October 2011

Hundreds Attend School Board Meeting to Oppose Closures of Schools

October 26, 2011 by Source

By Maureen Magee / SignOnSanDiego / October 26, 2011

Facing an angry crowd of parents, students and teachers, the San Diego school board talked doom and gloom Tuesday night, taking on dire issues that have stirred unrest for weeks — fiscal insolvency, campus closures and selling off district property among them.

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City Council Session Shut-down by Citizens Demanding Constitutional Rights in San Diego

October 25, 2011 by Rocky Neptun

Tuesday, Oct 25:After spending almost an hour discussing an illegal scheme to transfer even more wealth to downtown hotel owners using taxpayers’ money; the San Diego City Council literally turned tail and ran from the council chambers when a coalition of community groups joined the Occupy San Diego movement in asking council members to support their rights to free speech and assembly within the city.

About 60 citizens marched from Children’s Park just before the 10 a.m. Council session and met up with the several hundred young people camped at the Civic Center Plaza. Ignoring the police demands to stay on the sidewalk, protestors took to the streets the entire route.

Occupy Wall Street Oakland—“There are Children in There Without Gas Masks”

October 25, 2011 by Anna Daniels

According to @occupyarrests, as of yesterday, 2,428 people had been arrested nationwide since the start of Occupy Wall Street.

Around 5:00 am this morning (10/25/11) hundreds of riot gear clad Oakland police stormed the Oakland Occupy Wall Street encampment. Reportedly using flash grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas they cleared the area of tents and arrested 70 people. According to legal observer Marcus Kryshka (see Marcus’ video), the police came in very quickly and denied media and legal observers access to the area.

See video inside…

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San Diego Unified Officials Address Concerns About Closure of Schools in Pt. Loma Cluster

October 25, 2011 by Andy Cohen

San Diego Unified School District once again facing massive budget shortfalls, must close 10 schools throughout district.

Concerned Pt. Loma/Ocean Beach parents, teachers, and kids packed the Jackson Theater at Dana Middle School Monday night to near its 548 person capacity to hear district officials explain their latest ideas on how the financially distressed district plans to cut costs and avoid insolvency in the near future. Signs reading “Save Our Schools” were raised throughout the room as the Dana Middle School band played for their early arriving guests, and TV news vans lined the street in front of the school……

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Petition San Diego City Council to Adopt a Resolution to Support Occupy San Diego

October 24, 2011 by Staff

Occupy San Diego activists will march on City Hall tomorrow, Tuesday, October 25, to request that the City of San Diego adopt a resolution similar to the one adopted by Los Angeles, to support the Occupy San Diego protests and are requesting your help by marching with them and signing a petition (which will be presented to the council) to show your support.

You do not need to be a resident of the city to sigh this petition.

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Town Hall Meeting Tonight, Oct. 24, on Peninsula’s Schools Closure – Dana, Correia and Cabrillo to Close?

October 24, 2011 by Source

Town Hall Meeting on School Closures / Realignments at 7pm at Dana’s Jackson Hall

By Point Loma Cluster Schools Foundation

The Point Loma Cluster Schools Foundation (PLCS) is hosting a Public Town Hall Meeting Monday, October 24th at 7pm.

(Please note: The location of this meeting has been changed from Point Loma High to Dana Middle School’s Jackson Theater.)

The Town Hall Meeting is an opportunity for stakeholders to learn more about the District fiscal crisis, our cluster schools, demographics and the District’s proposed realignment / school closure recommendations. Time will be allocated for public discussion and input. San Diego Unified staff and School Board Member Scott Barnett will be present.

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Who Do We Shoot? A Paycheck Away from Poor in America’s Finest City

October 24, 2011 by Jim Miller

Recently, Clare Crawford of the Center on Policy Initiatives noted that, “Even three full-time minimum wage jobs don’t make enough to make ends meet in San Diego County.” Crawford was responding to the release of a report by the Insight Center for Community Economic Development that documented how it now costs a family of three nearly $63,000 to make ends meet in San Diego.

This is according to the 2011 California Family Self-Sufficiency Standard and the grim news is that more than one million San Diegans are living in households earning less than that threshold. That’s close to a third of all San Diegans, much higher than the fifteen percent of San Diegans who fall under the official poverty line.

