Month: August 2018

By Mimi Pollack

Helping others is not political. It’s good for the soul. When you help others, you forget about your own problems for awhile. In addition, nobody should make you feel bad about who you decide to help. In my case, as a writer, I have interviewed many good folks assisting others — be they two-legged or four-legged — and ended up also giving to many charitable human and animal organizations.

I had wanted to find a way to help the mothers and especially the children in detention centers. My first thought was to bring stuffed animals to comfort the children at one of the centers, but that didn’t work out.

By Laura Sisk-Hackworth / SanDiego350

A landmark bill in the California legislature, SB 964, defines climate-related financial risk in law for the first time and requires the boards of the two largest public pension funds in the nation to report on this risk every three years.

The importance of this bill is that it gives the public a way to respond to the boards’ consideration of climate risk and its investments in key industries. It also protects state employees and our economy from potentially devastating financial losses that could result from climate change.

By Ernie McCray

You ever have one of those days
when you just
can’t shake your blues
because your soul feels so completely
battered and bruised
and defused and confused
and mis and/or overused,
seeming as though
it will never ever again
be enthused and amused?

They’ve done it again! The OB Resister Sisters have struck again – this time with a banner over a freeway near downtown San Diego.

Women of Ocean Beach:

Come make some noise and come join the OB Woman’s Club for their Salad Days of Summer – Social & Serenade (+kazoos).

Tuesday, August 14th

Enjoy a light dinner (salad and cool beverages – starts at 5:30) while enjoying a serenade from the Avanti Flute Choir!

The Ocean Beach Project Review Committee has one project on its plate at its upcoming meeting – the demolition of an existing house and the construction of two 2-story condos on Froude Street in southern OB.

Fairly usual fare – but for one thing. This lot has a collection of the most palm trees of different varieties of any of OB or this side of Point Loma. And they – or most of them – would have to be cut down for the construction.

The Project Review Committee is a sub-committee of the OB Planning Board and gives each project an initial review and usually then sends on a recommendation to the full Board. The Committee meets Wednesday, August 15 at the OB Rec Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue, at 6pm.

There is music in the street. It’s easy to be enthralled by the sounds of the natural world, but urban noise frequently distresses us, disrupts our head space or intervenes into the sounds we are plugged into at the moment. But sometimes, the city bustle has its charms. So much of the urban noise that we think of as a distraction from some other narrative that has captured our attention or an intrusion into our sealed-off domestic space is seen as ugly.

But perhaps we just need to learn to listen. Is it the sounds themselves that are the issue or our reactions to them?

Latest Fundraising Numbers in District 2 Race Between Lorie Zapf and Jen Campbell

Here are the latest fundraising data for D2 campaigns: Lorie Zapf and Jen Campbell

Will OB Get Some of Faulconer’s Bike Racks?

Burglars in White Mercedes-Benz Raid OB Garage
An OB man says he was home when

Sea Turtle Returns to Ocean After Rehab at SeaWorld
This is what SeaWorld is good for
County Mental Hospital on Rosecrans Less than 60% at Capacity. Why?

Patients at Point Loma Convalescent Hospital Without Air Conditioning

Is San Diego Working to Fix 100-Year Old Pipes? History of Breaks Over Last 6 Years

The 20-year old suspect in the fatal stabbing attack against Walter “Ras” Riley, 65, “the Incense Man” , was ordered to stand trial on Wednesday, August 8. After a 2-day Preliminary Hearing, San Diego Superior Court Judge Steven Stone found sufficient evidence against Noah Jackson for his case to proceed further.

Riley, 65, known around OB for selling incense, was stabbed on Bacon Street about 12:20 a.m. on June 22, 2017. Surveillance videos captured part of the attack and surveillance and photos were made public in an effort to determine who the man was in the vids and photos.

In February, San Diego detectives arrested Jackson at a Huntington Beach medical facility (we don’t know why he was in the facility), partly due to tips to Crime Stoppers.

If convicted, Jackson could face 26 years to life in prison.

The Climate 1970-2100

By David Helvarg / Blue Notes / August 8, 2018

Wildfires are burning across California (and much of the world) this summer amidst record-breaking heat. Meanwhile I took a weekend off to go bodysurfing in Ocean Beach (where I used to live) and the water was surprisingly warm. Now Scripps Institution of Oceanography reports it’s actually the warmest ocean water recorded in 100 years of record keeping.

Given the threats posed by offshore drilling, coral bleaching, ocean acidification, plastic (petrochemical) pollution, rising seas and much more it seems pointless to discuss ocean conservation without addressing climate. The ocean is the driver of climate and weather but is also impacted by human caused climate change

The beaches in Ocean Beach certainly get their share of human trash. And the beaches here are also cleaned up – constantly, by city crews and by nearly weekly neighborhood clean-ups.

But are the beaches being kept too clean? Are they being groomed to death?

Some people are beginning to re-evaluate how and how often beaches need to be cleaned. Scientists and marine biologists raised the question of whether or not over-grooming urban beaches is killing off wildlife, in a new article in Hakai magazine, a magazine that takes a coastal perspective in exploring issues of science and the environment.

San Diego billionaire and Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacob’s $80 million plan for Balboa Park – the so-call Plaza de Panama make-over – is back in court after being stalled for months. Actually it went back to court, Monday, July 30, or at least part of it did, as one of the two current lawsuits against the Jacob-backed plan went before a judge.

The one back in court involved a suit filed by attorney Cory Briggs on behalf of San Diegans for Open Government. It challenges the city of San Diego’s use of bonds to financially support the city’s share of the then $78 million make-over, and contends the City Council should have sought voter approval before deciding to issue bonds to pay for the city’s share.

The second case was filed by Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) and now it awaits a state Court of Appeal hearing. SOHO appealed the earlier Superior Court ruling that favored the city,