Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 11:36 AM
ACTION: Save Beyond Baroque (& other public spaces)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121507984532601
EMERGENCY CALL TO SAVE BEYOND BAROQUE!
A proposal by the City of Los Angeles City Administrator Officer's
office would eliminate the $1.00 per-year leases for 116 nonprofit
organizations (approximately 16 arts organizations) working in the
interest of the public. No economic analysis was conducted on the
long term costs of this short-term fix and no non-profits were
consulted on its impact. The proposal will go before the full LA City
Council sometime in the next two weeks.
This could have a devastating impact on many Venice-based non-profits
including: Beyond Baroque, Sparc, LA Theatre Works, the Vera Davis
McClendon Youth and Family Center, just to name a few.
Make your voice heard by taking action below NOW.
WE CAN STOP THIS WITH YOUR HELP.
Send a letter to the LA City Council urging them to have a full
hearing on the fiscal impact, human and community impact this policy
will have on the lives of Angelenos.
http://www.artsforla.org/news/action_alert_la_citys_nonprofit_lease_program
A big thank you to Arts For LA for their partnership on helping with
this critical issue.
We thank everyone of you for your support, which is so crucial now!
###
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/27-1
Big Oil Fought Off New Safety Rules Before Rig Explosion
by Marcus Baram
Huffington Post: Apuil 27, 2010
As families mourn the 11 workers thrown overboard in the worst oil rig
disaster in decades and as the resulting spill continues to spread through
the Gulf of Mexico, new questions are being raised about the training of the
drill operators and about the oil company's commitment to safety.
Deepwater Horizon, the giant technically-advanced rig which exploded on
April 20 and sank two days later, is leaking an estimated 42,000 gallons per
day through a pipe about 5,000 feet below the surface. The spill has spread
across 1,800 square miles -- an area larger than Rhode Island -- according
to satellite images, oozing its way toward the Louisiana coast and posing a
threat to wildlife, including a sperm whale spotted in the oil sheen.
The massive $600 million rig, which holds the record for boring the deepest
oil and gas well in the world -- at 35,050 feet - had passed three recent
federal inspections, the most recent on April 1, since it moved to its
current location in January. The cause of the explosion has not been
determined.
Yet relatives of workers who are presumed dead claim that the oil behemoth
BP and rig owner TransOcean violated "numerous statutes and regulations"
issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S.
Coast Guard, according to a lawsuit filed by Natalie Roshto, whose husband
Shane, a deck floor hand, was thrown overboard by the force of the explosion
and whose body has not yet been located.
Both companies failed to provide a competent crew, failed to properly
supervise its employees and failed to provide Rushto with a safe place to
work, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the
Eastern District of Louisiana. The lawsuit also names oil-services giant
Halliburton as a defendant, claiming that the company "prior to the
explosion, was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and,
upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these
duties, which was a cause of the explosion."
BP and TransOcean have also aggressively opposed new safety regulations
proposed last year by a federal agency that oversees offshore drilling --
which were prompted by a study that found many accidents in the industry.
There were 41 deaths and 302 injuries out of 1,443 incidents from 2001 to
2007, according to the study conducted by the Minerals and Management
Service of the Interior Department. In addition, the agency issued 150
reports over incidents of non-compliant production and drilling operations
and determined there was "no discernible improvement by industry over the
past 7 years."
As a result, the agency proposed taking a more proactive stance by requiring
operators to have their safety program audited at least once every three
years -- previously, the industry's self-managed safety program was
voluntary for operators. The agency estimated that the proposed rule, which
has yet to take effect, would cost operators about $4.59 million in startup
costs and $8 million in annual recurring costs.
The industry has launched a coordinated campaign to attack those
regulations, with over 100 letters objecting to the regulations -- in a
September 14, 2009 letter to MMS, BP vice president for Gulf of Mexico
production, Richard Morrison, wrote that "we are not supportive of the
extensive, prescriptive regulations as proposed in this rule," arguing that
the voluntary programs "have been and continue to be very successful," along
with a list of very specific objections to the wording of the proposed
regulations.
The next day, the American Petroleum Institute and the Offshore Operators
Committee, in a joint letter to MMS, emphasized their preference for
voluntary programs with "enough flexibility to suit the corporate culture of
each company." Both trade groups also claimed that the industry's safety and
environmental record has improved, citing MMS data to show that the number
of lost workdays fell "from a 3.39 rate in 1996 to 0.64 in 2008, a reduction
of over 80%."
