3/6/14 -- Ecocem Materials Ltd of Dublin Ireland seeks to establish in Vallejo, CA its 4th international plant, its first in North America. Operating as Orcem California, Inc., Ecocem has filed an application with the City of Vallejo for a Major Use Permit to repurpose the ~5 acre former flour milling site to a $30 million green manufacturing plant. 

DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT ON ECOCEM WEBSITE:

Ethicalego Speaks Ethicalego (Kenneth Brooks) discusses current events from a critical thinking perspective rarely expressed elsewhere   Does the American flag of unity represent cultural diversity?   By Kenneth Brooks 3/6/14    Courts ruled schools could ban students’ American flag displays during Cinco de Mayo because of threats of violence. This is an absurdity of some people's reasoning about American cultural diversity. Some students in the United States celebrating a historic event of foreign, ancestor culture threaten violence to other students displaying the American flag that symbolizes protected freedom of expression. During May 5, 2010, Oak High School of Morgan Hill Unified School District allowed a Cinco de Mayo celebration on campus. Some students of Mexican descent threatened violence against students displaying the American flag that day. Based on those threats, school officials directed students to remove or hide clothing displaying the flag. They excused students from attendance that refused to hide or remove the flag from their clothes.

The students sued in Federal District Court for violation of their First Amendment rights of free speech and for equal protection. The Federal Court ruled in favor of Morgan Hill school officials and so did a panel of U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Appellate Court reasoned that schools have authority to suppress speech to protect students from threats of violence or to prevent disruption of school programs. This court decision was a perverted application of law. It supported the denial of American students' free speech displays of patriotism while allowing the group threatening violence to display the Mexican flag and complete their Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Perhaps Oak High School officials could have used this occasion as an education event if the illogical beliefs of cultural diversity did not obstruct reasoning. American Cultural diversity presumes distinct inherited ethnic groups differences in important areas of morality, intellect, and human rights. Prejudices of skin color, race, religion, and nationality are the foundation for cultural group identities. Those identities energized by prejudiced-charged emotions convince many Americans that cultural diversity is a zero-sum game-each group advances its interests at the expense of another group. (That is, "White" students' display of the American flag belittles the Mexican Cinco de Mayo celebration." "Schools advance black and Asian cultural interests over white-race interests when they reduce European history and literature in the k-12 curriculum." "Improving Black-labeled students' English Language ability diminishes their African-American culture.")

Commonsense, should alert Americans the disputes over the worth of inherited cultures is unproductive of young Americans' duty to advance a common American culture. The direction immigration flow indicates how people value culture no matter the wistful claims of cultural equality. Americans or their ancestors voted the United States their preferred culture when they emigrated from their ancestral lands and culture.

Life is a relay for survival and not a static picture for admiration of ancestor achievement. Therefore, descendants celebrating past great cultures of the African, Asian, and European continents that no longer are dominant only highlight those cultures' lack of persistence. Alternatively, it highlights the failure of descendants to advance the baton. Ideas of cultural diversity set the United States on that same destructive track.

School officials had the duty to remind students of the patriotic purpose for displaying the American flag. On May 5, 2010, some students celebrated Cinco de Mayo by trying to force other students to remove displays of the American flag from their clothing. This same day, ten thousands American military members displayed the American flag on their combat outfit while at war in Afghanistan defending freedoms of Americans. Many of those military members were Americans of Mexican descent. The display of the American flag on the caskets of deceased military members is the nation's tribute to them.

If this reminder of what the flag represents failed to suppress the threats of violence from its display, school officials should have called for law-enforcement backing to protect students exercising their American freedoms. Alternatively, they should have canceled the celebration. In no manner should they have rewarded threats of violence against displays of American patriotism. Americans' respect for the displayed flag is not for a piece of cloth, but for goals of unity, it represents.

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