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Black Marketeers, Rejoice: Feds and Local Prosecutors Teaming Up Against Legal Weed

October 24, 2011 by Dixon Guizot

The music video for Guns ‘N’ Roses’ “You Could Be Mine” concludes with a classic moment where Arnold Schwarzenegger, playing his Terminator character, considers assassinating singer Axl Rose.

When the Terminator’s computer brain deems Rose a “waste of ammo,” Arnold lowers his weapon and walks away, presumably to engage a more worthy target.

In 2010, employing a similar thought process as governor of California, Schwarzenegger changed small-time possession of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction carrying a $100 fine.

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Latin American Labor Conference to Focus on Worker Emancipation

October 24, 2011 by Rocky Neptun

From Tehran to Scotland, from Hong Kong to the always fiery, militant youth of Rome, the Occupy Wall Street movement has spread across the globe. Tired and angry over decades of corporate owned capitalism, where wealthy stockholders and huge multi-national corporations set the agenda for political and economic policy decisions, plunging millions of middle-class families into poverty, exacerbating the conditions of the already destitute, and forcing millions of youth into either wage slavery or no future at all; the world’s 99% have taken to the streets.

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The Obligation to Peacefully Disrupt

October 23, 2011 by Source

The First Amendment and the obligation to peacefully disrupt in a free society.

By Naomi Wolf / Reader Supported News / Oct. 22, 2011

Mayor Bloomberg is planning Draconian new measures to crack down on what he calls the “disruption” caused by the protesters at Zuccotti Park, and he is citing neighbors’ complaints about noise and mess. This set of talking points, and this strategy, is being geared up as well by administrations of municipalities around the nation in response to the endurance and growing influence of the Occupation protest sites. But the idea that any administration has the unmediated option of “striking a balance,” in Bloomberg’s words, that it likes, and closing down peaceful and lawful disruption of business as usual as it sees fit is a grave misunderstanding – or, more likely, deliberate misrepresentation – of our legal social contract as American citizens.

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Video of the Day – Gimme Shelter, 1969, The Rolling Stones

October 23, 2011 by Staff

The following video was produced for a class by ReinaldoUPR and posted to you tube in October of 2009. In the 2 years it has been up it has been viewed over 650,000 times. This iconic song and the images contained in the video are a powerful reminder of the turbulent era of the 1960’s and that we still have a long way to go. (Doug, it gave me the chills too.)

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Throw Them Out With the Trash

October 23, 2011 by Source

Why Homelessness Is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue

By Barbara Ehrenreich / TomDispatch.com

As anyone knows who has ever had to set up a military encampment or build a village from the ground up, occupations pose staggering logistical problems. Large numbers of people must be fed and kept reasonably warm and dry. Trash has to be removed; medical care and rudimentary security provided — to which ends a dozen or more committees may toil night and day. But for the individual occupier, one problem often overshadows everything else, including job loss, the destruction of the middle class, and the reign of the 1%. And that is the single question: Where am I going to pee?

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Under Police Pressure Occupy San Diego Expands to Children’s Park

October 22, 2011 by Frank Gormlie

Occupy San Diego – our city’s own version of Occupy Wall Street – has expanded. Due to pressure being placed on the Occupy San Diego demonstrators by the police – a pressure which has prevented the protests’ ability to set up its support network, a solidarity station has been opened at Children’s Park in downtown at Island and First. The solidarity site will work to support the main occupation site, the Civic Center Plaza, where occupiers are now in their 15th day.

By late morning yesterday, October 21st, OccupySD activists had unloaded several vehicles worth of food and gear, and had begun to set up support stations that make up the occupy infrastructure. And by mid-afternoon, they had completed the set-up and establishment of the stations that support the movement. So, for the first time since last week, the Occupy San Diego efforts had the full panoply of its sustainability network: the food-line and kitchen, the medical station, sanitation, the library, arts and crafts, and some media.

