Month: January 2014

By a local activist

Where else can you walk from OB to a nationally-known natural wonder without crossing the street?

Not everybody knows that Sunset Cliffs Natural Park starts at the point between Ocean Beach and Point Loma at Adair Street, where the cliffs and ocean view run alongside Sunset Cliffs Blvd. There is a kiosk, a sign, and a bench there, but the barren trail doesn’t provide the cut-grass ambiance we ordinarily associated with city-owned parks.

That’s about to change. This entry point will soon become an experimental garden for native plants. Designed by Clayton Tschudy, a botanist with Cal Native and presented by David Fleitner from the San Diego Native Plant Society, work will begin as soon as permits are in place. This is the Entryway to Sunset Cliffs Natural Park.

A micro-farm that has been producing organic crops on upper Voltaire Street for nearly two years is now opening itself up for community gardeners.

Herb En Routes- run by Paige and Danielle- has been growing sustainable and local produce on .25 acres on a previously vacant lot at 4113 Voltaire. They were selling organically grown produce to local restaurants, such as Tender Greens, To The Point Cafe, Farmhouse Cafe, and the Pearl Hotel and Restaurant.

Paige and Danielle have now decided this endeavor is a bit too time consuming for them. So, they have decided to turn the farm into a community garden to allow them to work towards other careers but still continue to serve the community.

Starting this month, there are garden plots for rent, starting at $16 a month.

Scientists believe a dramatic drop off of a nutritious fish may be the root of an epidemic of sick sea lion pups along the SoCal coast.

Scientists believe they may finally know why up to 1100 lion pups have turned up sick on Southern California beaches over the last year, including in OB and San Diego’s coast.

The phenomenon seemed to begin in January 2013 when a large number of pups began washing ashore injured, dehydrated and malnourished. Scientists looked at environmental factors, such as algae growth and wind pattern changes. But they now believe a dramatic drop in the sardine population was the culprit.

One of the best Mexican restaurants in the Point Loma – OB area is now part of a friendly wager between the mayors of San Diego and Denver over the Broncos-Chargers game this Sunday.

Interim San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has included burritos from Ortiz’s Taco Shop on Voltaire as part of this bet.

A protest against SeaWorld has been organized for January 19th. It will be held from 10 am to 1pm at 500 SeaWorld Drive. Participants are being asked to wear black or black and white by the organizers.

Organizers claim that the protest will go on “until the tanks are empty”. According to the press release by the organizers:

$ea World confines whales and dolphins—that often swim up to 100 miles a day in the wild in tanks the size of a bathtub.

$ea World presents itself as a family establishment full of fun activities. However, these “fun activities” harm animals physically and emotionally.

We will meet at the corner of $ea World Drive and $ea World Way.

Parking: For parking, turn onto S. Shores Park off Friars Rd and park in the boat ramp lot then walk up about half a mile to demo location on $ea World Drive and $ea World Way.

By Anna Daniels / San Diego Free Press

“In 1993, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was sold to the American public with grand promises. NAFTA would create tens of thousands of good jobs here. U.S. farmers would export their way to wealth. NAFTA would bring Mexico’s standard of living up, providing new economic opportunities there that would reduce immigration to the United States.” Public Citizen NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013

On January 1, 1994, a trilateral free trade zone was established in North America. This treaty with the United States, Mexico and Canada resulted in the mass relocation of factories and capital south of the Mexican border. Then President Bill Clinton asserted that NAFTA was going to “promote more growth, more equality and better preservation of the environment and a greater possibility of world peace.”

Enero Zapatista Committee Organizes Month Long Series of Events

By Brent E. Beltrán

“Behind our black mask, behind our armed voice, behind our unnameable name, behind what you see of us, behind this, we are you.” – Major Ana Maria of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation

Twenty years ago on January 1 an unknown, rag tag rebel group walked out of the fog and rain forest of Chiapas, Mexico and into the imaginations of millions of Mexicans, indigenous people and lefties throughout the world.

By Doug Porter / San Diego Free Press

Employees of the UT-San Diego are the latest casualties in the sordid saga of the right wing’s assault on the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

UT Publisher Doug Manchester has made opposition and denigration of the President’s health insurance reform agenda a top priority since the day he bought the paper. His editorial pages have been (figuratively) screaming about the impending end of Western Civilization for months on end. The ACA’s primary pillar—the individual mandate—was actually a conservative counter-proposal to President Clinton’s attempt to implement universal health care nearly two decades ago.

I know firsthand that the Affordable Care Act can help people

By Jill Richardson / Other Words

For the first time in years, I’ve got health insurance. Before now, my “insurance” was nothing more than exercise, a healthy diet, and medicinal herbs.

I’ve gotten insured through the Affordable Care Act without dealing with a buggy website because I live in California. Our state made its own website because our politicians are more concerned about their citizens’ health than making President Barack Obama look bad.

Light winds prevail for 29th annual Rose Bowl Regatta

From Scuttlebutt Sailing News

Georgetown University and Point Loma High School will tell you that the 29th annual Rose Bowl Regatta was an event when it paid to pick your partner.

With 26 college teams from across the country and 63 high schools from California all sailing little 13-foot, 3-inch CFJ dinghies and winds varying from 2 knots Saturday to 7 or 8 knots on Sunday, nobody needed extra ballast.

As Point Loma assistant coach Nick Kaschak, said;

“Some of our events are guy-guy and some are guy-girl. This one was definitely guy-girl.”

Kaschak was calling the Point Loma shots in the absence of Coach Steve Hunt, who had a conflicting commitment to race Etchells in Florida on the weekend, but the San Diego team—with 110-pound Rebecca McElvain crewing for Scott Sinks on the lead boat, hardly missed a beat in seizing its eighth consecutive High School Gold fleet championship.

Phoenix and Salt Lake City have ended chronic homelessness among veterans. Why can’t San Diego follow their example?

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

Phoenix has become the first city to end homelessness among veterans. The Obama administration had set a goal of ending homelessness among veterans by 2015, but Phoenix reached that mark a year early. After housing the last 56 veterans a week before Christmas, Phoenix announced that it had eradicated chronic homelessness among veterans in that city.

Phoenix and Salt Lake City had been involved in a frierndly competition to see which city could end chronic homelessness among veterans first. Phoenix won, but Salt Lake was not far behind.

By Ernie McCray

Someone mentioned on facebook the other day that we forget to count our blessings. I thought about that for a few moments and then whatever I was thinking just floated away and then I noticed that my daughter, Tawny, had posted a picture of her mother on her timeline and that really got my thoughts about blessings underway.

And, in the spirit of such thinking, with family on my mind, I could hear my daughter, Nyla, saying to Phill, her husband-to be, a little while back, in their wedding ceremony: “It is so special for me to be marrying you on this day in the house that I was raised in. My parents had such a strong and beautiful relationship and I was lucky to grow up with that around me.”

Oh, that, to me, was about as precious a blessing as there could be, hearing my daughter express that she was blessed to be raised by her mother and me. Brought tears of glee to my eyes. And speaking of blessings what a boon to our lives that beautiful young woman has been from the moment she and her twin sister arrived.