July 2010

OB FLASHES – News, Calendar, Whatever – July 30, 2010

July 30, 2010 by Frank Gormlie
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ALL DETAILS AND LINKS INSIDE:

OB Library Gets a New Rug
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“Terriers” airs on September 8th
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World War Two Weather ?
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3 Out of 4 Readers Against Publicly Funded Downtown Football Stadium
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Police Praise OB Heathens
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Woman Jogger Hassled Along Sunset Cliffs
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Ground-breaking on New OB Entryway in October
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$7000 From Supervisor Cox for Abbott Street Trees
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Who were Dusty Rhodes and Bob Kenny anyhow? (Help us out.)
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OBMA Historical Tour – Online
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OB Town Council to hold elections in August
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Planning Board General Meeting August 4th
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OB Centric: Creating community – one art project at a time – August 5th, 17th and 23th
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Pepe’s Annual Tomato Contest – August 15th
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Historical Society: “Hot Curl” Cartoonist Michael Dormer – August 19th
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Get Ready for the Jazz 88 OB Music & Art Festival! – September 11th

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Beaches should be ad-free zones

July 30, 2010 by Source

By Susan Wormsley / Comment to Sign On San Diego / Originally published July 23, 2010

I read with extreme consternation the article last week in the Union-Tribune regarding the unanimous decision by a San Diego City Council committee to move forward with a plan to raise revenue by expanding corporate sponsorships to lifeguard towers, beaches, benches and walkways at city beaches.

Over the last 20-plus years, I have been able to stop the illegal use of corporate signage in and around San Diego’s beaches and bays.

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OB Town Council Guest Speaker Peppered by Salty Audience

July 29, 2010 by Frank Gormlie
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Nearly every chair was filled last night at the OB Town Council monthly general meeting. Many of the some thirty folks in the audience had come to hear Scott Himelstein speak about his group’s “reform” plans for City schools.

Himelstein had invited himself to deliver another spiel about “San Diegans 4 Great Schools” and was the night’s guest speaker. The group is going around town in an effort to get their message out to community groups. OB was the second stop on Himelstein’s rounds. Last week he had been in Tierrasanta.

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Mayor Sanders Spins the New Central Library Without City Workers

July 29, 2010 by Anna Daniels
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Editor: The City broke ground yesterday on construction of the new Central Library in downtown San Diego. On hand for us as witnesses were Anna Daniels- a former City librarian – and her hubby Rich Kacmar toting a camera. Anna filed the following observations:
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To be honest, I never thought I’d live long enough to see a much needed new central library in this city. The City Council gave the green light last month to its construction but it wasn’t until we were all invited to this morning’s groundbreaking that I felt it was truly going to happen.

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Shadowy “Great Schools” Group To Address OB Town Council Meeting – Wed July 28th

July 28, 2010 by Doug Porter
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Scott Himelstein, the spokesman of the newly named “San Diegans 4 Great Schools”, has been visiting various civic groups around the city spreading the word that his group is disappointed with test scores in San Diego Unified schools and that “governance” is the problem. Tonight, Wednesday, July 28th, at 7 pm, he is slated to address the OB Town Council in a meeting to be held at the OB Masonic Temple (1711 Sunset Cliffs Blvd).

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Flashes from the Empire

July 28, 2010 by Source
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ALL LINKS AND DETAILS INSIDE:

Federal Judge blocks parts of Arizona’s new immigration law
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Antiwar Left Grows in Congress With Latest War-Funding Vote
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Michael Moore Is Right About Obama
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Bernie Sanders: No to Oligarchy

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San Diego City Council OKs recycled water demonstration project

July 28, 2010 by Staff
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The San Diego City Council voted to award a $6.6 million contract to build a demonstration plant that will treat recycled wastewater and turn it into safe drinking water. This historic turn-around for the Council reflects a shift in their and the public’s thinking about recycled water. The Council voted 4 to 2 for the project, with Councilwoman Sherri Lightner and Councilman Carl DeMaio voting ‘no’.

Water treated at the demonstration facility, to be built at North City Water Reclamation Plant, will be added to the city’s graywater system and not be added to the drinking water.

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Separate fenced area for small dogs approved by Dusty Rhodes board.

