Month: April 2012

What a story! Apparently, an Ocean Beach woman with friends went swimming last night – Tuesday night – and they went swimming without clothes – naked – . When she got out of the (low-50s?) water she couldn’t find her friends, she couldn’t find her clothes, her cellphone or even her wallet. What to do? So, she walks home. Now, the U-T is reporting that she walked home “drunk and naked”. OMG!

Anyhow, she probably fell asleep at some point, not even imagining that her absence on the beach would set off such a scene.

Anyhow, someone walking on the beach near the end of Brighton Avenue near Dog Beach found her stuff. This was about 4:30 a.m. – this morning. Sounds like the good Samaritan waited around for an hour to see if anyone claimed the clothes, cellphone and wallet. No one did. So, they called the lifeguards.

Van Jones reflects on his time in – and out of – the White House.

By Van Jones / YES! Magazine –RSN / April 3, 2012

The 2008 campaign was a campfire around which millions gathered. But after the election, it was nobody’s job or role to tend that campfire. The White House was focused on the minutiae of passing legislation, not on the magic of leading a movement. Obama For America did the best that it could, but the mass gatherings, the idealism, the expanded notions of American identity, the growing sense of a new national community, all of that disappeared.

It goes without saying that clear thinking and imaginative problem solving are easier in hindsight, away from the battlefield. I was in the White House for six months of 2009, and I was outside of it afterward. I had some of the above insights at the time, but many did not come to me in the middle of the drama and action. Most are the product of deeper reflection, which I was able to do only from a distance.

Allison Kilkenny / The Nation / April 3, 2012

Once the last major Occupy camps had been razed by police forces, pundits began to crow that the movement was finished. Of course, once it became clear that thesis was not grounded in reality, the professional ponderers went on to wonder aloud (and in print) if occupations would still be a major part of the group’s agenda. In other words: could Occupy still be Occupy without ongoing occupations?

An Occupy Wall Street action in San Francisco of between 100 and 300 activists achieved what New York Magazine calls “one of the first real occupations of 2012” when they took over a building belonging to the city Archdiocese. (photo via @OCongress)

Police in riot gear stormed the two-story building Monday afternoon after breaking through a barricade the activists had built and arrested nearly eighty Occupiers.

San Diego CPUC Meeting

Al Bahr Shriners Memorial Auditorium

April 5th

2:00 pm and 6:00 pm

5440 Kearny Mesa Road

San Diego, CA 92111

By Diane Conklin / Ramona Sentinel / Originally published March 24, 2012

What will it take for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to deny San Diego Gas & Electric’s request that you and I pay for their fires? I have thought a lot about this question and have come to this conclusion: It will take the people of San Diego County, thousands of them, to email, call, write, and participate in the process.

And one of the most important and most accessible ways to participate is to join with neighbors and friends and “Come on down” to the April 5th public hearing and tell the commission yourself what you think of this plan.

The Green Store of OB – sitting in an old storefront at 4827 Voltaire Street Voltaire Street – has to move. After 17 years being in the same location, the environmentally-and-socially- minded shop was given a 60 day eviction notice by its landlord on April 1st – and it wasn’t a joke.

But Colleen Dietzel – owner and manager – is not bitter. She and her partners at the Green Store have had a wonderful relationship with their landlord, Gregg Sullivan over the years. “He’s been very good to us,” Colleen told me over the phone. “Gregg supported what we’ve been doing here,” she said.

In a bit of irony, Colleen is getting ready to celebrate the Green Store’s 23rd anniversary this April 22nd. The store originally opened in one location in OB and had to move after 6 years. That’s when she and her partner Kip Kruegar moved into the place on Voltaire. Sullivan didn’t buy the place until 7 years later, so he’s been their landlord for the past ten years.

Assembly Member Toni Atkins
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0076

Re: A.B. 2465

April 3, 2012

Good morning Ms. Atkins:

I am writing to you with concern over A.B. 2465, introduced by Assembly Member Campos of San Jose. As I am sure you are aware, the bill contains provisions which directly affects the privacy rights of those who use medicinal marijuana as they are provided under the provisions of the Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 (codified as California Health and Safety Code §§ 11362.7, et seq.).

As I understand the gravamen of A.B. 2465, inter alia, it would require those who seek to use medicinal marijuana, after obtaining a physician’s recommendation, to register with the State of California to obtain an identification card as a part of a state-wide registry.

Study Released Revealing Startling Data on Lower Life Expectancy Even in Upper Income Communities

On Thursday, April 5, 2012, over 200 union janitors, religious leaders and community members will be gathering at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church, where members of San Diego’s religious community will be washing the feet of our hardworking janitors to draw attention to the impact of inequality of health for both working class and middle class families.

The janitors’ union, SEIU United Service Workers West (USWW), as part of their statewide campaign for a new contract expiring in 2012, released a study that demonstrates that with a better health care system people in middle-class families could live four years longer, and people would live five years longer.

On Wednesday, April 4th, at their regular monthly meeting, the Ocean Beach Planning Board will elect new officers for the next year. The selection of Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretary – the principle positions – is an annual ritual completed after the latest annual Board election. The election was held on March 13th, and the Board will presumptively certify the election results.

Also on the agenda is Scott Peters, who ostensibly, is giving a report on news from the San Diego Port District because he is a Port Commissioner. But as we all know, Scott Peters is also running for the Congressional seat in the 52nd District, which does include OB. So, he’ll be there to expound on his campaign. Peter’s Democratic opponent, former Assemblywoman Lori Saldana, will not be there. Peters is expected to report on the Convention Center expansion and the North Embarcadero “Visionary Project”.

Sometimes I get dancing feet.
I’ll hear a song
and can’t help but want to move
to its rhythm,
to its beat.

An Ocean Beach woman, 67, cried ‘foul’ on two guys that tried to scam her posing as FBI impersonators and running a classic “bank examiner fraud” on her.

The unidentified woman was allegedly approached by Nenad Videnovic, 22, and Brian John Murphy, 33, at her home in OB on March 23rd. Using fake gold badges and business cards with the FBI logo, Videnovic and Murphy identified themselves as FBI agents. They told her that someone at her bank was defrauding her, and asked her to withdraw money from her account and give it to them in order to place tracers on the cash, and determine who was the culprit. That was their story, at least.

On March 13th, the Ocean Beach Planning Board held its annual election. Every year, half of the seats on the 14 member Board are up for election, an election that residents, property owners, and business owners may participate in. Board terms are two years.

The Board meets twice monthly, with the General meeting held on the first Wednesday of every month. Two weeks later, the Project Review Committee – a sub-committee – then meets, to review and make recommendations to the full Board.

According to our Election Committee Chair Nancy Taylor the results are as follows:

If you had attempted to come online to our site last Friday or Saturday, you would have found a blank screen. For hours, the OB Rag was down – “suspended” – due to an internet attack against us. That’s right – we’ve been in somebody’s cross-hairs and they disrupted our service – at least 4 times over the last week. Technically called a DDOS – a dedicated denial of service – somebody swarmed our server with hundreds, maybe thousands of different IP addresses sending us stuff – and in the process overwhelming our server, who then suspends us until the problem is removed.

When we spoke to our tech support late last week and Saturday, he said that the attack is directly targeting the Rag. He can’t tell us where the attack is originating because the incoming connections change constantly and come from legit IP addresses. The attacker is using zombie or bot computers to accomplish this. Zombie or bot computers are computers like yours or mine that have been breached in some small way and contribute to the attack without the knowledge of the individual user.