Month: July 2012

This is Part 2 of my “brief” history of modern OB activism. Here’s Part 1. It is taken from a talk I gave at the Open House of the Green Store on July 14th.

The Eighties

The 1980s were a period of accommodation. Hippie businessmen and women emerged on the scene in OB and were accepted. The projects of the hippie radicals of the late Sixties and Seventies had all but faded away – many of the hippies remained however, buying homes in OB or Point Loma, getting married, and having careers and children. But the radical pioneers had paved the way for a new wave of hippies – it was the coming of age of the “hip-oisie”, a type of hip petite-bourgeoisie.

Apparently, the OB Entryway Sign is in trouble. The OB Town Council reports that the sign has weathered years and years of coastal air and an army of termites has moved in – it must now be replaced and they are seeking residents’ input and design proposals for a new sign.

OBceans are urged to contact artist friends and family members to draft what they would like to see and submit it for consideration -even if what is wanted is the exact same sign, only with different materials.

By Loverne Brown

I wait for a bus.
He comes up out of the shadows
to share the bench,
greets me with a broken-toothed smile.

He has the sad courtesy of the derelict
who remembers once being other than what he is,
the remote regard of one who no longer cares.

He drinks from a fragrant bottle, is himself fragrant
with all of the human smells.
His chariot arrives before mine. Two officers
relieve him of his bottle,
spill the red dreamstuff
into the gutter, rumple him into the car.

It’s the 2nd Annual Hounds for Hope Walk, coming up on Saturday, July 28, 2012, at Dusty Rhodes Park, Ocean Beach, from 10:00am-1:00pm.

Hounds for Hope Walk is a canine cancer awareness and wellness festival designed to promote healthy care for our furry friends. A short walk around the perimeter of the park will kick off the event.

This is a family-friendly celebration and all leashed dogs are welcome for a great day of fun and hope.

The Friends of the San Diego River Mouth, a chapter of the San Diego River Park Foundation, needs volunteers with an interest in helping to save and restore one of the last remaining Coastal Dune and Wetland Habitats in San Diego.

They are meeting this Saturday, July 28th, at Dog Beach in OB, from 9am to 12 noon.

Coastal Habitat restoration projects are needed as over 95% of these habitat areas are now gone due to development. Home to many endangered birds, fish and mammals this area needs your help to remain as a viable habitat area. An educational walking tour will be included. All are welcome even if you can’t stay to help us with the project.

This originally appeared at San Diego Free Press

Hundreds of Protesters – 24 Arrests and 7 Hours of Confrontations

Unrest continued last night – Tuesday, July 24th – in Anaheim, the fourth night in a row – between community residents protesting recent police lethal shootings and law enforcement. 24 arrests were made yesterday and overnight, near a half dozen injuries occurred during the seven hours of conflict Tuesday that ended around 2 a.m.

Anaheim police remained on alert Wednesday. The family of the man fatally shot on Saturday are suing the City and police and a support caravan from San Diego is going up to Anaheim on Sunday, July 29th.

Between 500 and 600 demonstrators were reported to have carried out protests throughout Tuesday, as hundreds of extra police were brought in to supplement Anaheim’s city police. Many of the protests were peaceful, yet police again fired pepper balls and beanbags at unarmed protesters. Some business windows were smashed, rocks were thrown at police, and dumpsters lit on fire.

Southern’s California Recent Desal Plant Faces its Last Hurdle

By David Rosenfeld / AlterNet / Originally published July 17, 2012

The private equity firm proposing to finance the project has one last hurdle to overcome: It needs someone to agree to buy the water. And that is proving tricky.

After more than a decade spent talking about building a large-scale ocean desalination plant in Carlsbad, California, the private equity firm proposing to finance the project has one last hurdle to overcome: It needs someone to agree to buy the water.

Poseidon Resources has put forth several iterations over the years of its proposed plant in San Diego County, expected to produce up to 50 million gallons of freshwater daily. In one attempt, Poseidon inked agreements with local water agencies claiming it could sell water at no greater cost than imported water supplies.

But investors and members of the San Diego County Water Authority, both of whom Poseidon needs for support, balked at the claim and those agreements were scrapped.

By Dante Atkins / Daily Kos

November 2012 will be a cataclysmic showdown between the forces of democracy and the forces of unlimited wealth. If we lose this, the plutocrats will be in charge and will be able to write their own rules to further the interests of Wall Street and the one percent. If we lose this fight, anti-democratic legislation will continue to sweep across the nation, overwhelming the grassroots support and small-dollar contributions of those who dare to fight against overwhelming odds.

And I’m not talking about the reelection campaign of Barack Obama. No, this battle to the death between moneyed interests and working people will play out in California in the form of Proposition 32. This measure, proponents say, would ban both corporate and union contributions for most political purposes and make citizens reign supreme. But progressives here have taken to calling it the “special exemptions act.”

By Michael Moore / July 25, 2012

Since Cain went nuts and whacked Abel, there have always been those humans who, for one reason or another, go temporarily or permanently insane and commit unspeakable acts of violence. There was the Roman Emperor Tiberius, who during the first century A.D. enjoyed throwing victims off a cliff on the Mediterranean island of Capri. Gilles de Rais, a French knight and ally of Joan of Arc during the middle ages, went cuckoo-for-Cocoa Puffs one day and ended up murdering hundreds of children. Just a few decades later Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Dracula, was killing people in Transylvania in numberless horrifying ways.

In modern times, nearly every nation has had a psychopath or two commit a mass murder, regardless of how strict their gun laws are – the crazed white supremacist in Norway one year ago Sunday, the schoolyard butcher in Dunblane, Scotland, the École Polytechnique killer in Montreal, the mass murderer in Erfurt, Germany … the list seems endless.

And now the Aurora shooter last Friday. There have always been insane people, and there always will be.

Rally to Save Medical Cannabis

Join us, Wednesday July 25th – 12pm at the San Diego Federal Court House on 880 Front St. to rally against federal attacks on the Medical Cannabis Community!

After closing down over 200 dispensaries throughout San Diego County, U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy has set her sights on Mother Earth’s Alternative Healing Cooperative the only Sheriff Permitted medical marijuana dispensary in the 4 most southern county’s in California. The Coop received an eviction notion to cease operation on Wed, July 25 due to the pressure from U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy’s office on there landlord.

On Wednesday, July 25th, a coalition of sorts of environmental, progressive and fiscal conservative groups will draw the public’s attention to the need to focus on water conservation and cost-efficiency in San Diego. The groups will do this by holding a press conference in Mission Bay as a “Colorado River Day” event and highlight their delivery of a letter to Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and Governor Jerry Brown outlining these concerns.

On July 25, 1921, Congress officially named the river “Colorado,” which now faces massive water supply draws to quench the thirst of the arid southwestern United States.

Editor: This is a commentary sent to us by OBcean Richard Grosch who wrote it in conjunction with labor activist Peter Zschiesche and was published in the July 18th OpEd pages of the U-T San Diego. Grosch is president of the San Diego Community College District board of trustees, and Zschiesche is the executive vice president of the board.

By Richard Grosch & Peter Zschiesche / U-T San Diego / Originally published July 18, 2012

California has a higher education crisis. The University of California (UC), the California State University System (CSU) and the California Community College system have all been hit with deep reductions in state funding for students’ education in the face of unprecedented need for job training, college degree preparation and re-careering.