Economy

It’s a Sad Day in America When the Navy Launches a San Diego-Built Drone off a Carrier

May 17, 2013 by Frank Gormlie
Thumbnail image for It’s a Sad Day in America When the Navy Launches a San Diego-Built Drone off a Carrier

It’s a sad day in America. The US Navy launched the first carrier-based drone off its deck the other day, off the coast of Virginia. It’s an even sadder day for us in San Diego, as the drone was manufactured – in part, at least – by plants and engineers right here in our own city.

The launching of the drone off that deck demonstrates clearly that as drones become more and more integrated into becoming the armament of the nation’s military, they are becoming more and more accepted – here domestically, back in the good ol’ US of A.

And as drones become more and more prevalently utilized, not just by our armed forces overseas, but by law enforcement, border patrol, and local police departments here within our very own borders, American citizens are more and more subjected to a high-tech surveillance that is quite unlike anything we’ve known in the past – a surveillance that is becoming so pervasive, that it challenges our basic civil rights, freedoms and privacies.

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Pharmacist Kickbacks Put California Patient Health at Risk

May 17, 2013 by Source

PillsBy Hollaine Hopkins/California Progress Report

Health care cost containment is a critical issue facing every participant in the health care system. Efforts to contain costs, however, appear to have given rise to dangerous financial arrangements between health insurers and pharmacists that may be jeopardizing the health of California patients.

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Restaurant Review: “The Joint” in Ocean Beach

May 10, 2013 by Judi Curry
Thumbnail image for Restaurant Review: “The Joint” in Ocean Beach

The Joint
4902 Newport Ave
Ocean Beach, CA 92107
(619) 222-8272

It is wonderful having guests from out of town staying with me. I am trying restaurants that I would not go to on my own for a variety of reasons. Last night, however, my guests from Massachusetts wanted to have sushi and I have wanted to try “The Joint” so on an evening I thought would not be busy – Taco Tuesday – we entered the establishment about 7:00 pm only to find it absolutely packed.

There was a wait, but not a long one and we were seated at the first table near the door. All night long we watched people go in and out of the restaurant without any slowdown. To say I was surprised puts in mildly, but after having a meal there I can understand the enthusiasm of the diners.

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Ballot Initiative Seeks to Bring California In Line with Other Oil Producing States

May 6, 2013 by Andy Cohen

Lost Hills Oil Field

by Andy Cohen / San Diego Free Press

North Dakota does it. Louisiana does it. Florida too, and Alaska. Even Texas has an oil and gas severance tax, which largely funds state government there. Alaska is almost entirely dependent on their oil severance tax. But in California, no such tax exists. …

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The Incredible Lightness of Being Able to Understand Mayor Filner’s 2014 Budget

May 3, 2013 by Anna Daniels
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Community Power Affecting Budget Decisions that Impact Our Neighborhoods

by Anna Daniels / San Diego Free Press

It is highly unusual for a group of strangers to smile broadly at each other and enthusiastically confess that the workshop they had just attended on how to read the City’s Capital Improvement Budget had been really interesting and very worthwhile.
That is exactly what happened a few weeks ago when I got into the elevator with a group of people with whom I had just attended the Community Budget Alliance‘s hands on budget workshop held in City Heights. It’s budget season…
(Come inside for insight into the City’s Budget.)

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Celebrate May Day and Know Its Origins

May 1, 2013 by Source
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Most people living in the United States know little about the International Workers’ Day of May Day. For many others there is an assumption that it is a holiday celebrated in state communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Most Americans don’t realize that May Day has its origins here in this country and is as “American” as baseball and apple pie, and stemmed from the pre-Christian holiday of Beltane, a celebration of rebirth and fertility.

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How Much Is Your Life Worth?

April 30, 2013 by Source

The price of some cancer drugs exceeds $100,000 a year.

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

doctor2How much is your life worth?

In a free market economy like the US, that question is settled by ability of the individual to pay. If you can’t pay over $100,000 a year for a life-saving cancer drug, your life isn’t worth as much as someone who can.

In a free market economy your life is worth exactly your ability to pay. In countries where the government pays the cost of drugs, they decide how much your life is worth. In Britain it’s $50,000; that’s the price the British government has negotiated the most expensive drugs down to. Is there a moral limit to how much Big Pharma can charge for some life saving drugs?

Some doctors seem to think so.

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Petition Drive to Get People’s Food Co-op to Move to Old Apple Tree Market?