July 28, 2010 by Source
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On July 22nd, a meeting of the Dusty Rhodes park board was held and numerous locals attended with complaints of the recent rash of small dog mauling and deaths from larger dogs (see here for our earlier coverage). Monica Honoré 0f the City of San Diego Park and Recreation Department was in attendance.

Finally, the local board voted to approve a separate fenced area for small dogs. The city has obtained bids for the fencing. Enough money is available in the dog park reserve fund plus a recent allocation of $3,000 from Councilmember Faulconer’s office for fencing, a fountain, labor and the associated requirements of ADA compliance. ….

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City Schools, Services Face Cuts As City Hall Fiddles.

July 27, 2010 by Doug Porter
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The slippery slope of San Diego politics got a little slicker this week, and when the dust settled around City Hall, both the proposed sales tax increase and the schools’ parcel tax were burning hulks, sitting on the side of the Sanders’ feel-good expressway. The battle arena over increasing revenues for local city services and/or public education has now shifted from the voters in November to the back rooms of Sacramento, where, rumor has it, a pending deal between Republican and Democratic legislators will delay upcoming corporate tax breaks granted in past years’ budget negotiations and allow the legislature to ease the budget cut backs for next year that are threatening local finances.

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California’s Cannabis Culture – a Short film

July 27, 2010 by Source
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by Amanda Van West

I’m a 24 year old filmmaker from Santa Clara, California, currently finishing my MA degree in International Broadcast Journalism at Westminster University in London. I’ve worked on short documentaries in California, Mexico, Nicaragua, and London.

“California’s Cannabis Culture” is a short documentary that was created for my final MA project. I filmed everything around Northern California between May and June, and finished the documentary in London. It’s an exploration of the marijuana scene in California, in light of the upcoming possibility of Proposition 19 passing in November. California has long had a reputation of being marijuana-friendly, so I wanted to showcase a bit of the culture and investigate what changes might happen, if any, should it become fully legalized in November.

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Ocean Beach’s Miscellaneous Heathens, at it again

July 25, 2010 by Dixon Guizot
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My wife and I arrived at Dusty Rhodes Park at about 6pm, to a friendly dance party that had apparently been underway for at least a couple hours. Close to 200 revelers — most in joyfully psychedelic costumes, were mingling and dancing enthusiastically under the overcast skies. A DJ spun energetic house music along with an occasional light-hearted, humorous track, like a remix of Surfin’ Bird (“The bird is the word”) featuring Peter from Family Guy.

Ocean Beach’s Miscellaneous Heathens were at it again.

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Antiwar conference: US economy woes linked to foreign wars

July 25, 2010 by Source
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The Revolution will be televised — or, rather, streaming live online.

Antiwar demonstrations in the Vietnam era were a regular feature of the nightly network news on NBC, CBS and ABC.

Today, protests against the war in Afghanistan are just as likely to be online as on TV, and in the form of damning documents or videos shown on WikiLeaks.

And lacking a Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck — figures that have rallied the nation’s Tea Party movement — peace activists are taking a different tack. They are connecting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our sagging economy and poor jobs outlook.

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Heathens Take Over OB – Photo Gallery

July 25, 2010 by Source
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For one day, the Heathens took over Ocean Beach. Here is a photo gallery of their day with all photos by Jim Grant. Check back real soon for a more complete accounting of the Heathen party and procession.

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Local and Out-of-town Volunteers Help OB Wetlands

July 25, 2010 by Source

Melisa Shafer’s deal with her three children was pretty simple: spend 20 minutes Saturday morning helping restore a fragile coastal dune and marsh area in Ocean Beach and they could go to the beach. The kids didn’t know it, but the point of their work had little to do with the physical labor involved.

The natural world is important to us,” said Shafer, 36, as she and the children lined rocks along a footpath through sensitive native vegetation. “If we don’t teach the next generation about it, we’ll lose it.”

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‘I’m depressed … look at what they’ve done to my ocean.’

July 24, 2010 by Source
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I went to see the doctor the other day because I’ve been so tired lately. “Are you depressed?” he asked me.

