Month: July 2016

We Don’t Need Another Gadget

What the world needs now is love… so wrote Hal David in 1965 with music by Burt Bacharach. It was true then and even truer now.

We don’t need another gadget. We don’t need another smartphone. We don’t need another IPO, which only increases the economic divide between the 1% and the 99%.

Economic progress has utterly failed us. It won’t prevent the world going up in flames and/or being flooded out due to global warming. It hasn’t prevented war and violence crowding out every other story on the evening news and getting worse by the day.

Here is the Press Release for a Press Conference on the surveillance cameras installed in Ocean Beach.

OB Crime Fighting Cameras Set to Go Live

What: The City of San Diego has installed cameras in Ocean Beach near the ocean and parking lots to ward off potential criminals. The cameras are on a loop that is not monitored or reviewed unless a crime is reported. This will give law enforcement a valuable crime fighting tool to provide evidence and allow prosecutors to go after criminals to the fullest extent of the law.

When: Thursday, July 21, 2016
11:30 AM

Where: Ocean Beach – at the intersection of Newport Ave and Abbott Street.

Our good friend and photographer, Byron Morton, visited OB’s famous Farmers Market on Newport Avenue and captured some of the good folk who were in attendance – this was last week, July 13th.

See a friend or 2 – give a shout out!

A Good Samaritan by the name of Sean Hanrahan saved a woman after she fell off Sunset Cliffs into the ocean, Tuesday night, July 19th.

Around 8:15 pm at the end of Del Monte Avenue, the woman, with friends, somehow fell from the cliffs into the ocean and was immediately pulled out further by the rip current.

Sean Hanrahan, who lives nearby, saw that the woman apparently having trouble in the waves, and saw her hit her head against rocks. Hanrahan jumped in and kept her afloat until lifeguards arrived.
appeared to be struggling in the water and her head was hitting against the rocks. He jumped in to try and help her before lifeguards arrived to the scene.

By David Helvarg / Blue Notes – Blue Frontier /July 19, 2016

The party conventions are now underway starting with the Republicans in Cleveland to be followed by the Democrats in Philadelphia.

The stark contrasts between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: on immigration, education, health care, trade, foreign policy, etc. do not end at the water’s edge where you might also find a Trump resort or golf course.

The ocean has yet to be mentioned on the campaign trail although our organization, Blue Frontier, is coordinating a letter to the candidates from ocean leaders in business, science, conservation, education and other fields that will be sent to the candidates after the conventions.

By Jon Linney

Is the City hard of hearing or just slow?

Four-story duplexes going up in the three-story zone of the Roseville neighborhood at Emerson and Evergreen created almost universal community outrage.

Citizens turned out to protest. TV stations, social media and print publications such as the OB Rag, The Reader and The Beacon took note.

Community advocates such as Elisa Brent, Babita Souza and this writer – organized a Town Hall meeting on June 27. Some 250 people attended and donated a third of the money necessary for a legal campaign in just five minutes.

The mayor heard. Kevin Faulconer issued a stop-work order on the project the very next day.

But that wasn’t enough, the broader issue of all the other potential height violations remained unaddressed.

The police surveillance cameras are being installed in Ocean Beach. And more than was originally planned.

CBS News8 reported that :

Monday evening, crews were seen making adjustments to the cameras where there is one, two or three cameras mounted to light poles or a lifeguard tower.

The original plan was 10 cameras but 12 were counted between Dog Beach and the Ocean Beach Pier and pointed in the parking lot or beach.

Photographer Adam Ewing stated on facebook:

The new cameras are going up. Looks like they’re starting at the Pier parking lot. If someone sees them installing the rest along the beach all the way down to dog beach.

Councilwoman Lori Zapf’s Communications Director, Donna Cleary, told the media that a news conference is planned for this week.

* PB Skateboarder Not Expected to Survive After Being Struck Monday Night
* Woman says she was roofied, left paralyzed after drinking at Ocean Beach bar
* How to Protect Yourself From Date Rape Drug
* Pregnant Woman and Baby Injured in Car Crash
* Naked Man Arrested
* Navy pipeline project progressing to completion in 2017
* Kevin Gormly Loses Battle to Cancer
* Chichiuaua Dies at Dog Beach – Victim’s Owner Wants Changes

A possible sixth victim in the series of attacks on homeless men has emerged from the shadows.

Phillip Petrina says he was attacked by an unknown assailant with a rock while sleeping and he says the man who attacked him is the same man arrested by police for the murders and attacks recently.

It happened on July 7th, he said, right in the middle of the serial attacks.

Editor: With all the talk about immigration by politicians these days, it’s difficult to tell whether they know what they’re talking about. Here, immigration lawyer Carlos Batara lays it all out, A to Z with tips and terms.

By Carlos Batara

1. Immigration Tips And Terms A To Z is the knowledge gained after decades of practice here in San Diego and Riverside Counties.

2. Asylum is the protection granted by a nation to an immigrant who has left their native country as a refugee. To qualify for asylum, individuals must prove they have a legitimate fear of persecution in their home country based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

Editor: With so many terrible stories involving San Diego’s homeless lately, here is something different. Earlier this year, writers Vera Sanchez and Sunny Rey had covered a story on Craig Miller, a homeless man who lived in the streets of OB but who died on Christmas Day. They recently found out that his son, Cody Miller, qualified for the Olympics in swimming. Here is that story.

By Vera Sanchez and Sunny Rey

It is a kid’s dream to stand on an Olympic podium and have their nation’s flag wave high as he smiles at his family. Cody Miller, of Billings, Montana, qualified on June 27th for the Men’s 100m Breaststroke coming from behind to secure his spot on the Olympic swim team. This year’s games will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil beginning August 5th, 2016. The road for Cody did not come easy. Cody was born with Pectus Excavatum, also known as a sunken or funnel chest.