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OSHA Wins Case Against SeaWorld Involving Death of Orca Trainer

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From OH&S / Apr 11, 2014 Re-posted from OBRag

OSHA has won the appellate case involving its enforcement case against SeaWorld of Florida LLC following the death of killer whale trainer Dawn Brancheau on Feb. 24, 2010. A 2-1 decision issued April 11 by a panel of three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that SeaWorld “recognized its precautions were inadequate to prevent serious bodily harm or even death to its trainers and that the residual hazard was preventable.”

“The remedy imposed for SeaWorld’s violations does not change the essential nature of its business,” the majority opinion written by Judge Judith W. Rogers states. “There will still be human interactions and performances with killer whales; the remedy will simply require that they continue with increased safety measures.”

This is a high-profile case that was argued Nov. 12, 2013, at the Georgetown University Law Center, with SeaWorld’s legal team including Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP’s Eugene Scalia, son of U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.   [Read more…]

The Shopping Mall’s Socialist Pre-History

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The inventor of the American suburban shopping mall was a socialist. Could his creation have been saved?

By  / Jacobin Magazine

The American landscape is littered with hundreds of dead shopping malls. In places like the vast Buckingham Square Mall in Aurora, Colo., which has stood empty since 2007, the indoor fountains have stopped running, but the prosthetic plants inside remain eerily green. More will join them. It’s said that 15% of American malls will close in the next ten years.

The biggest shopping mall in the world, the New South China Mall in Dongguan, is also a dead mall. Opening in 2005, it boasted seven zones, each based on major international cities and featuring including a replica Arc de Triumph and a Venetian canal complete with gondolas. However, the mall has remained 99% vacant since its opening. Aside from a cluster of fast food restaurants near its entrance, the mall is a network of vast, empty atria and mothballed cinemas and roller coasters.

Unable to compete with online shopping, declining consumer affluence, rising oil prices, and a volatile property market, shopping malls are dropping like flies.   [Read more…]

Cheap Corn Permeates Every Facet of the American Diet

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By John Lawrence

Corn is the staple of the US agricultural system and food supply. It’s in everything we eat unbeknownst to many Americans.

Corn feeds steers that become steak and fast food hamburgers. Corn feeds chickens and pigs – even catfish, salmon and tilapia. Milk, cheese and yogurt that once came from cows that grazed on grass now come from Holsteins that spend their time tethered to milking machines while munching on corn.

Processed foods contain even more corn than so-called “natural” foods. Take chicken nuggets, for example. Not only the chicken itself but the corn starch that holds it together, the corn flour in the batter, the corn oil in which its fried, the leavenings and lecithin, the mono-, di- and triglycerides, the golden coloring, the citric acid that keeps it fresh – all these ingredients come from corn.

Any soft drink in the supermarket including Coke and Pepsi contains High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) so you can wash down your corn with some more corn. A quarter of the 45,000 items in the average supermarket contain corn.   [Read more…]

“If I Could Sit Down with SeaWorld Executives, I Would Share My Vision …”

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By Cara Wilson-Granat/ OBRag

If I could sit down with the Sea World executives, I would share my vision for their new park.

Since I’m an incurable optimist I believe that wishes do in time come true. I’ve dedicated my life to talking and writing about the power of hope — even when all seems so hopeless. Indeed, one of the most famous Holocaust survivors was the one who told me that “Even if the end of the world would be imminent, you still plant a tree today.” Those words were expressed to me years ago by the father of Anne Frank, Otto Frank. He gave me hope as he did a worldwide global family.

So surrounded by others who are strong believers in seeing a harmonious world for orcas, dolphins, indeed, all captive beings I appeal to Sea World to “sea” your next 50 years as the one we all wish to celebrate.   [Read more…]

Extreme Weather Watch: March 2014

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Winter Weather Made a $55 Billion Hit to US Economy

By John Lawrence

The winter of 2014 broke records and budgets. NBC News reported that the economy took a $55 billion hit because of the extreme winter weather. There was $5.5 billion in damage to homes, businesses, agriculture and infrastructure. Cities had additional costs for salt for roads and asphalt for potholes. There were more than 30,000 potholes in Toledo, OH alone. The companies that supply salt and asphalt are making a fortune. This winter also saw 79.3 inches of snow falling in Chicago where there were 23 days below zero.

In California drought covers 99.8% of the state. The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which typically holds at least half of all the water that will flow to the state’s farms and cities each year, is at just one-fourth of its normal level.   [Read more…]

If We Don’t Connect It to Race and Class, Then Green Politics Is Just High-End Consumerism

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Instead of advocating “green” lifestyles that are financially and culturally inaccessible to millions of Americans, artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph proposes we ask a single, crucial question that connects race, class and ecology: What sustains life in a community?

By Marc Bamuthi Joseph / Creative Time Reports

As environmentalism goes mainstream, corporations are marketing the word “green” as a panacea for the world’s climate crisis. Today the word describes a set of prescribed, mostly consumerist actions: buy local, organic and fresh; go vegan; eat in season; skip the elevator; take the stairs. “Green” has come to mean shopping at Whole Foods and possessing a Prius. Meanwhile, leading corporate polluters like BP and Exxon Mobil place commercials on CNN advertising their “green” practices.