After weeks of seeing photos of the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico; watching YouTube videos of pelicans suffocating in an oily sarcophagus, marshes saturated in putrid, brown slime and what appears to be oily rain and a surf belching noxious gases; reading reports of outright incompetence in dealing with the situation, the application of millions of gallons of a chemical dispersant that no one seems to understand the environmental ramifications of using, news of a judge with a vested interest in the oil industry rescinding a ban on deepwater drilling” Good God, who wouldn’t be depressed!

On Saturday, June 26th, I took the bus to Ocean Beach with my husband and a friend, to participate in one of the “Hands Across the Sand” events. There was a hundred or so of us lined up on the beach.

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Cheap Thrills Satisfy on Newport

July 24, 2010 by Brenda McFarlane
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Damn! Another reason never to leave Ocean Beach. 2 Dollar Thrill is a tiny little store making a big bang on Newport.

When I first wander in I admit I’m a bit confused. I ask the friendly sales clerk “So, not everything is two dollars, is it?”

“Yes it is.” she answers and adds; “Everything is 2 dollars, that’s all.” I’ll hear her repeat a version of this litany several times to other people while I’m in the store. Why is this question necessary when the store is called 2 Dollar Thrill and there’s signs everywhere saying “Everything Two Dollars?” Because 2 Dollar Thrill is too good to be true.

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56 top-secret government agencies and companies in San Diego

July 24, 2010 by Source
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Across the country, an unprecedented operation is developing at an accelerating clip, unseen and unknown by most Americans.

Until now, that is.

On Monday (7/19/10) The Washington Post launched “Top Secret America,” an ongoing report of the private intelligence operations—which the report calls “our 4th branch of government– that have surfaced in America since September 11, 2001. The project has been in the making for two years now.

“The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work,” reads the report’s introduction, spearheaded by long-time reporters Dana Priest and William M. Arkin.

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Education “reformer” scheduled to speak at OB Town Council not received well in Tierrasanta

July 23, 2010 by Frank Gormlie
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The same guy who will be speaking about “education reform” at the next OB Town Council meeting on July 28th, spoke at a Tierrasanta community meeting Wednesday night (7/21/10). He wasn’t received all that well by local residents there.

Scott Himelstein, the leader of the newly named “San Diegans 4 Great Schools”, told the residents gathered at the Tierrasanta meeting that his group was disappointed with test scores in San Diego Unified schools and that “governance” was the problem. “Governance” is a cloaked term for “how the school board works”.

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Telling it like it is! – a Common Sense Commentary

July 23, 2010 by Source
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by Jim Bell

We humans are something special and rare.

In spite of there being an estimated 5 to 100 million species of life on our planet, our species is the only one sufficiently conscious to become conscious of existence and our place in it on all levels.

On the most foundational level, this means that if enough of us become conscious enough, soon enough, we will be able to pass the birthright of a peaceful and life-supporting world to our children and future generations.

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Jesus Comes To Comic-Con, A Photo Gallery

July 23, 2010 by Doug Porter
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The kids at Comic-Con organized a spontaneous counter-demonstration in response to the pickets from the Kansas based hate group today. Asked for a comment about the signs carried by the members of the Westboro Baptist Church, Jesus said, “Boy, those people have issues!”.

All photos by Doug Porter

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OB FLASHES – News, Calendar, and Whatever – July 22, 2010

July 22, 2010 by Frank Gormlie
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ALL DETAILS AND LINKS INSIDE:

* Community Meeting on Recent Small Dog Deaths Tonight – July 22nd
* Heathen Party and Park-to-Beach Procession on Saturday July 24th
* OB Town Council guest speaker from controversial ‘San Diegans 4 Great Schools’ – July 28th
* Lifeguards and off-duty OB firefighter pull man from ocean off Sunset Cliffs
* Sunset Cliffs Benches: $3000 X 15 = $45,000 – YIKES!
* Flash from the past: trapped would-be burglar gives Gary Gilmore the business
* New homeless sticker is seeking a home

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Community Meeting on Recent Small Dog Deaths Tonight – July 22nd- at the OB Rec Center

July 22, 2010 by Frank Gormlie

There has been troubles at OB’s dog parks recently – there have been maulings and deaths of small dogs at both Dusty Rhodes Dog Park and at Dog Beach. In response, a community meeting is being held tonight, July 22nd, at the OB Recreation Center at 5:30pm. The Rec Center is at the corner of Santa Monica and Ebers.