The Offshore Operators Committee also submitted to MMS a September 2, 2009
PowerPoint presentation asking in bold letters, "What Do HURRICANES and New
Rules Have in Common?" against a backdrop of hurricane activity in the Gulf
of Mexico. On the next page, the answer appears: "Both are disruptive to
Operations And are costly to Recover From".
***
From: Paul Krassner
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2010 1:00 PM
Subject: latest
Kent State Anniversary Blues
by Paul Krassner
In my book, Magic Mushrooms and Other Highs: From Toad Slime to Ecstasy,
Freddy Berthoff described his mescaline trip at a Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Young concert in the summer of 1970 when he was 15. "Earlier that spring,"
he wrote, "the helmeted, rifle-toting National Guard came up over the rise
during a peace-in-Vietnam rally at Kent State University. And opened fire on
the crowd. I always suspected it was a contrived event, as if someone deep
in the executive branch had said, 'We've got to teach those commie punks a
lesson.'" Actually, President Nixon had called antiwar protesters "bums" two
days before the shootings. While Freddy was peaking on mescaline, CSNY sang
a new song about the massacre:
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in O-hi-o.
Plus nine wounded. Sixty-seven shots - dum-dum bullets that exploded upon
impact -- had been fired in 13 seconds. This incident on May 4, 1970
resulted in the first general student strike in U.S. history, encompassing
over 400 campuses.
Arthur Krause, father of one of the dead students, Allison, got a call from
John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, who said,
"There will be a complete investigation." Krause responded, "Are you sure
about that?" And the reply: "Mr. Krause, I promise you, there will be no
whitewash."
But NBC News correspondent James Polk discovered a memo marked "Eyes Only"
from Ehrlichman to Attorney General John Mitchell ordering that there be no
federal grand jury investigation of the killings, because Nixon adamantly
opposed such action.
Polk reported that, "In 1973, under a new Attorney General, Elliot
Richardson, the Justice Department reversed itself and did send the Kent
State case to a federal grand jury. When that was announced, Richardson said
to an aide he got a call from the White House. He was told that Richard
Nixon was so upset, they had to scrape the president off the walls with a
spatula."
Last year, Allison Krause's younger sister, Laurel, was relaxing on the
front deck of her home in California when she saw the County Sheriff's
Deputy coming toward her, followed by nearly two dozen men. "Then, before
my eyes," she recalls, "the officers morphed into a platoon of Ohio National
Guardsmen marching onto my land. They were here because I was cultivating
medical marijuana. I realized the persecution I was living through was
similar to what many Americans and global citizens experience daily. This
harassment even had parallels to Allison's experience before she was
murdered."
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Now, 40 years later, Laurel, her mother and other Kent State activists have
been organizing the "2010 Kent State Truth Tribunal" (see
http://bit.ly/8AD8TQ) scheduled for May 1-4 on the campus where the
slaughter of unarmed demonstrators originally occurred. The invitation to
participate in sharing their personal narratives has been extended to 1970
protesters, witnesses, National Guardsmen, Ohio and federal government
officials, university administrators and educators, local residents,
families of the victims. The purpose is to uncover the truth.
Laurel was 0nly 15 when the Kent State shootings took place. "Like any
15-year-old, my coping mechanisms were undeveloped at best. Every evening, I
remember spending hours in my bedroom practicing calligraphy to Neil Young's
'After the Goldrush,' artistically copying phrases of his music, smoking
marijuana to calm and numb my pain." When she was arrested for legally
growing marijuana, "They cuffed me and read my rights as I sobbed
hysterically. This was the first time I flashed back and revisited the utter
shock, raw devastation and feeling of total loss since Allison died. I
believed they were going to shoot and kill me, just like Allison. How
ironic, I thought. The medicine that kept me safe from experiencing
post-traumatic stress disorder now led me to relive that horrible experience
as the cops marched onto my property."
She began to see the interconnectedness of those events. The dehumanization
of Allison was the logical, ultimate extension of the dehumanization of
Laurel. Legally, two felonies were reduced to misdemeanors, and she was
sentenced to 25 hours of community service. But a therapist, one of Allison's
friends from Kent State, suggested to Laurel that the best way to deal with
the pain of PTSD was to make something good come out of the remembrance, the
suffering and the pain. "That's when I decided to transform the arrest into
something good for me," she says, "good for all. It was my only choice, the
only solution to cure this memorable, generational, personal angst. My
mantra became, 'This is the best thing that ever happened to me.' And it has
been." That's why she's fighting so hard for the truth to burst through
cement like blades of grass.
This piece is published in High Times magazine. Paul Krassner's latest book
is an expanded edition of his 1993 autobiography, Confessions of a Raving,
Unconfined Nut, available at <www,paulkrassner.com>.
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