April 29, 2013 by Frank Gormlie

We have heard rumors that there is a petition drive just getting off the ground here in OB in an effort to get People’s Food Co-op to either purchase or lease the old Apple Tree Market site over in the central commercial area of the village.

The former business – Apple Tree Market – closed at the beginning of the year. The store owner had talked about opening a smaller version of the store in his property on Newport Ave – the old OB Bike and Skate Shop (the old Bof A building), but we are unaware of any progress in that direction.

In the meantime, residents, shoppers, and visitors do not have immediate access to a large market in downtown Ocean Beach. The nearest large food stores are over in the Midway (Barons), up near the high school (Stumps), or on top of Point Loma (but the Fresh & Easy is closing itself).

And then there’s OB People’s Food Co-op – the organic store that has served the community and outlying areas since the early 1970′s – and already OB’s largest employer – with over one hundred full and part time people – many of whom live in the village.

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Labor Bashing and Lincoln Club Love : the Last Refuge of Losers and Scoundrels in San Diego Democratic Politics

April 29, 2013 by Jim Miller
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Local Races in Assembly District 80 and City Council District 4

By Jim Miller

Before I devote the month of May to the San Diego Free Press’s upcoming focus on my Golden Hill neighborhood, recent events compel me to do one last column on the special elections in Assembly District 80 and City Council District 4.

The 80th California Assembly District: Lorena Gonzalez vs Steve Castaneda

In the race to replace Ben Hueso in the 80th it shouldn’t be shocking that Lorena Gonzalez’s opponent has attacked her for being a “union boss” except for the fact that that charge was hurled at her not from a Republican but from fellow Democrat, Steve Castaneda. Indeed, Mr. Castaneda, who would surely have taken labor’s endorsement if offered, was far too quick to turn to cartoon like right-wing anti-union stereotypes. This should tell us all we need to know about this variety of Democrat.

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Strange Sights in Ocean Beach

April 26, 2013 by Frank Gormlie
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Here are some strange sights of Ocean Beach – sights one doesn’t see all that often during the life course of the village.

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When Banks Wrongfully Foreclose, They Get a Slap on the Wrist

April 22, 2013 by Source

Those illegally foreclosed on get a pittance in return.

foreclosure

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

Banks foreclosed on military service members, homeowners who had been approved for a loan modification and even homeowners who were current on their payments. At least 53 homeowners who weren’t behind on their payments were successfully foreclosed on and lost their homes for no reason.

There was widespread criminal behavior on the part of the banks, but in a recent settlement they got off relatively cheap.

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Corporate Education Reform Goes to College Despite Flunking Out in the K-12 System

April 22, 2013 by Jim Miller

By Jim Miller

6671_500611959997407_1321783566_nThings haven’t been going too well for the corporate education reform forces lately. In Chicago there is great controversy surrounding and parent resistance to school closings as a result of the efforts of over zealous reformers. This shameful turn of events puts yet another black mark on former Obama Administration chief of staff and current Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel’s heavy-handed reign of error over his city’s schools.

Across the country in Seattle, teachers, students, and parents came together to resist the overuse of standardized tests by asking questions that resonated nationwide about the disservice we are doing to our children. And, in Atlanta, a massive cheating scandal raised eyebrows about the hegemony of high stakes testing as well.

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Happy Tax Day — For Some More Than Others

April 15, 2013 by Jim Miller

dollar three dBy Jim Miller

While there was much bluster about the rich tying their hot tubs to the roofs of their Mercedes and heading off to Texas after Prop 30 passed, the truth is that the poor still pay a heftier share of their income in taxes than the wealthy. Last week, the California Budget Project (CBP) released their annual report “Who Pays Taxes on California?”, and it appears that the post Proposition 30 landscape is far from apocalyptic for the top 1%.

By the broadest measure of revenue collection, “Taxafornia,” despite its largely progressive tax system, ranks 15th in the country in total “own source” revenue, and the poorest among us pay the highest share of their family income in taxes.

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Councilman Faulconer’s State of the District Address

April 12, 2013 by Source

City Councilman Faulconer says things are looking good here in District 2 and San Diego

Mission Bay at sunset

By Mic Porte

Wednesday April 10, 2013, Paradise Point Resort -

Sounds like the name of the sequel of a sci-fi film, but it was actually a fantasy island dream moment with our San Diego District 2 elected official, Councilmember Kevin Faulconer, and his team, at beautiful Paradise Point Resort in the middle of beautiful Mission Bay in beautiful San Diego, on a beautiful evening and with all the beautiful people around, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

And according to Councilmember Faulconer, things are looking pretty beautiful around here, and with a little more bi-partisan effort on the part of the city council and everybody else in San Diego and the great state of California, and regional funding, we might even be able to finally get the crumbling oldest part of the seawall in front of Belmont Park repaired in time for the rising ocean levels, and balance the city budget too, and get back to pursuing happiness, something we do great here in San Diego.

