Month: November 2011

Editor: Please note this was written 2 years ago. It’s now the 50th anniversary and we are running a series of articles. Here’s the first one. The 2nd on CNN joining the cover-up, and the 3rd “The Big Lie”.

November 22, 1963, – 48 years ago today – was one of the most terrible days in US history. It was the day that John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

No one yet has been successfully prosecuted for his murder. Yes, Lee Harvey Oswald was caught and then killed by Jack Ruby – but to this day – no one besides Oswald has been punished for the most despicable act in our lifetime.

Plenty of us boomers remember those days. I was 15 when it happened and I vividly recall that day at Point Loma High when we heard about the shooting. I felt sick and literally tossed my lunch into the garbage can at school. And I was sitting with my father a day later in our Point Loma home when we both witnessed Jack Ruby assassinate Oswald live on national television.

By Ed Bruske aka The Slow Cook / La Vida Locavore / Originally published Nov. 17, 2011

First it was potatoes. Now it’s pizza. The processed food industry is reaching out to its friends in Congress to scuttle new USDA guidelines that were supposed to make school meals healthier.

House and Senate negotiators have approved agriculture appropriations language that would allow the tomato paste on pizza to be counted as a vegetable serving under the USDA’s new school meal guidelines. Count this as the result of lobbying efforts by processed food giants ConAgra and Schwan Food.

Last week Adbusters, a publication that was important to the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, put out the following:

TACTICAL BRIEFING #18
Occupy the High Ground!

Hey you creatives, artists, environmentalists, workers, moms, dads, students, malcontents, do-gooders and aspiring martyrs in the snow:

The last four months have been hard fought, inspiring and delightfully revolutionary. We brought tents, hunkered down, held our assemblies, and lobbed a meme-bomb that continues to explode the world’s imagination. Many of us have never felt so alive. We have fertilized the future with our revolutionary spirit … and a thousand flowers will surely bloom in the coming Spring.

But as winter approaches an ominous mood could set in … hope thwarted is in danger of turning sour, patience exhausted becoming anger, militant nonviolence losing its allure. It isn’t just the mainstream media that says things could get ugly. What shall we do to keep the magic alive?

by Adrian Florido / Voice of San Diego / November 21, 2011

As the weak economy battered families across California, food stamp use nearly doubled since 2006. But in San Diego County, the spike has been even more dramatic. Food stamp use has nearly tripled here.

Despite that jump, recent statistics show that San Diego may still only be getting food stamps to about one-third of the people who qualify for them, offering a glimpse of just how many San Diegans may be struggling to put food on the table.

Late last month, a national backlash forced Bank of America to abandon its plan to charge customers $5 a month to use their debit cards. But Huffington Post reports that the corporation has quietly been mining other sources of fees, preying on its most vulnerable customers to rake in millions in revenue:

By E.J. Dionne /Washington Post — Nation of Change / Originally published Nov. 18, 2011

Here is a surefire way to cut $7.1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. Do nothing.

That’s right. If Congress simply fails to act between now and Jan. 1, 2013, the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush expire, $1.2 trillion in additional budget cuts go through under the terms of last summer’s debt-ceiling deal, and a variety of other tax cuts also go away.

By Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine / November 20, 2011

Media reform and citizens’ groups have voiced concern over purchase of the San Diego Union-Tribune, a self-proclaimed “watchdog”, by a team led by real estate developer and political activist Doug Manchester. His major pending development projects are the very sorts of deals an independent media outlet would ordinarily report on and investigate.

The acquisition has drawn pointed criticism from both conservative taxpayer advocates and representatives of liberal interest groups.

As always after a heavy rain, the waters of the Pacific near the coast are dangerously filled with elevated bacterial levels. So, as always, the County Department of Environmental Health has issued a General Advisory for coastal waters of San Diego County due to recent rainfall.

They advise people to avoid activities such as swimming, surfing and diving in all coastal waters for 72 hours following rain. And of course, this includes Ocean Beach, Sunset Cliffs, Mission Beach, Mission Bay, the other beaches and San Diego Bay.

By Dean Calbreath / SignOnSanDiego / November 21, 2011

A dead 50-foot fin whale could remain beached in a Point Loma cove for the next couple of days, as a removal team waits for favorable tides to help in an effort to transport it to a landfill.

The whale, which was discovered about 2 p.m. Saturday by workers at the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant, will probably be removed Tuesday or Wednesday, said San Diego Lifeguard Lt. Greg Buchanan. The lifeguard service is coordinating the removal with local and federal agencies.

Occupiers Maintain Vigil at Civic Center Plaza

After OccupySD demonstrators were ousted from the area next to the Civic Theater during the early morning raid by police – with 9 arrests and two citations – they came back to the Civic Center Plaza just hours later that day. That night there was a march of nearly one hundred to the Police headquarters at 14th and Broadway where a short GA session was held. Protesters then returned to the Plaza to continue the meeting.

The general attitude is to continue to vigil – even despite the ban on sleeping or belongings – at the Plaza. One long-time Occupy activist, Julie M., plans to stay awake as long as she can while at the Plaza, with the expectation she’ll be up for a couple of days. A number of others have vowed to stick it out with her. Others pledge just to spend one night awake. Last night, Thursday, there was a fairly good sized crowd for the General Assembly. This means, the occupation continues.

More, inside ….

5,000 cases being recalled of bagged salads containing romaine lettuce with the use-by date of Nov. 18, 2011. No illnesses have been reported.

A company from Irwindale, California – Ready Pac Foods, Inc. – is recalling more than 5,000 cases of ready-made salad due to possible contamination with E. coli bacteria, the Food and Drug Administration said on November 17. Although the FDA sent out a Press Release on November 16, the press / media does not appear to have picked it up for another day.