Help Stop Mountaintop-Mining Madness
Industrial polluters are very skilled at perverting our language when they want to eliminate regulations that protect us and our environment from their rampant destruction. Rather than saying honestly that they’re out to kill anti-pollution regulations, they speak soothingly of “easing,” “modifying,” and “relaxing” the rules. This sounds like a mattress ad.
They’re at it again. Pushed by Appalachia’s coal barons, George W.’s Office of Surface Mining is trying to rush through a rule change that would be one of the most destructive imaginable. It involves a horrendous, ruinous mining method called “mountaintop removal.” “Removal” is another Orwellian euphemism, disguising the industry’s brutal practice of simply blowing up the tops of ancient Appalachian mountains, then callously shoving the massive piles of rubble down the mountainside, burying everything below.
The one deterrent – often ignored by coal corporations – is a rule prohibiting this rubble from being dumped within 100 feet of valley streams. Rather than enforce this clear regulation, however, Bush & Co. have recently proposed to “clarify” the meaning of “don’t do that.” The new language says the coal giants can dump their waste right into streams, so long as they try to minimize the damage “to the extent possible.”
In other words: Free for all – blast away! This is a grotesque departing gift from the Bushites to corporations that have been loyal campaign funders. It would encourage more mindless decimation of our mountains and the burying of hundreds of miles of streams beneath tons of coal waste.
Still, there is hope for sanity. The Environmental Protection Agency must okay the rule change, there are moves in Congress to stop it, and both Barack Obama and John McCain say they oppose it. To join this fight, connect with this grassroots group: www.ilovemountains.org.
Pricing Fans Out of the Game
Generations of Americans have enjoyed whiling away an afternoon or evening with friends and family at the ballpark, joining in the old sports tune “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” But if you’re an average Joe or Jill today, you’ve been taken out of the ball game by corporate owners who now cater to upscale customers, pricing the experience beyond the reach of regular folks.
Look at the new Yankee Stadium. It will only have half as many bleacher seats as the venerable old stadium next door. The old ballpark, now being bulldozed, was known as “the house that Ruth built,” because the Babe drew thousands of working-class fans to each game, filling those bleachers.
But the new edifice is reaching for a much higher-end demographic than Joe Six-Pack, boasting more than three times as many luxury skyboxes as its more egalitarian predecessor. The draw is no longer to the game itself but to the scene – a chance for Wall Streeters, corporate chieftains, politicians, and other suits to see and be seen, to schmooze with one another in the splendid isolation of the pricey boxes.
Team owners have also come up with a new financial gimmick that shuts out average fans. Even to get a chance to buy season tickets for the games in such new football stadiums as the one the New York Jets will soon use, a gamer must first purchase a “PSL” – personal seat license. These go for $5,000 or more. This doesn’t get you an actual seat at the games, just the “license” to buy tickets – which sell for roughly $120 per seat, per game. So a family of four wanting season tickets to root for its team must pay $20,000 for PSLs, then shell out $500 for four tickets to each game. And that doesn’t count gas, parking, hot dogs, a cold beer, and souvenirs.
Forget “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” – regular folks are just plain getting taken.
This article appears in November 14 • 2008.