Boys and girls, are we lucky? Yes, thank you.

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North Park Has One Up on Ocean Beach As It Begins San Diego’s Very First “EcoDistrict”

April 11, 2013 by Source

Editor: Apparently, the commmunity of North Park has something to show Ocean Beach: North Park is about to initiate San Diego’s first “EcoDistrict”. What is that?

By John Anderson / San Diego Free Press

North Park in the first stages of becoming the first sustainable-focused neighborhood in San Diego following the U.S. lead of Portland, OR. I recently talked with Paulina Lis, who is heading up the North Park EcoDistrict project along with colleague Jennifer Owens, to learn more about the project.

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Pacific Beach Planning Group and Local Residents Fight Bar Expansions

April 11, 2013 by Source

By Sub-committee

Wednesday, April 10, Bill Allen – owner of the Crystal Pier Motel - and other residents called a press conference at the pier to help expose a simmering problem in Pacific Beach to the larger community. Allen and many other concerned residents have over the last while voiced their complaints about Scott Slaga – owner of the 710 Club (ex-Blind Melons) near the Crystal Pier – in his efforts to obtain a sidewalk encroachment variance for his establishment.

Allen and the complaining residents have issues caused, they contend, by encroachments for bars, problems such as the high crime stats and high noise impact, to lowered property values to no room on the sidewalks for people to walk to the beach.

This is all in preparation for the city council vote today, April 11, on whether or not to allow Slaga to obtain his sidewalk encroachment variance.

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OB Rag Poll on the Use of Drones: 82% Oppose Drones in the U.S.

April 8, 2013 by Frank Gormlie

Recently, the OB Rag ran a readers’ poll on the use of drones by the US government either in America and/or abroad. The results of the week-long poll are in: 82% of respondents oppose the use of drones in the United States.

36% of the respondents replied that they are okay with the use of the unmanned flying vessels in other countries by our government. 17% indicated that they are okay with their use in America.

45% of the 108 readers who responded specifically feel that the use of drones in America is unconstitutional or that they should not be used in our country. Another 37% replied that they specifically opposed their use overseas as well.

26% said that their use in America is “absolutely unconstitutional”. Another 19% were okay with their use in hunting down terrorists abroad, but opposed their deployment here in this country.

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Mission Valley Hunger Strike by “the San Diego Nine” Reflect Last Work by Martin Luther King

April 8, 2013 by Jim Miller

hunger strike 2

“The San Diego Nine” picked the perfect week for a hunger strike. They may not have known it, but the ghosts of Memphis were haunting the Mission Valley Hilton. What’s the connection?

Last week was the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was murdered in Memphis where he had gone to support striking sanitation workers. As I noted in my column for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in January, the real MLK is frequently neglected in favor of a distorted picture of a vanilla saint who just wanted us all to get along. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed, King was a provocateur who wanted to disturb us about America’s hypocritical racial inequality AND its shameful class divide. King died fighting for the rights of poor workers of color because he thought nothing was a better example of what he wanted the Poor People’s Campaign to be than the sanitation workers’ strike. Their fight was a call not just for legal civil rights for black people, but a cry for economic justice for all.

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News From the Storefronts of Ocean Beach

April 2, 2013 by Frank Gormlie
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Every now and then, I take pen and pad and camera in hand and travel the business streets of OB, looking for news and changes, openings and closings of new commercial offerings to the village. Last Friday, the 29th of March was one of those times, so follow me along as I traipse across the community.

Voltaire Street

Let’s begin with what’s new on Voltaire Street – the lesser known of our two main business avenues.

The Voltaire Trading Company

What better place to get to know what’s new on Voltaire is to venture into the Voltaire Trading Company at 4852 Voltaire. Owned and run by Lola Lint and her man, Matt, the collectibles and nostalgic thrift store is having a Grand Opening. They first opened their place up Voltaire next to ABC Liquor in early May 2011. Lola and Matt then moved into their present location in August of 2012.

