Month: June 2014

Think you always have a choice over how to give birth? Think again.

By Michele Goodwin / AlterNet

When most women become pregnant, understandably they believe the choice of how they give birth will remain theirs; whether to deliver vaginally or through cesarean surgery or where to give birth, at home or at a hospital. Decades ago, those decisions were well within the domain of pregnant patients whose reproductive liberty and autonomy interests gained constitutional recognition in the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

After all, whose body is it anyway? But what may have seemed clear-cut decades ago, is now put to the test by doctors and lower courts.

Signatures in Support of Plan Close on 2,000

It’s not that often that there is unity in Ocean Beach. It’s uncommon to see every OB group and organization line up together. In fact, it’s pretty weird to see the village so united.

But it’s happening – and I saw it yesterday while collecting signatures in support of the OB Plan.

I personally witnessed individuals who haven’t spoken to one another for maybe ten years – being pals out there at the Farmers’ Market on Wednesday. The camaraderie was obvious – ‘we’re all in this together on this one’ was the unspoken sense.

As I asked passersby to sign the Petition in support of the Plan, standing out on the sidewalk with my clipboard, to a person, those who stopped and listened to my spiel ended up signing it, except one couple from Point Loma.

For once, OB is united and unified in the unqualified on-the-street endorsement of what the Community Plan stands for.

Statement and press release from the Ché Café Collective

By Davide Carpano, student at UCSD and member of the Ché Café Cooperative

The Ché Café, a 34-year-old student-run cooperative at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), has been under attack by the administration for the past two months and was served with a 30-day notice of eviction on June 13, 2014.

The notice was given to the students and their lawyer during a meeting initiated by the University to discuss on the future of the Ché. The student members of the Ché were under the impression that this meeting was part of the informal mediation and dispute resolution process they had requested several weeks ago.

The US Military: Protecting Our Freedom While Destroying Our Planet

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

The impact of the US military on climate change is enormous due to its excessive consumption of fuel oil. The US must spread its influence across the oil producing parts of the world in order to protect its supply of oil.

The US military consumes huge amounts of oil so that it may preserve strategic access to oil in order to get the oil it needs to preserve strategic access to oil and so on in a never ending loop. Insatiable militarism is the single greatest institutional contributor to the growing natural disasters intensified by global climate change.

The US military is the largest single consumer of energy in the world. If it were a country, the Department of Defense (DoD) would rank 34th in the world in average daily oil use, coming in just behind Iraq and just ahead of Sweden.

Councilman Ed Harris refuses to meet with and/or re-schedule the meeting originally set for today with OB planners about the OB Community Plan.

Harris told our reporter Matthew Wood yesterday during the new OB Entryway Sign unveiling, that he would not meet with the representatives of the Plan Update committee or the OB Planning Board. Wood asked why the meeting was cancelled, and Harris responded:

“We looked at it, and decided it wasn’t needed”

“We want to hear both sides at the council meeting. We will hear both sides at the council meeting and then we will adjudicate it.”

“We’ve been following the issue for quite some time. It should be a good hearing.”

Sometime this morning, Thursday, June 19th, Frank Gormlie’s email was hacked. Dozens of his email contacts received that all-too-familiar message these days – ‘help, I’m in London (or wherever) lost my wallet, please send money’. This has happened before to Gormlie – and many others.

The simple remedy is just to change passwords, which Gormlie has done – again.

But an email went out saying Gormlie is stuck in the Ukraine and needs $2 grand plus to get out of his jam.

Here is the actual email – from his account:

By Matthew Wood

Meet the new Ocean Beach entryway sign, same as the old sign.

Well, not exactly.

After a long process of bringing in local artists and voting on new ideas for the sign, organizers decided to … stick with the same exact design.

OB Town Council President Gretchen Newsom unveiled the new sign Wednesday on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard just outside of Robb Field during a ceremony that included San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts, current District 2 City Councilman Ed Harris, former Town Council President Jim Musgrove and Steve Clippinger, of Integrated Sign Associates. Clippinger made the actual sign.

Roberts secured the funding from the county for the sign, which cost around $7,000.

The Vietnam War was a turning point in U.S. history but not as many people may think. In defeat, the national security state changed the narrative into one that made American soldiers the victims and made anti-war activists into traitors who spat on returning soldiers, as Marjorie Cohn explains.

By Marjorie Cohn / Consortiumnews.com

We came dangerously close to nuclear war when the United States was fighting in Vietnam, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg told a reunion of the Stanford Anti-Vietnam War Movement in May 2014. He said that in 1965, the Joint Chiefs assured President Lyndon B. Johnson that the war could be won, but it would take at least 500,000 to one million troops.

The Joint Chiefs recommended hitting targets up to the Chinese border. Ellsberg suspects their real aim was to provoke China into responding. If the Chinese came in, the Joint Chiefs took for granted we would cross into China and use nuclear weapons to demolish the communists.

Please join us and tell your friends:

The Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents
105th Anniversary of Collier’s Parklands!

Featuring John Noble, Richard Dhu & Kathy Blavatt and others

Thursday, June 19, 7PM
at P.L. United Methodist Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society is celebrating an important historical gift to our peninsula.

In 1909, D.C. Collier’s dream of a park for the future children of his beloved community was on it’s way to being established.

Councilman Ed Harris’ office abruptly cancelled a meeting that had been scheduled with OB planners to discuss the OB Community Plan. The meeting had been set for Thursday, June 19th.

While the Plan goes before the full City Council on June 30th, OB planners had expected to be able to have a sit-down with the Councilman of OB before the hearing in order to explain in detail why the Community Plan is a good deal.

Harris had earlier met with the leader of the opposition to the Plan, property investor and owner, David Stebbins.

The two members of the committee responsible for the Plan Update and who have been working with City staff and who were expecting to meet with Harris, Gioivanni Ingolia and Peter Ruscitti, both were notified by Harris’ staff …

Local media reported that there was a sewage spill on Tuesday, June 17th, that entered a local storm drain which resulted in nearly 500 gallons being dumped in and around Garbage Beach. Garbage Beach is a favorite surfing and swimming area along beautiful Sunset Cliffs.

The overflow of sewage is reported to have begun at Ladera and Cordova Streets just before 8 a.m. City crews jumped right on it, and said they had it under control in less than 30 minutes.

Local TV stations reported that two men beat and stabbed a homeless man while he was sleeping in an alley Ocean Beach. This happened just around 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 17th.

The unidentified victim reportedly told San Diego Police that he was awakened while sleeping in an alley off the 4800 block of Santa Monica Avenue near Sunset Cliffs Boulevard by two men attacking him.