for those summer days… Well the NFL season is almost over, and my colts are the number 1 seed in the AFC… I do feel they will win it all this year… Yes super bowl champs… Anyway, I do need to send out those photo graduation invitations to family & friends… So proud of my younger brother who will be attending UNC…

Written By CTA