It should come as no surprise, then, that “green” lifestyles don’t resonate with low-income communities; being “green” involves a set of behaviors that are financially or culturally inaccessible to millions of Americans. This presents a major problem for the environmental movement. If it is going to be successful, environmentalism simply cannot afford to be demographically segregated or isolated from the pathos of economic disparity.

The environmental movement needs to do a better job of connecting issues of race, class, poverty and sustainability; in short, it has to become a broader social movement. And people of color need visibility in the movement. By that, I don’t mean Barack Obama presiding over environmental policy from the White House or Lisa Jackson heading the Environmental Protection Agency during Obama’s first term. I mean the recognition that sustainable survival practices in poor communities are just as significant as solar panels and LED lights. Ultimately this is where the citizenry of the planet can and must come together in order to move forward.   [Read more…]

A Green Balboa Park Centennial Celebration for 2015

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By Lori Saldaña

As George Santayana famously observed: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” But in the case of the Pan-American centennial planning, organizers need to learn from the history of the event to help them re-create its grandeur and appeal, and make the 2015 Balboa Park centennial a celebration of innovation, rooted in the first Exhibition’s origins.

Here’s a brief statement of the original events’ main theme:  “The purpose of the Panama-California Exposition is to illustrate the progress and possibility of the human race, not for the exposition only, but for a permanent contribution to the world’s progress.”

There may still time to develop a successful 2015 Balboa Park centennial celebration, especially if planners and city leaders broaden their vision to take into account the main themes and purpose of the original celebration, consider what attracted people not only to travel but set down roots here 100 years ago, and actively incorporate those elements into the modern event.   [Read more…]

The Rent Is Too Damn High? How About the Cost of Cars?

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The average San Diego household that rents pays more for automobiles than housing.

By John P. Anderson

SANDAG recently approved $200 million for bicycle initiatives under the Regional Bike Plan Early Action Program (EAP). This money will be spent across the county for high-priority projects over the next decade. There are 42 projects included in the EAP which will add 77 miles of new bikeways to the region.

$200 million is a lot of money and I was thrilled when the EAP money was approved. I’ve attended many meetings over the past few months and written a number of articles regarding two of the projects in the EAP – the Uptown Regional Bike Corridor Project and the North Park – Mid-City Bike Corridors Project. The approval of this money means that those projects can go forward, hopefully with a focus on University Avenue which is the best opportunity in the county for showing what bicycling infrastructure can do.   [Read more…]

We’re Finished. Now What?

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By Will Falk

I don’t know how to write this, but it looks like humanity is finished.

Many of us know it in our hearts. We watch as civilization marches us to the edge of the cliff. We look around to find most governments refusing to implement the radical shifts needed to save us and killing those who fight back against these governments. We are searching for the serious resistance movement we have needed for the last sixty years while nothing materializes. Even though we have invented a million reasons why we’ll be saved like the belief in technology or a faith in economics, we know what is happening.

Of course, this culture is suspicious of the implications of any easily observable phenomenon that is not stamped with the approval of the currently dominating priesthood – I mean – scientific community. And, even the scientists have known our doom for decades.   [Read more…]

Protect 28th Street Canyon Coalition Launches Petition to Oppose Development

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By Staff

Neighborhood opposition to SDPB Holdings LLC’s interest in residential development at the corner of Granada Avenue and Fir Street in South Park continues to grow with a petition drive to protect the 28th Street Canyon. Residents question the wisdom of continuing development on the canyon, claiming that it will have a negative impact on a sensitive canyon habitat, cut off access to a popular dog park and hiking trail and obscure views.   [Read more…]

WILDCOAST Staff and San Diego’s Uptown Rotary Club on Oaxaca’s Coast

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Bi-national effort to preserve sea turtle habitat and protect mangrove ecosystems

By Staff

Last month members of the San Diego Uptown Rotary Club joined with WILDCOAST staff in a volunteer effort to preserve some of the world’s most important sea turtle nesting beaches along Oaxaca, Mexico’s coast. Their goal was to promote awareness of the ecological significance of the areas they visited to residents and visitors. They participated in the cleanups of the beaches and tidal lagoons which are essential to the health of the ocean and the life it supports.   [Read more…]

Hundreds of Tribal Representatives Join Huge Rally to Oppose Fracking

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“We’re here to stop fracking and the rape of Mother Earth. Water is the life blood of Mother Earth.” 

By Dan Bacher 

Hundreds of indigenous people from California and across the country gathered with a crowd of over 4000 activists at the State Capitol in Sacramento on March 15 to send a clear message to Governor Jerry Brown: ban fracking, an environmentally destructive oil extraction practice that pollutes groundwater, rivers and the oceans. 

The large Tribal contingent included members of the Miwok, Maidu, Winnemem Wintu, Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, Ohlone, Pit River, Cahto, Round Valley, Pomo and Chumash Nations and other Tribes from throughout the state, as well as members of the Dakota, Lakota Sioux, indigenous communities, native organizations and activists in the Idle No More Movement and Klamath Justice Coalitions. Many Tribal representatives emphasized the direct connection between fracking and the Shasta Dam raise and the Governor’s peripheral tunnels plan, which will provide water for fracking. 

“We should call the Governor ‘Westlands’ Brown,” said Chook Chook Hillman, a member of the Karuk Tribe and the Klamath Justice Coalition, a group that has organized many direct action protests to remove the Klamath dams, halt the violation of tribal gathering rights under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create so-called “marine protected areas,” and to stop the Westlands Water District legal attempt to raid Trinity River water.    [Read more…]

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