Wade on May 2008
By Wade KwonThen and now
Meet the new owners: Birmingham-based construction/engineering firm BE&K will have a new owner. KBR, a Houston-based construction/engineering contractor, will buy the homegrown company for $550 million. In fact, KBR has now completed the deal.
BE&K has a reputation as a family-friendly workplace, but what do we know about KBR? So glad you asked …
- It’s a former Halliburton subsidiary.
- Thirteen Americans (11 soldiers and two contractors) have been electrocuted in Iraq. All deaths took place in buildings maintained by military contractor KBR. The Pentagon has ordered an investigation.
- The Pentagon also says that the firm overcharged the Navy millions of dollars on post-Katrina work in south Mississippi, but made up for it with shoddy work.
- Several women working in Iraq have accused KBR employees of rape (including gang rape), not to mention a cover-up.
And we all paid for it.
Metro music mix: Ah, a busy month for music festivals and events, including …
- The Alabama Symphony Orchestra summer series
- Art on the Rocks
- Do Dah Day
- The first Downtown Throw-Down
- The Magic City Brewfest
- The Schaeffer Eye Center Crawfish Boil
- The Vulcan Birthday Bash
Talk about your cultural diversity. No, seriously, talk about it.
Perpetual gridlock: Forbes said what we knew all along. Birmingham has the worst commute among small cities.
With gas prices at an all-time high, the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority has received more than 4,000 calls a month this year. But ridership remains flat. Why? For starters, the neglected system has routes that don’t match customer demand. Old buses break down, and those that do work run inadequate schedules.
Kids, you can always hitch.
Haiku flashback
coffeehouse, inc. [May 29]
Everything smells like
dark Colombian roast and
capitalist grind.
More haiku.
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Archives: May
Special report: Wade on 2008