Month: April 2014

Editor: A bill in the California legislation that would have created per se limits on driving under the influence of specified drugs – like marijuana – based on blood tests even absent other evidence of impairment, AB 2500, just failed in the Public Safety Committee. More bills like this are expected. So, this may be a good time to see what a law enforcement group in favor of marijuana legalization has to say on marijuana DUIs.

By Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Marijuana DUIs

• Unlike alcohol, THC can stay in the bloodstream for days or weeks. We must find a way to accurately measure the impairment of a driver if we’re going to fairly charge them with a crime. Currently, officers in every state but West Virginia are being trained to become drug recognition experts who can recognize the signs of drug impairment and make arrests for drugged driving offenses (4) Blood tests should be no substitute for good police work.

Civic Engagement May be First Step to Expanding Medical Marijuana Ordinance

By Terrie Best / San Diegans for Safe Access

I want what the City of San Diego is now calling a Medical Marijuana Consumer Cooperative (MMCC) in my neighborhood but nowhere in my community is there an appropriate zone. Expanding the allowable zones for MMCC’s will be challenging but according to the Planning Division, a Division of the Planning, Neighborhoods and Economic Development Department, we should have a say in the process through our Community Planning Groups.

The Planning Division website reads:

There has been long-standing citizen involvement in planning in the City of San Diego. The City Council adopted policies in the 1960s and 1970s that established and recognized community planning groups as formal mechanisms for community input in the land use decision-making processes.

“Poetry doesn’t belong to those who write it but to those who need it.”

By Anna Daniels

So, is

“April the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.“? ——— T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

or is April when

“the ponds open
like black blossoms,
the moon
swims in every one;
there’s fire
everywhere…“? ————Mary Oliver, Blossom

Local News You May Have Missed

Naked Man Rescued After Jumping Off OB Pier

A nude male was rescued by Lifeguards Tuesday morning – the 29th – …,

Thefts of Raglan’s Copper Mugs

Someone is making off with all the copper mugs at theRaglan …

OB’s Matt Molarius – Makes Local TV’s San Diego’s Top 9 Rhythm Guitarists

NBCSan Diego has called Matt Molarius – frontman for alt-rock favorites Transfer, and lives in OB, one of San Diego’s Top 9 Rhythm Guitarists. See here.

Disabled Vet’s Point Loma House Renovated by Local Volunteers

Nearly a hundred local volunteers helped renovate the Point Loma home of Mike Beuoy, a disabled veteran on Saturday, April 26th.

The OB Rag has learned that the schedule of hearings and meetings on the OB Community Plan by the City Council and its committees has been set.

The first meeting is this week, on Wednesday, April 30th, at 2pm before the Smart Growth and Land Use Committee – and OBceans are encouraged to attend and lend support to the final version of the Draft Community Plan Update.

This is great news, as OB has been going through a twelve year process – led by the City – of updating the Ocean Beach Community Plan – also called the OB Precise Plan – the official blueprint for development and construction within community planning area – and now dates have been set for the reviews by the various City Council committees, the Planning Commission, and the Council itself.

By Cara Wilson-Granat

(Fourth in a series)

This is the fourth in a series of ten in which we meet one of the San Diego 10 orcas and hear from an advocate who continues to be one of the voices of these imprisoned voiceless, never stopping until the whole world listens.

[Here is Prisoner Orca Profile #1 and #2, and #3.]

And “meet” one of the top San Diego 10 Prisoner Advocates. This week’s Advocate is Pamela Slater-Price, former San Diego County Supervisor.

Prisoner #4: Orkid

Age: 26

Born on September 23, 1988, during a live Shamu show at Sea World San Diego, Orkid made her debut in front of thousands of spectators. Of course, a natural orca birth in the wild wouldn’t be bombarded with the noise and cameras and invasion of such a personal entrance into the world as this baby experienced.

By Jim Miller

These are still tough times for most working people in the United States. We are in the midst of a new Gilded Age of historic economic inequality. The rich are carving out a bigger slice of the pie at the expense of nearly everyone else in America. As I noted in my column last week, corporate profits are at their highest level in 85 years and employee compensation is at the lowest level it has been in 65 years.

