For the greater part of the last 100 years, the United States has relied heavily on foreign sources of energy. Now this dependency is changing.

Domestic oil and natural gas development is quickly moving the United States towards energy security.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation, with an average daily production of 1.2 billion cubic feet (Bcf), is leading this transition.

Government data shows that Cabot had 15 of the top 20 producing wells in Pennsylvania in 2012 and since 2008, a total cumulative production of 488 Bcf from just 225 producing wells.

Cabot is also proud to champion increased usage of natural gas.

In Susquehanna County alone, Cabot is using natural gas to fuel 60 of its fleet vehicles, power its drilling operations and demonstrating dual-fuel engine technologies during its completions operations.

Not only is this an economic benefit for our company and surrounding community, it is a tremendous environmental one as well, helping to reduce greenhouse emission from the air we breathe every single day.

Sincerely,

George Stark

Director, External Affairs

Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation

President Obama's July 19th speech about the passing of Trayvon Martin was poignant. It was an extemporaneous monolog that recalled some of the president's own experiences of being a black man in a white America.

His memories were unpleasant and painful to recall: “There are very few African-American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happened to me. Or of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously. That happens often.”

The implication is that this is racism in the raw. But is it? Do whites really lock their doors or clutch their purses because of an unreasoned fear of blacks or does the answer lie elsewhere?

To answer that question we'll go back a lifetime ago. This was the era of Jim Crow laws, strict segregation, voting disenfranchisement, and lynching. Surely, it was the worst of times for blacks? On the contrary, it was the best of times. It was a period in black history that came to be known as the Harlem Renaissance.

Harlem was peopled with writers, novelists, poets, artists, intellectuals; and luminaries like William Thurman, Zora Hurston, Florence Mills, Jacob Lawrence, and Langston Hughes. It was also the golden age for black entertainment.

It was the tail end of prohibition and speakeasies flourished. Harlem had hundreds. A few are familiar names even to this day: the Radium Club, Club Hot-Cha, the Savoy Ballroom, and the Cotton Club featuring Cab Calloway singing his signature Ho De Hi De Ho.

Harlem nights glittered with stars such as Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Jell Roll Morton, and Billie Holiday, and whites flocked to revel in their music.

Black culture was further distinguished by men of brilliance in science and education.

George Washington Carver was a scientist, botanist, and inventor. In 1941, Time magazine called him the “Black Leonardo.”

Booker---so-called because he was always reading--- T. Washington, was an educator, author, orator, adviser to presidents of the United States, and founder of Tuskegee University.

Though their genius is acknowledged, their wisdom is forgotten. Both men advised against confronting unjust laws, outrageous discrimination, and humiliating customs. Instead, they encouraged self-reliance, education, and economic achievement in black communities.

Although blacks venturing into a white neighborhood would raise a few eyebrows, whites never felt ill at ease in Harlem during its flowering.

But today, how many whites would relish taking a stroll through Harlem? Something happened to the black community between the Roaring Twenties and the turbulent 2000s. Something very, very bad. It's called, good intentions.

Civil rights legislation began in 1954 when the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. That decision marked the beginning of the end of segregation. A laudable intention? Without question. But lurking within civil rights was a civil wrong.

Blacks of ability, energy, and ambition abandoned the black community to seek and find success in the white world. In effect, the black community was decapitated.

Then, with the best of intentions, came welfare. What slavery started, welfare finished. The Moynihan Report of 1965 blamed welfare for the breakdown of the black family. It discouraged black men to remain committed to the families they fathered. The matriarchal structure of black culture, the report concluded, led to poor academic performance, the breakdown of the black nuclear family, and crime.

An FBI report records the racial distribution of crime in 30 categories. In 2011, there was a total of 9.6 million criminal offenses, 6.5 million crimes were committed by whites, and 2.7 million were committed by blacks.

Comparing the 6.5 million white crimes with a white population of 231 million on a 100,00 basis we find there were 2,800 crimes/100,000 whites.

Doing the same for blacks, we compare their 2.7 million crimes with a black population of 42 million. That gives 6,400 crimes/100,000 blacks.

Comparing the two ratios we find that for every crime committed by a white there were 2.3 crimes committed by a black.

Using the same method of comparison for robbery, the ratio is 1 white/7 black robberies. For assaults and forcible rapes the ratios are the same, 1 white/2.7 black assaults and forcible rapes.

For multiracial murders we compare the 218 blacks murdered by whites with the 447 whites murdered by blacks. We find that for every black murdered by a white there were 11 whites murdered by a black.

So, Mr. President, I suggest that the experiences you cited cannot be so easily explained---or explained away---by racism. By good intentions? To be sure. But not by racism.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA

Your announcement of July 11, 2013 regarding your decision not to defend Pennsylvania’s Defense of Marriage Act because you support same-sex marriage is very troubling.

First – Your position violates the Natural Law which is written by God into the hearts of all people. How can any person not recognize that the bodies and temperament of men and women complement each other and are designed to be fruitful and nurture children? While a same-sex couple frustrates the nature of the human race by being sterile. While we acknowledge the existence of same-sex attractions, we cannot condone ignoring the Natural Law by changing the definition of marriage.

Second – You took an oath to up hold the laws of Pennsylvania when you were sworn into office. Your announcement that you will not defend against the DOMA lawsuit and uphold the Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996 is a violation of that oath. If you find yourself, as Attorney General, unable to enforce certain laws you should resign your office or be impeached.

Third -You set a bad example to all Pennsylvanians by thumbing your nose at a law you do not like. Many Pennsylvanians do not like the taxes paid to the Commonwealth because they do not agree with some of the projects they are spent upon. Should they take your example as a Common Wealth Officer and refuse to pay some or all of their taxes?

Sincerely,

Barry M. and Annette H. Corrigan

Jackson Township, PA