Month: February 2015

By John Lawrence

Apple Corporation is sitting on $178 billion in cash, and it literally doesn’t know what to do with it. But it knows one thing: it doesn’t want to give any of it to Uncle Sam or any other taxing jurisdictions around the world. That much is clear.

If it divided that money up, Apple could give $550 to every man, woman and child in the US. It’s enough money to buy Ford, General Motors and Tesla combined and still have $41 billion left over.

They could even buy a couple of small countries, but it doesn’t want to do that. Why bother? It’s literally an embarrassment of riches.

Apple sold an amazing 74.5 million iPhones in the last quarter of 2014, (the first fiscal quarter of 2015).

Last week at the Ocean Beach Town Council meeting, Community Relations Officer David Surwilo handed out some papers for viewing during his presentation on the recent crime wave in OB.

Among the papers was a map showing crimes for the month of December 2014 in the various police precincts for the Peninsula, including Ocean Beach. The over-all Peninsula service area is 610 and is broken down into 8 different precincts.

Most of OB is in precinct no. 614. Others include Sunset Cliffs in 618, La Playa 616, Midway District in 611.

The map for OB’s 614 displays 5 residential burglaries and 1 commercial burglary for December.

By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos

Carter G. Woodson, historian and the father of “Negro History Week,” died in 1950, and did not live to see Black History Month, which started at Kent State in 1970 and was signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1976.

Woodson chose February as the month in which to celebrate because it contained both the births of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and of President Abraham Lincoln. One wonders what Woodson would think of the commemoration today.

“Preserve Point Loma” Formed to Oppose Development

Point Lomans are mobilizing to save a piece of local history, the old Jessop family estate property in a southeast land portion of the Peninsula – where a subdivision is currently scheduled for development on the site. They have formed a group called “Preserve Point Loma” and are facing a showdown over the development at City Council on February 9th.

It’s all over a 4 lot subdivision being proposed for the old Jessop estate, which is located at 414 La Crescentia Drive. Members of Preserve Point Loma believe the project, known as “The Point Loma Summit Subdivision “ is in violation of the Peninsula Community Plan. The project is proposed on a environmentally sensitive steep hillside identified in the 1987 Peninsula Community Plan adopted by the San Diego City Council.

Native Plant Garden Among Improvements for Lutheran Church at Point Loma Ave and Sunset Cliffs Blvd

By Lois Lane

When some of the asphalt that once served as parking for St. Peter’s by the Sea Lutheran Church was removed with jackhammers, neighbors thought “what next?”

But unlike other all-too-frequent occurrences in Ocean Beach, the soil underneath didn’t sprout condos. Instead, the native plants that lead to the new church entryway took root, showing every sign of thriving and spreading.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board meets this Wednesday, February 4th, at the OB Rec Center, over at 4726 Santa Monica Avenue, at 6pm sharp.

The main action item on the Board’s agenda is the proposed demolition and construction at 4677 Niagara Avenue. The plan is for the developer to demolish the old, old over 100-year-old house on the lot and construct two detached residential condo units. The lot is on a steep slice of Niagara and is .16 acres.

By Andrea Carter

The struggle continues to keep the historic CHE Café facility open on the University of California San Diego (UCSD) campus. This battle over a rare public, all-ages arts, food, and music venue should concern us all as it represents the canary in the coal mine for additional onslaughts of this nature to follow.

Undergraduate and graduate student government councils, respectively the Associated Students (AS) and the Graduate Student Association (GSA) are set to soon issue reports and recommendations to the University as to what they feel should be done as the to the CHE Café, its facility and the other cooperatives at UCSD.

Claudia Jack – a venerable fixture in a “who’s-who” of the people who make OB run – is definitely THE “Go-to-Woman” of Ocean Beach. If you need something, somebody, or have a question or issue about OB, Claudia’s the woman to see. It was just a couple of months ago that the OB Town Council presented her with their Lifetime Achievement Award for 2014.

Finally catching up with her last Wednesday as she sat in a chair almost in the middle of Newport Avenue, I grabbed a metal folding chair next to her, got out my (paper) tablet and pen and for the next hour or so quizzed Claudia on who she is and what she does.

It was a Farmers Market day and that block of Newport is closed down to traffic and canopies and the aroma of foods take over.

By Sarah “Steve” Mosko / Boogie Green

I escort spiders out of my house, use humane traps to relocate attic rats, and save honey bees from drowning in pools. Yet I’ve been known to hunt with a vengeance a mosquito that’s ruining my sleep, repeatedly buzzing in earshot in search of exposed skin. At such moments, I might push a button, if one existed, to rid the world of mosquitos forever.

However, recent press about disastrous blowback when humans target species deemed a nuisance should give pause to impulses to wipe out even the most bothersome of pests. Two examples. First, the 90% decline in the population of the monarch butterfly in the last two decades from spraying

By John P. Anderson / San Diego Free Press

In case we need further proof that drivers and cars will continue to receive priority over every other mode of transit in San Diego, the San Diego Police Department has provided more clear evidence of the supremacy of the car, this time at the specific expense of pedestrians.

If there is a single clearly beneficial manner of transit we should be encouraging at every chance it is walking. Following jaywalking stings in recent years, now the police department is going out of its way to portray pedestrians as dangers to the community and themselves and explaining some steps pedestrians should take to further cater to cars and avoid inconveniencing motorists.

This comes at the same time as we continue to widen roads, raise speed limits, and remove painted crosswalks (recently at the busy and popular corner of 30th and Upas in North Park). Additionally, both the city and county continue to espouse policies regarding crosswalks that explicitly argue against installation of painted crosswalks due to the ‘false sense of safety’ that they provide to pedestrians.

“Let’s be clear, climate change is the most important issue facing all of us for the rest of our lives.” –John Harrity, President of the Connecticut State Council of Machinists

By Jim Miller & Micah Mitrosky

We are facing a historic environmental crisis that threatens our present and future survival. Think Progress pithily summarized the conclusions of last year’s United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, noting that:

The world’s top scientists and governments have issued their bluntest plea yet to the world: Slash carbon pollution now (at a very low cost) or risk “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.” Scientists have “high confidence” these devastating impacts occur “even with adaptation” — if we keep doing little or nothing.

A short list of the many catastrophic effects that unchecked climate change may bring includes severe drought, dangerous wildfires, increased disease, threatened food systems due to Dust Bowl-like conditions, ocean acidification, more global conflict over resources, economic collapse, and mass extinction.