http://www.lcni5.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?062+article+News+20100412105404062062003

The big animals were out of reach
There was nothing to do
I know why they painted

There was no hint or promise
Still they could dream
I know why they painted

I lived half way to the pole.
I weathered the same battle
I know why they painted

My battle was only for comfort
Their battle was for life
I know why they painted

I know why they painted
They longed for green
When hope returned

I know why they painted
They longed for the herds
When hope returned

I know why they painted
They wanted to see it now
The time for which they hoped

I know why they painted
They built the shrine, the cathedral to
The time for which they hoped

I know why they painted

Forrest Erickson
22 Dec 2009

Images:
http://orionwell.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/cave-painting-lascaux.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Lascaux2.jpg

Every year, Santa makes mistakes.

A first telescope is purchase with such hope and much love. Most of these telescopes will disappoint. It is the thrust of this presentation to hep you avoiding the inexpensive “100 dollar” telescope and understand why.

Click for Presentation

Click for Presentation Notes

Click for Cheat Sheet


If you must buy a telescope first, this is about the best way to start.

The Orion 10″ scope.

Tonight at the McClung Museum is a free AIA lecture.

7:30 PM Thursday Oct. 29. Judith Barringer, University of Edinburgh, “Olympia Before the Temple of Zeus.” AIA Lecturer.

After the lecture there is even some free food.

I will be there and hope to see others.

Forrest (stuck in the past) Erickson

P.S.

Tuesday Nov. 24. Gregory S. Baker, UT Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences,

“Recent Applications of Near-Surface Geophysical Imaging in Archaeology.”

Link: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html

William K. Black - the former senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s - gives his perspective on the current financial crisis. He describes the fraud that created this problem and how and why it has gone unpunished.

The Daily Times asleep again with News. Most of the Sr. Management and Board members are Blount County business people.

BankEast must comply with Fed operating plan
By Josh Flory (Contact)
Friday, April 3, 2009

Related document
Agreement between the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and BankEast

A local lender is facing pressure to strengthen board oversight of its operations, maintain sufficient capital and improve its overall condition under an agreement reached last month with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

The agreement was executed March 23 between the Reserve Bank and BankEast Corp., which has headquarters in Knoxville and is the parent company of BankEast.

Edit note- For the full text of the article see the original story at the link below.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/apr/03/bankeast-must-comply-with-fed-operating-plan/

New FDIC Rules May Ban New Banks
Atlanta Business Chronicle writer Joe Rauch reported in an article published on Sunday that new FDIC rules may, in effect, ban new banks in Atlanta and other distressed areas.