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Hospitals to US Citizens: Your Money or Your Life

March 27, 2013 by Source
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By John Lawrence

Chargemaster: Hospitals’ Killer App for Sucking Your Financial Blood Dry – Part 4

Hospital care in the US has morphed into a multi-headed monster in which every advance in medical technology ups the cost of medical care. What Matt Taibbi said about Goldman Sachs in a Rolling Stone article applies to hospitals as well: “[They are] a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming [their] blood funnel[s] into anything that smells like money.”

More expensive technologies like cat scans are used when less expensive ones would be adequate to do the job. In addition to the economic incentives to use more expensive technology and equipment, there’s the legal incentive that doctors are less likely to be sued if they administer every test under the sun and use the most expensive equipment.

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How Hospitals Mark Up the Cost of Over-the-Counter Supplies Like Aspirin and Q-tips as Much as 1000%

March 26, 2013 by Source

Chargemaster: Hospitals’ Killer App for Sucking Your Financial Blood Dry – Part 3
blood-240x240by John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

Hospitals charge their customers … er, patients, through the nose for simple products which anyone can purchase at WalMart for a fraction of the amount. In Part 1 and Part 2 we detailed the ridiculous prices hospitals routinely charge their patients – like several thousand dollars a day – just for a room. In this installment we will go over the markups on products that are added on to patients’ bills.

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Chargemaster: Hospitals’ Killer App for Sucking Your Financial Blood Dry – Part 1

March 19, 2013 by Source

We spend more on artificial knees and hips every year than Hollywood collects at the box office.

Closeup Money rolled up with pills falling out, high cost, expensive healthcare

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

A recent exhaustive article in Time magazine details the exhorbitant charges that hospitals are imposing on the American people, charges that have nothing to do with the actual costs of services provided. A woman in Stamford, Connecticut suffering from chest pains called 911. She was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at Stamford Hospital, a non-profit institution, four miles away.

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Should We Be Outsourcing Public Higher Education in California?

March 18, 2013 by Jim Miller

…suggesting we drop existing standards for the wild west of market based online education will do for education what deregulation did for banks and the stock market.

Last week State Senator Darrell Steinberg proposed what he thinks of as a bold new way to reshape higher education in California and to deal with the bottleneck of students who have trouble getting into “gateway” classes in our community colleges and universities. What is Steinberg’s answer to our access ills? Sadly, it is outsourcing higher education to the corporate interests who have long been aggressively lobbying to get a piece of the publically funded pie that is California’s public education system.

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City Staff to Decide Whether World Oil Gets Extension for Controversial 2-Story Building at Voltaire and Sunset Cliffs Blvd.

March 15, 2013 by Frank Gormlie
Thumbnail image for City Staff to Decide Whether World Oil Gets Extension for Controversial 2-Story Building at Voltaire and Sunset Cliffs Blvd.

A new notice from the City of San Diego has appeared on the wire fence surrounding the corner lot at Voltaire Street and Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. Posted on March 7th, it announces that City staff will decide whether the owner of the lot – World Oil – gets an extension on their plans for a two-story “medical building”, called Sunset Plaza.

World Oil and their controversial projects for that corner have bounced back and forth for many years – going back to the late Nineties. Finally in the summer of 2009, the OB Planning Board approved – albeit with conditions – the construction of the controversial building. Critics have called the planned building all kinds of names – one that stuck – to use the vernacular – is “butt ugly”.

World Oil’s project was approved by the Planning Board back on August 5th, 2009 – 3 1/2 years ago. But for whatever their reason, the company has not moved on their concrete and glass-heavy edifice. And now with the deadline on their original construction permit nearing its end, World Oil is pushing for an extension.

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Slightly Stoopid Sponsors Contest Promoting OB Local Shops and Their Hit “Don’t Stop”.

March 14, 2013 by Staff

The OB band Slightly Stoopid is sponsoring a contest in an effort to support local OB shops and the band’s new hit, “Don’t Stop”, and they have created a “Check-In to Win Scavenger Hunt“!

All those who complete the scavenger hunt will receive Slightly’s new album Top of the World, 2 Stoopid lighters, and 2 Stoopid stickers!!

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Wells Fargo: California Leader in Predatory Lending and Heartless Foreclosures

March 14, 2013 by Source

by Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment / San Diego Free Press

ACCE_logo_2colorWhen it comes to foreclosing on Californians, it looks like Wells Fargo may take the prize. According to a report released today, Wells Fargo is responsible for more homes in the foreclosure pipeline in California than any other single lender.

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