Category: Health

SeaWorld Also Wants a Hotel on Mission Bay

The big news in our neck of the woods – or more accurately – our cove of the bay – is that SeaWorld has just announced that it is phasing out the Orca show performances at its San Diego park. They will be phased out sometime in 2016 – which means they could go on for another year. And replaced in 2017 with a “new orca experience”one with a more “natural” setting.

On Monday, November 9th, the company posted a document that stated that the theatrical Shamu stunts here in San Diego will be replaced with an “informative” experience with a “conservation message inspiring people to act.”

The changes do not affect killer whale shows in Orlando, Florida and San Antonio, Texas, where they own other similar parks with orcas.

Pot taxes to fund school construction and substance-abuse programs

By Walter Einenkel / Daily Kos

Colorado voters agreed on how to spend $66 million of the revenue generated by the legal sale of marijuana.

The measure sends the first $40 million to school construction and $12 million designated for youth and substance-abuse programs.

Back on October 26th, we posted an article about possible Navy waste water flowing down Sunset Cliffs into the ocean – as had been discovered by Andrew, one of our readers, while walking his dog south of the Nazarene college. Andrew took it upon himself to take photos and vid of the possible thousands of gallons of water he witnessed cascading down a gully of the cliffs, also possibly causing erosion of the protected area.

The water appeared to be coming from Navy facilities on Point Loma, directly to the east and up the hill. Andrew and others who surf in that area have concerns about the quality of the water, whether it was toxic or not, or just exactly what was in it.

Organic farming can be cutting-edge, too.

By Jill Richardson / OtherWords

When I first began researching agriculture, I had no idea how organic farming worked. I saw it as a somewhat backward yet non-toxic and desirable way to grow food.

Organic farmers didn’t use fertilizer, I figured, so maybe the plants would be smaller. And they didn’t use pesticides, so I’d have to settle for some damage to my food — and I’d pay more for the privilege.

As for the people who thought organic agriculture produced better, healthier food than conventional farming, I figured they were nuts. That sounded like magical thinking to me. Did organic farmers grow food using fairies and rainbows?

The notion that organic farming is at odds with modern science is an attitude I’ve heard repeated many times, even by organic activists. “We just need to go back and grow food how we used to,” they’ll say.

Hannah Steria showed me into the cramped back office of the only licensed medical marijuana storefront in City Council District 2, the Point Loma Patients Consumer Cooperative, one of the only places in the building where we could do an interview in private. The place was crowded with patients and staff – two friendly security guards were very visible. We were about 2 miles as the seagull flies from downtown Ocean Beach – and this was OB’s closest licensed pot storefront.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board is holding a “special meeting” tonight, Wednesday, Oct. 21. The one-item agenda is on the…

In years past, candidates totally ignored the failed war on drugs and the harms of marijuana prohibition

By Tony Newman / AlterNet

During the first Democratic debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) became the first major presidential candidate to say that he would support legalizing marijuana if given the chance. Asked whether he would support an upcoming ballot measure on legalization in Nevada, Sanders said:

“I suspect I would vote yes. And I would vote yes because I am seeing in this country too many lives being destroyed for non-violent offenses.

Introduction

The beautiful Sunset Cliffs that stretch from the residential southern portions of Ocean Beach to the lower reaches of the uninhabited sections of Point Loma are certainly a world-renown, indescribably gorgeous treasure of nature that line the land’s border with the Pacific. At the right moment when the ocean earns its name and the Cliffs earn theirs, the beauty and serenity cannot be amply replicated by the pen – or keyboard. Yet these same cliffs with their jagged rocks and crashing surf are also very unforgiving in their encounters with unwary humans, where death and distress accompany their collision with this abrupt edge between ocean and peninsula.

San Diego’s Climate Mobilization Coalition is calling for a “Climate Action Demonstration” at noon in downtown San Diego on Wednesday, October 14th.

It will be held at the Federal Building—Front and Broadway downtown.

San Diego’s coalition will be joining others across the country on this–a People’s Day of Climate Action by calling, once again, for the federal government to implement a national mobilization to get America off fossil fuels and on to renewable energy at wartime speed.

By Sneha Shankar/ International Business Times

The California Coastal Commission Thursday approved the bid by SeaWorld to expand the tanks the company uses to hold killer whales in San Diego, but banned the breeding of the captive orcas that would live in them. The decision came through a vote, which followed a daylong hearing with several speakers, who spoke for and against the proposed expansion.

While the decision was lauded by animal rights activists, it would only ban the breeding of captive orcas, including through artificial insemination, in the company’s California park but not in its facilities in other states. SeaWorld also operates parks in San Antonio, Texas, and Orlando, Florida. The amendment would also ban the sale, trade or transfer of the orcas, and provided an exemption for some of the whales that were caught in the wild, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

In the third OB Rag poll that we recently ran for a week, we asked our readers about the surf camps in OB requesting an extension of the time allowed in the ocean and on the beach.

The surf camps want to amend their Memorandum of Agreement with the City of San Diego to extend their time in the afternoon by one hour.

Nearly three-quarters of the readers who responded expressed some kind of opposition to the current set-up.

Killer Clash: SeaWorld’s Fate May Hinge on ‘Blue World’ Vote

By Ken Stone / Times of San Diego / October 7, 2015

The fate of SeaWorld’s $100 million Blue World Project — a doubling of killer whale space — rests in the hands of the California Coastal Commission on Thursday in a showdown being framed as the most crucial in the history of orca advocacy.

“There has never been a more important time to speak up for the orcas held captive at SeaWorld,” said Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

For Orlando-based SeaWorld Entertainment, Blue World’s OK represents a chance to reverse its business slide in the wake of the critical “Blackfish” documentary and former trainer John Hargrove’s book “Beneath the Surface.”