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San Diegans 4 Great Schools: Secret Group‘s Hypocrisy Exposed

July 22, 2010 by Doug Porter
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A group calling itself ‘San Diegans 4 Great Schools’ has finally surfaced after months of shadowy meetings to issue a critical report on the San Diego Unified School District. At a press conference held at the University of San Diego on Tuesday, group leaders emerged publicly for the first time, calling the local public schools a “failing school district”.

The report ignored the most recent test scores (which revealed modest gains in student achievement) and failed to mention an earlier effort by many of its participants that hailed the progress made at SDUSD under Superintendent Terry Grier. (2006-2008)

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There’s jobs for only 1 out of 3 California teens

July 22, 2010 by Source
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Legislation to extend unemployment benefits overcame a Republican filibuster in the Senate yesterday, putting more than 400,000 Californians a step closer to having their benefits checks reinstated.

But suspended checks are only part of the state’s unemployment woes: 34.5 percent of teen workers in the state were out of a job in June. That’s compared to 25.7 percent of teens nationwide and is nearly three times higher than the state’s overall unemployment rate.

Workers 16 to 19 years old face the highest rates of unemployment of any age group. Teen unemployment in California is more than double what it was in 2000, according to the state Employment Development Department.

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Remembering Betty Brown:(Sharing an Activist Extraordinaire with OB’s Abundance of Community Activists)

July 22, 2010 by Ernie McCray
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For some time I’ve been wanting to say something about Betty Brown, an old friend who passed away a few weeks ago. It’s taken me a while because the pressing question for me has been how does one summarize such a noteworthy woman’s life accomplishments? Listing them would fill an extremely tall and wide notebook, not to mention exhaust the reader.

But I’ve decided to go with simplicity beginning with the reality that there are many advocates for children on the planet but not many of them, including myself, could keep up with Betty’s pace as a community activist without gasping for air.

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‘God Hates Fags’ Group to Picket San Diego Comic-Con.

July 21, 2010 by Doug Porter
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The Westboro Baptist Church, the Kansas based hate group that has gained media attention nationwide for its protests at military funerals, mainstream churches and Jewish groups, has announced plans to picket the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International.

The sold out four day event, held at the San Diego Convention Center, opens Thursday, July 22nd, and is expected to draw over 130,000 fans, making it the largest event of its type in the western hemisphere.

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San Francisco: Activists take over empty hotel to protest social service cuts

July 21, 2010 by Michael Steinberg
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Late Monday (July 19) afternoon housing activists took over the long vacant 43-unit Sierra Hotel in San Francisco’s Mission District. The hotel has been empty for years and is in a state of disrepair though structurally sound. The takeover is “a collective act of homefulness” to protest government cuts of social services that will result in more people being out on the streets.

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Oakland approves marijuana farming

July 21, 2010 by Source
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OAKLAND, California — The city of Oakland, California on Tuesday legalized large-scale marijuana cultivation for medical use and will issue up to four permits for “industrial” cultivation starting next year.

The move by the San Francisco Bay Area city aims to bring medical marijuana cultivation into the open and allow the city to profit by taxing those who grow it.

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OB Planning Board to review remodel request for Colburn cottages at foot of the Pier.

July 20, 2010 by Frank Gormlie
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The Project Review Committee of the OB Planning Board will be determining whether to authorize a request to remodel cottages on Niagara next to the OB Pier, on Wednesday, July 21.

The owner of the cottages – called the Colburn Residences and located at 5072 Niagara Avenue – wants to remodel an existing residence and add 288 square feet. The site is .23 of an acre and has an additional five residences.

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TV Series Filmed in OB – ‘Terriers’- Is Ready for the Fall Line-Up

July 19, 2010 by Source
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“Terriers” is our new Twentieth Century TV series, which recently finished shooting its 12 episodes, including the pilot. The show is going to air in the fall line-up for the FX Channel. I wanted to provide some insight on what it takes to get a show like this to work in San Diego.

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