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The Breaking Up of Occupy Tijuana Was Much Harsher than Media Reported

October 22, 2011 by Frank Gormlie

Demonstrators beaten after arrests – Americans included

Contrary to what much of the media reported, the breaking up earlier this week of the Occupy Tijuana protest was a lot harsher than originally reported. On Tuesday, October 18th, it was reported that up to 50 Mexican law enforcement agents broke up the encampment at 2:30 in the morning, an encampment that had been going on since Saturday, the 15th, and that 26 people were arrested.

However, according to an American present at the protest in Tijuana, the cops came at 7:30 to 8 pm, and ended up arresting as many as 60 people, many of them from this side of the border. David Fugate was at the site, and he told me that they were very peaceful, were holding signs and some were chanting near the intersection of Revolucion and 8th Street, on a grassy area.

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The San Diego Union-Tribune is on the Rocks

October 21, 2011 by Source

The original OB Rag and other underground newspapers had their vending machines “plucked off the streets” by U-T vendors on orders from high-up

By Frank Green / CounterPunch.org

Print media’s decline in the United States can be tracked in microcosm in San Diego, longtime home to one of the country’s most conservative, reactionary dailies.

Local progressives have been watching in bemusement for several years as The San Diego Union-Tribune – once Richard Nixon’s favorite news source – radically chops staff, loses circulation and, more importantly, sees its once-dominant and domineering position as a right-wing political and cultural force in the area fade.

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Ocean Beach Planners Review New Design of “Ocean Park Villas” for First Time

October 21, 2011 by Dan Morales

From street level, the Ocean Beach Planning Board’s Project Review Committee meeting of October 19, 2011, appeared as just another pedestrian exercise for determining how much floor area ratio (FAR) can fit on the head of a pin. However, below surface grade lay a potential flood of liabilities for those entrusted with the public good in a era of irresponsible private interests.

There was only one item on the agenda; a request to amend the previously granted Coastal Development permit (#6-08-100) from the developer of the property located at 1984 Abbott Street. That corner of Abbott and Saratoga is now the proposed site of what has come to be called the “Ocean Park Villas.”

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#OccupySD and City College Protesters Shut Down Local Bank of America

October 20, 2011 by Patty Jones

At San Diego City College today more than a hundred students staged a walkout in solidarity with Occupy San Diego. After holding a rally at Curren Plaza where many students spoke to an enthusiastic crowd, about 150 protesters marched from the campus, down B Street, chanting and addressing pedestrians and onlookers, to the Civic Center Plaza to join the Occupy Movement protesters.

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San Diego Mayoral Debate Civil, Yet Unrevealing

October 20, 2011 by Andy Cohen

Two of San Diego’s top four mayoral candidates engage in lively discussion before a large crowd at the Balboa Theater

Two of the top four candidates for Mayor of San Diego accepted the invitation of A Better San Diego Coalition for a 90 minute debate last night at the Balboa Theater in Downtown San Diego. Democrat Bob Filner and Republican Nathan Fletcher took the stage in front of a slightly partisan yet respectful audience to participate in a lively and occasionally informative discussion.

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You Don’t have to Wait for “Taco Tuesday” – South Beach Bar and Grill

October 20, 2011 by Judi Curry

In one of the restaurant reviews I wrote several weeks ago, a reader asked why I was only reviewing “national chains.” He suggested that I review local restaurants. With that in mind, a friend and I went to lunch at “South Beach Bar and Grill” on Newport.

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Anna’s Video Pick – Bad Lip Reading the GOP Presidential Debate

October 20, 2011 by Anna Daniels

Throughout Tuesday’s made for Reality TV GOP debate I kept muttering- “just answer the damn question” while trying to imagine Romney and the Not Romneys as president of the United States. Their responses to the foreclosure crisis, immigration and foreign policy were so far off the rails that my brain had to come up with a coping mechanism.

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Blessed Are the Peace Makers

October 19, 2011 by Jack Hamlin

Annual Conflict Resolution Conference Brought World Healers to Our Shores

Sister Pauline Acayo, is a large African woman. Large not merely in physical presence, but in the sense her heart is filled with love and compassion. George Gacharo is a young African man. Young not merely in the sense of age, but in the sense he is full of fire and energy for the work he does. Gidon Bromberg looks a bit like an Israeli Peter Sellers. And like Sellers’ comedic nature, his work is subtle and surreptitious in nature and he tells of it with a wry smile.

