Month: July 2012

The San Diego Unified School District is selling off seven properties in order to stay afloat – including the campuses of Barnard Elementary and Mission Beach Elementary schools.

Barnard is located at 2930 Barnard Street, a block from West Point Loma Avenue in the Midway area. The 9.37 acre parcel is in the “coastal zone” and is on the chopping block for a minimum bid of $9.14 million. Originally opened during World War II for Navy children, the elementary school was acquired by the District after the war.

This November, California voters will have the opportunity to make significant changes to the state’s penal law.

by Alex Landon / San Diego Free Press

Over the past 30 years there have been a number of propositions in California which have impacted the rights of those who wind up in the criminal justice system. The defense bar has attempted to get the public to understand why these propositions do not fight crime or make people safer.

We have been outspent by special interests who have benefited economically and politically by these propositions. It has also been difficult for us to get our message out in short sound bites that can be understood by those who vote. Whereas the proponents have been able to purchase ads and in just a few seconds spread misleading information or just plain lies in order to get fearful voters to support their propositions.

For the remainder of this article, please go to San Diego Free Press

Wall Street got bailed out. Cities got sold out. Federal policies keeping interest rates low are resulting in extracting wealth from cities and transferring it to Wall Street.

by John Lawrence

We blogged earlier about how traders from JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs descended on European cities such as Casino, Italy and even nunneries selling them interest rate swaps. Interest rate swaps were also responsible for bankrupting Jefferson County, the county seat of Birmingham, Alabama. Now the same big banks are bankrupting California cities. Stockton, San Bernadino and Mammoth Lakes have already gone down. Oakland is fighting Goldman for its very life.

But what does this have to do with the LIBOR scandal, you say? A lot, it turns out. LIBOR stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate, a benchmark that most other interest rates are tied to including interest rate swaps, the very derivative financial instruments that are now bankrupting California cities.

By Marjorie Cohn

The issue of immigration has been tossed about like a political football for some time. Democrats argue that migrants who have spent many years in the United States should be permitted to apply for lawful status. Republicans criticize these proposals as “amnesty.” But Congress has been unable to agree on comprehensive immigration reform.

Three and one-half years into his term, President Obama announced on June 15 a policy to halt deportations for many undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. They must be under age 30, have come to the United States when they were under age 16, have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, be either an honorably discharged veteran or a high school graduate, and have suffered no felony or “significant” misdemeanor convictions.

Ten days after Obama revealed his new program, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision on Arizona’s SB 1070. Arizona had enacted a repressive law aimed at “attrition [of undocumented immigrants] through enforcement.” Five other states followed suit and waited as the high court considered the constitutionality of Arizona’s law.

The folks at the Save Mission Trails applaud the San Diego Planning Commissioners for their diligence and the votes which opposed initiation of regulation changes to site the Quail Brush power plant. One more vote is needed on July 19th, 9 AM at the Planning Commission (PC) Hearing to finalize their opposition.

County residents are asked to immediately step-up written notes of opposition by sending each a message to the San Dieog Planning Commission, San Diego City Council and the California Energy Commission (CEC). (See this sample message). Residents are asked to their thoughts about why open space in the Mission Trails Design District of East Elliot is too valuable to convert to industrial uses. The Mission Trails Task Force will also be considering this issue on July 19th at 1 PM.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents:

REMEMBERING LoVerne Brown—

O. B. Poet, Activist, Beloved Friend

Thurs., July 19th, at 7 PM

At P.L. United Methodist Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society is honored to present our July program featuring friends and family who will talk about the achievement of LoVerne Brown and the important part she played in Ocean Beach’s history.

LoVerne Brown, was born in North Dakota in 1912. Prior to coming to O.B. she led a somewhat nomadic life. In 1950, LoVerne’s husband, George Brown (employed by the federal government) was transferred to San Diego. They and their children- Tony, Jonnie, and Tim – chose beautiful O.B. as their new home. Sadly in 1952, George died of a heart attack, and LoVerne became the family breadwinner, working for the next 22 years in the City of San Diego Engineering Dept.

Here is the agenda for the Ocean Beach Planning Board meeting to be held on Wednesday, July 18th. The Board meets at the OB Recreation Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue, at 6:30 pm sharp. This is actually a meeting of the full Board’s sub-committee, the Project Review Committee – which hears projects and then makes recommendations to the entire Board when it meets the first Wednesday of the month – August 1, 2012.

The meeting has two itemized agenda issues. The first is a permit for the Giddings residence at 4662 Pescadero Avenue in southern OB. The Giddings want a permit to build walls in the public right of way for their existing single family residence.

Here’s a Youtube video about Ocean Beach in the surfin mid-Sixties to the rowdy late Sixties. The artist is Trouble 6.

Come on inside to let us know your fave scene or other minutia of our OB history.

Originally posted September 29, 2009

Editor: This is part of a irregular continuing series about Ocean Beach since the late Sixties and the early history of the first OB Rag.

1968: The Rowdy College-Surf Town Morphs Into Hippie Haven

OB was already well-known for its rowdy and irreverent culture of beach, surf & beer; but by 1968, it began its transformation into something more. Bleach blond long-haired surfers lived next door to long-haired hippies, and soon you couldn’t tell them apart. It became official: Ocean Beach had become the hippie mecca. Since the late sixties, Ocean Beach had morphed into the hippie hangout for the entire city. OB had become the Haight-Ashbury of San Diego, shadowing the more famous early birthplace of hippie-ism. But if you were young and a hippie in San Diego, you ended up in OB.

by Mel Freilicher / San Diego Free Press

In the furor of attempting to clean out my disastrously cluttered home office before school starts again, I came across a recent issue of the National Education Association’s magazine dedicated entirely to teaching Darwin. Before tossing it, I read some astonishing and depressing statistics about the high percentage of Americans who disbelieve in evolution (including, if I recall correctly, about 25% of those with a college education, and more than 50% of those without one). Mostly that issue detailed how teachers might use the mass of scientific evidence from a wide array of disciplines to make the case for Darwin.

That this case still needs to be made is in itself bizarre, of course, since “The Origin of the Species” was published in 1859. It can’t be accounted for simply by the many home-schooled children of fundamentalists, or by graduates of Christian academies such as the chain that unsuccessfully brought litigation against the UC system a few years back for not accepting their creationism course as a legitimate science entry requirement.

By Jim Hightower / NationofChange/ July 16, 2012

Some people are too smart for your own good.

Food geneticists, for example. These technicians have the smarts to tinker with the inner workings of Momma Nature’s own good foods — but not the smarts to leave well enough alone.

In fairness, much of their scientific tinkering has been beneficial. But during the past half-century, too much of their work devolved from tinkering into outright tampering with our food. This is mostly the result of money flowing to both private and public research centers from big agribusiness corporations that want nature’s design altered in ways that fatten their bottom lines. Never mind that the alterations created by these smart people are frequently not good for you and me.

Raglan Public House
1851 Bacon Street
Ocean Beach, CA 92107

Who could have imagined that my review of “Chili’s” would cause indigestion from some of our readers. My, my! So I decided to take myself and a female friend back out into the streets of Ocean Beach for redemption. My friend, a visitor from Ohio, had read my earlier review of “Raglan” and wanted to try it. I had been back three times since my review of Raglan, so decided a “rereview” was necessary to calm people’s gerd and anxieties.

It must be pointed out that each time I have returned to “Raglan” I was pleased with the service; pleased with the quality of food, and pleased by the friendliness of the wait staff. But today I approached my dining experience a little differently.