Following is the complete text of the ABC article.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) may be implementing what is effectively a ban on new banks in metro Atlanta and other distressed areas nationwide, as the financial industry’s and broader economy’s deterioration accelerates.
The FDIC, the nation’s bank deposit guarantor, has increased scrutiny of new banks applying for deposit insurance in select areas of the Southeast and other regions, including Western states, industry insiders said.
The new reviews, insiders said, make approval difficult in practice, if not impossible.
“It is a de facto ban,” said Stephen Johnson, CEO of Alpharetta-based consultant T. Stephen Johnson & Associates Inc. “I’ve never seen a time this difficult to get a charter.”
Johnson is a longtime bank organizer and consultant in Atlanta, raising $500 million for various bank investments during his two-decade career.
Spurring the new rules are worsening industry performance and an increasing skepticism that new banks can succeed in the same places where others have failed this year, those familiar with the process said.
However, Mark Schmidt, the FDIC’s Atlanta regional director, adamantly denied that a ban, either formal or informal, is in place. He said the FDIC is continuing to review new bank applications, and expects some to receive approval.
Schmidt did acknowledge deposit insurance approval is harder to get, and the FDIC is becoming more discriminating in who it approves nationwide, including in metro Atlanta.
“We have had four failures in Georgia, three being relatively new institutions,” he said. “We are asking a lot of very hard questions. They have to convince us they can get off to a good start. The standards don’t change. From our perspective, the economy changed.”
Federal and state bank regulators seized First Georgia Community Bank on Dec. 5. Integrity Bank and Alpha Bank & Trust, both based in Alpharetta, and Loganville-based Community Bank were taken over in recent months.The FDIC’s changes affect at least eight Georgia banks currently organizing, according to state and federal regulatory data.
The FDIC’s tougher guidelines broadly address three key issues, sources said.
First, the FDIC is requesting bank organizing groups have directors or executives with management experience dating to the Savings and Loan Crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Second, banks are required to present a plan to generate deposits from the wider community, beyond the so-called “friends and family” of the organizing group.
Finally, banks are now required to submit an economic assessment of their distressed geographic area, addressing how the bank plans to grow and survive when, in some areas, loan growth is nonexistent.
The rule changes’ widespread impact comes from the FDIC’s unique role in bank regulation.
The organization is not the primary regulator of any bank, but serves as the linchpin to the U.S. banking system’s patchwork of oversight.
Other state and federal banking regulators require new banks to receive deposit insurance before opening their doors, making the FDIC a key industry overseer.
And the organization has directly felt the pinch of the 24 bank failures nationwide this year. The FDIC’s insurance fund, used to protect bank depositors from losing money in a failure, has shrunk from $57 billion to $37 billion.
Many of those failures have been concentrated in the Southeast, notably Georgia, Florida and metro Atlanta, and Western states like California, Arizona, Nevada and Washington.
It is in those areas that new bank scrutiny will be tougher than ever.
“This is a recognition of the significant deterioration in the last 60 days,” said Walt Moeling, a longtime Powell Goldstein LLP banking attorney.
Moeling said metro Atlanta is particularly problematic for the FDIC.
During the third quarter, 97 of 110 Atlanta banks reported rising levels of non-performing assets — or loans that are in some stage of default — from second-quarter to third-quarter 2008. Those problems across metro Atlanta spiked by 30 percent, a figure that worsens in certain areas.
Banks inside the Perimeter reported non-performing assets increase by an average of 131 percent. Banks in Atlanta’s southern suburbs reported an increase of 141 percent.
Those figures don’t take into account the worsening economic conditions of October, November and December, which will be reported in the fourth quarter.
“Right now, we’re in free fall,” Moeling said.
Uphill fight The FDIC’s renewed scrutiny of organizing banks affects eight institutions in Georgia. The bulk of those are organizing in metro Atlanta. The FDIC is requiring banks to answer new questions about their organizing groups and their business plans’ ability to weather a protracted economic downturn, in some cases requesting more experienced management or more robust strategies. Source: FDIC and staff research

For those of you who have been following our water buffer battle, you may find the following information interesting.

Last week’s Blount Today reported that Mayor Jerry Cunningham said the public needs to know the federal clean water act did not mandate a water buffer zone nor did state law mandate a water buffer zone. “The water buffer zone was the dreamchild of some employee of TDEC who promulgated the rule,” he said.

Cunningham also stated that “These kinds of decisions by the beauracracy only create multiple headaches and tread on private property rights without legislative authority, in my opinion. These kinds of things need to be reined in.” (That’s what we’ve been saying from day one—-Jerry finally got the message.)

The mayor said it’s very apparent that the message was sent out to the counties “buried with all the burdensome rules” and did not state the criteria allowing counties to opt out of buffer coverage and did not specify that it was only required in an urbanized zone.

(To clarify, an urbanized zone is an area that has at least 1000 people per square mile and also owns and operates a separate stormwater sewer system. That eliminates Blount County.)

The mayor said “Nobody knew. It took an environmental lawyer to ferret this out.”

Can you believe the mayor now comes to this understanding, only after hearing from another lawyer. It’s too bad that the taxpayers had to pay for legal advice when, for 9 months, we citizens have spoken at every Commission Meeting, as well as Ad hoc and workshop sessions, and explained that there was no mandate. We argued and criticized Justin Teague, head of the mayor’s Stormwater Department, because he had not done his homework and would not provide his facts. However, we were ignored as being “Nobody". I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; we’ve been cavemen, monkeys, etc.

We should be outraged that the citizens of Blount County were lied to and deceived from the very beginning. The facts were in black and white, but our voices were tuned out. Now our illustrious mayor wants to act as if this was enlightening news never before heard. I believe our mayor owes the citizens of Blount County an apology.

If you have not registered to vote or know someone who will turn 18 before election day November 4,th, you can find the necessary form at the election commission web site:

http://www.blounttn.org/election/election.asp

The form you want is: Mail-In Application For Voter Registration
http://www.blounttn.org/election/Mail_In_Application_for_Voter_Registration.pdf

No time to mail it, take it to the court house Monday. Better to do it by lunch time than wait.

Forrest Erickson