And this is happening despite the fact that the average American worker is more educated and more productive than ever before. The result of all this is a declining middle class, economic instability, and the hijacking of our democracy by moneyed interests.

Here in San Diego, we have one of the highest costs of living in the United States, ….

By Ernie McCray

I like my birthdays mellow and this year’s was just that, a little time with my querida and some of my family at her house and before they arrived I stretched out in my easy chair and listened to Lila Downs sing corridos in ways only she can. Oh, that voice of hers was born in some special place.

Lila warmed my insides and made me want to dance, so I got my 76 year old body up and put some Maceo on. The Maceo James Brown used to call out to when he yelled to the beat, “Macio! Hit me! Take me to the bridge!” when he wanted to take the jam to a different groove, making everybody want to move.

And Maceo had me getting down like I was the hippest coolest stepper in town. My mood, at this point, was easy and sweet, and that directed how I moved my feet, as I enjoyed my special day.

In between, my little Soul Train routine, my mind wandered here and there, about places I’ve been, things I’ve seen, countries I’d like to see. Cuba occupied most of those thoughts and that historic island isn’t that faraway. …

By Judi Curry

As a mother, an Office Manager, and a School Principal I have been called on to make some difficult decisions. But no decision has been more difficult that the one I had to make just the other morning. The heartache and grief supersedes anything I have ever had to do.

I have had the most wonderful companion for over 10 years. He was born on my birthday many years after I came into this world. He was always so happy to see me; he always had a smile on his face; he never questioned decisions I made; never argued with me, and made me feel better after having a difficult day. That is why this decision is so hard to make. Of course I am talking about my Golden Retriever.

I’ll never forget the first day we met him at the Golden Retriever rescue in Temecula.

NEW UPDATES !

By Matthew Wood

OB Restaurant Week is back. This time it’s bringing some hotels along for the ride.

The week kicks off Sunday -April 27 – with four hotels/B&Bs hosting a launch party with samples from the 20 participating restaurants. Then the restaurants take over, offering specials every day from Monday to Sunday.

“We’re excited. We really have enhanced the event since the first year by letting the hotels host the event,” said Liz Greene, Creative director for Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association, which is one of the event sponsors.

“It’s like an open house for them to be able to show locals, visitors, everyone who wants to see.”

Report of Monthly Meeting of Wednesday, April 23

If you want to see a hundred people who care passionately about OB, come to an OB Town Council meeting. They may not all agree, but they let their opinions be known. Everyone is welcome – newcomers find out what is happening in our community, families bring their children, people come and go – it was more OB than ever.

And what is more OB than a community complaint fest against the homeless.

So, when the new Police Captain for the Western Division, Captain David Rohowits, was introduced, the tone of what had been billed as a “community meeting” appeared to devolve into a verbal complaint session against the homeless in OB, and despite the chair’s best intentions, the regular agenda items were pushed to the end of the meeting and truncated. Even newly-appointed Councilman Ed Harris – there to introduce himself – got into the mix.

The topic of discussion had many names: the homeless, vagabonds, travelers, bums, visitors … but there seemed to be a general consensus of impatience, frustration and outrage against what was felt were violations of the common civility of the community of those attending.

Third in a Series

By Cara Wilson-Granat

“Lots of people talk to animals. Not very many listen, though. That’s the problem.” –Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

This is the third in a series of ten in which we meet one of the San Diego 10 orcas and hear from an advocate who continues to be one of the voices of these imprisoned voiceless, never stopping until the whole world listens. (Here is Orca Profile #1 and #2.)

Prisoner #3: Ulises

Age: About 36

Ulises, the oldest male orca in captivity, and the second largest (the largest being Tilikum, 12k pounds) is also a good candidate for a full return to the ocean. This hefty, Icelandic orca is 19 feet 6 inches (5.94 m), weighing 9,200 pounds (4,200 kg). Easily discernible, one can recognize him as not only being the largest captive whale imprisoned in Sea World San Diego, but he has the tallest dorsal; it stands straight up and droops ever so slightly to the right at the top.