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Volume XX • Number 28 • July 11 - 17, 2013 •
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WWII vet finds no respect for Memorial Grove By PAULETTE SCHNEIDER Around once a week, World War II veteran Herb Barret rounds up a few friends and walks from his Kingsbridge home to Van Cortlandt Park—specifically to Memorial Grove, an area near Broadway at West 246th Street dedicated to the memory of Bronxites who served their country as World War II or Korean War soldiers. Barret and his neighbor, fellow combat veteran Don Tannen, spent six years fighting a local battle over inexplicable delays in restoring the grove, neglected over the years and left with missing plaques, deteriorated granite foundations for the plaques, stolen benches, broken fencing and overgrown landscaping. They formed the Memorial Grove Restoration Group to ensure that the area got some attention, maintenance and dignity. They won their battle for funding and park personnel, and the grove was refurbished.
A ceremonial ribbon-cutting held at the site last July was attended by Parks and Recreation commissioner Adrian Benepe, Congressman Eliot Engel, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, members of Community Board 8 and Councilman G. Oliver Koppell—who allocated $250,000 in capital funding for the project. But when Barret paid a visit to the grove last week on July 5, he found it littered with broken beer bottles and other trash. And the miniature American flags placed at each plaque had been vandalized, Barret said—masts were left broken, and flag fabric torn from masts was left on the ground. He called Van Cortlandt Park administrator Margot Perron and described the scene, which Perron agreed was “terrible.” She called the park groundskeepers and got them to clean up the debris. It was Barret who replaced the damaged and missing
Local war veteran Herb Barret places flags at the Van Cortlandt Park Memorial Grove ahead of last year’s Independence Day celebrations. flags—some with recycled ones he’s salvaged in the past
and repaired himself, others with new ones from a supply
provided by the Jewish War Continued on Page 2
A birthday present for America: Energy Independence By Youssef Ibrahim Courtesy of the New York Sun online June 7, 2013 It’s not just independence in 1776 that American can celebrate this month. The United States can also celebrate the fact that it has crossed a critical line in its pursuit of energy independence: We’re there. “Energy self-sufficiency is now in sight,” Phil Verleger, president of PKVerleger LLC, a prominent energy consultant and visiting Fellow at the Peterson Institute for Inter-
national Economics said in a conversation. Daniel Yergin, a leading energy scholar and energy expert author of the much acclaimed Pulitzer-winning book: The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, money, and Power, recently spoke to Bloomberg Markets Magazine (April 2, 2013 issue) of a ‘’renewed surge’’ in North American oil production that is well underway. “The U.S. is now in a position of being envied because of our energy vitality’’, he said. What is going on here? Two things turned the tide. One, is a gusher of oil extracted from sands
Ben Franklin Club gathers over 4,100 petition signatures. See story on Page 8.
coming down largely from the province of Alberta in Canada which now is estimated to hold proven reserves of 174 billion barrels of oil in its sands deposits, making it third after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela with the special distinction that Canada is not only next door but our most secure strategic Western ally. Second, came the so-called fracking technology, a procedure of creating fractures in rock formations by injecting fluid that has unleashed a massive bonanza of new cheap energy in the form of Natural gas — aclean, cheap, fuel for industry and a huge job creation vehicle. In scale this energy revolution, which unfolded over the past few years compares to huge productivity unleashed by the computer and Internet revolution of the last decade, creating jobs, industries and tons of innovations. It “is a game changer,” said Craig Alexander, chief economist from TD Bank Financial Group. “There’s no question we are seeing a renaissance in manufacturing because the cost advantage has shifted to the United States.” IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm, says that in the Chemical-manufacturing sector alone, companies are building plants worth an estimated $95 billion. The strategic consequences are hard to overstate. The West as a whole is no longer susceptible to oil blackmail. There can never be a repeat of the Arab oil embargo of 1973, when Saudi Arabia led other Persian Gulf producers to cut off oil to Europe and the United States to protest their support of Israel. American
foreign policy cannot be held hostage by Mideast oligarchies and mullahs. Iran’s often-threatened military action to block oil shipments via the Hormuz Strait, no longer carries the same menace. To be sure if it ever happens it will push prices up in the short term, but the move’s largest victims will be the Persian gulf oil producers themselves, namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar and Iran itself, who will be deprived from the single resource accounting for 90% of their income. These nations export only two commodities: Oil and Islamic Fundamentalism. Without one they cannot fund the other. The dimension of this sea change in energy is reflected in the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Statistics: Crude oil production in the US surged 14.3% in the past year to 9 million barrels a day now. To put it in perspective, the leap was the biggest since 1859, when Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial well, in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The natural gas revolution, however, stands in a class by itself. “This,’’ Mr. Verleger said ‘’is really the classic success of American entrepreneurs”. Indeed the United States is preparing to export natural gas now having achieved self-sufficiency. Experts are confident that within seven years the US will not need to import any oil from outside the Americas, either. Meanwhile North America is adding to the world energy pool cheaper new amounts with the Continued on Page 15