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Cashless payment bracelet allows access to medical records, personal information

October 19, 2011 by Source

By Jonathan Benson / Natural News / October 17, 2011

Marketed as a simple and convenient way to carry identification, make payments, and furnish quick and easy access to medical records in the event of an emergency — all with one single bracelet. But the VITAband also has the potential to become a serious invasion of privacy as it allows third parties to access personal data and other information, all of which is linked to a users individual ID tag.

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Ocean Beach Historical Society: History of San Diego Neighborhoods

October 19, 2011 by Staff

Ocean Beach Historical program is having a forum where

Documentarian Noah Tafolla Presents:

The history of San Diego neighborhoods

Thur., Oct. 20th, at 7 PM

Point Loma United Methodist Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B.

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The Coalition for “A Better San Diego” to hold Mayoral Forum October 19th

October 19, 2011 by Patty Jones

The coalition “A Better San Diego“, comprised of community, faith, labor, LGBT rights, immigrant rights, environmental and social justice organizations (view a partial list), have been working to build an economic vision for our city that focuses on jobs, quality of life, equality, prosperity and fairness for more San Diegans. This coalition has been organizing a forum where selected candidates running for San Diego Mayor will address issues that concern workers, students, retirees… actually, the 99%!

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Medical Marijuana Protesters Take It to the Feds

October 19, 2011 by Source

By Jen Lebron Kuhney / SignOnSanDiego / October 19, 2011

Protesters took to the streets Tuesday to oppose a federal crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries. Later in the day the city announced a Superior Court judge issued a ruling on Monday that the stores are prohibited by the municipal code in San Diego — a ruling similar to one he made last week.

Approximately 250 protesters marched from City Hall to the federal courthouse to voice their opposition to recent actions by U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy.

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Bank Transfer Day, November 5th – Prepare Now to Move Your Money

October 18, 2011 by Staff

Why should you move your money?

Moving your money out of the big Wall Street banks to small community banks and credit unions is a great idea for a number of reasons: you will get better rates and fewer fees, your community banker will learn your name and provide you with more personal service, and you will be keeping money in your local community which increases economic development and eventually, creates more jobs. Yet the most important reason to move your money is to make your voice heard, to stand strong and no longer help a banking system that has run amok

INVEST IN MAIN STREET, NOT WALL STREET

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Healthy California Campaign Steps Up Call for Single-Payer Reform

October 18, 2011 by Source

Welcomes “Healthcare is a Human Right” Leader from Vermont

Inspired by moves toward guaranteed healthcare for all in Vermont and Montana, advocates of Medicare-for-all, single-payer-style reform in California have formed a new coalition, the Campaign for a Healthy California (CHC), and are stepping up activity this coming week by hosting a California tour with a Vermont healthcare activist.

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Open Letter to Mayor Sanders and City Council: Police Shamed You

October 18, 2011 by Source

By Bob Dorn

The actions of police on October 14, so clearly visible on YouTube, and presumably around the world, is the sort of official mayhem that brings down governments in other parts of the world.

That skin-headed cop with a mace can who wrapped his arms around throats and threw several people to the ground so that their heads crashed into the pavement committed a criminal act. He can easily be identified, and so can others at Civic Plaza on Oct 14 who can be seen provoking people and abusing them.

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Two dozen Occupy Tijuana protesters arrested for sleeping in public right-of-way.

October 18, 2011 by Source

By Sandra Dibble / SignOnSanDiego / October 18, 2011

TIJUANA — Some two dozen protesters in Tijuana affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement were arrested early today by police forces for sleeping in a public right-of-way. The detentions occurred at 2:15 a.m. near a traffic circle in Tijuana’s Rio Zone, according to Heriberto Garcia, Baja California’s human rights ombudsman.

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Tuesday, Oct 18th at Noon: Protest and March to Defend Medical Marijuana Patients and their Collectives!

October 18, 2011 by Staff

Protest and March to Defend Medical Marijuana Patients and their Collectives!

Tuesday, October 18th from Noon – 2pm

From Civic Center (1200 Third Ave) to Federal Building (880 Front Street)

US Attorneys in California have decided that they no longer respect the rights of patients, voters or the laws of California and are prosecuting medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives.

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