Month: September 2018

It’s a sad fact of our Californian recycling world – China no longer wants our trash.

China used to be California’s — and the world’s — largest overseas market for recyclables, but in January, China began not accepting “contaminated” material it once brought to its shores. For China, now, if the recycled material is one-half of 1% contaminated, it’s too impure for recycling.

An official for Recology, a curbside hauler that does San Francisco Bay Area trash for recycling, stated:

“There’s no market for a lot of stuff in the blue bin. What we can’t recycle we take to a landfill.”

Back in 2017, Recology was getting $100 a ton for newsprint. Now they are averaging about $5 a ton.

A Surfer Anniversary OB Probably Missed

by Seal Morgan

Did you know that July of this year was the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the sport of US riversurfing?

And, strangely enough, it was a San Diego kayaker/surfer working as a Jackson Hole whitewater raft guide back in 1978 who saw the potential and managed to stand up that summer on the Snake River’s Lunch Counter Class 3 Rapids standing wave. Mike Fitzpatrick and two friends admit they didn’t surf it well being as they were far more into kayaking, and they didn’t keep surfing that spot in the years afterward until recently, but Fitz and his friends are no doubt the Founders of US riversurfing.

Ten years after that watershed moment, in early Spring of 1988, this OB-born/Mission Beach-raised surf kid

By Dr. Carol Paris / Common Dreams

The surge in support for improved Medicare for All—now up to 70% in recent polling—has single-payer opponents ramping up their scare tactics. The Koch-funded Mercatus Center recently claimed that Medicare for all could only work with painful sacrifices from doctors, specifically by paying us Medicare’s current reimbursement rates, which are about 40% lower than private insurance.

If single payer would cost doctors so much, why do a majority of us

If you’ve been to San Diego’s beach communities or to downtown, you’re aware of the changes – both good and bad – that have been wrought on these neighborhoods by the new brand of scooter – the electric, dockless scooter.

You’ve seen them dart in and out of traffic, you’ve seen them on the sidewalks – and none of the riders are wearing helmets. You may have even heard a scooter rider coming down an OB sidewalk and demand you get out of the way.

It has been reported the Trump White House has set up a secret committee to collect and distribute negative stories and statements about cannabis. It’s called the Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee and it’s made up of Executive Branch officials. BuzzFeed News broke the story on August 29 and it opens with:

By Geoff Page

To borrow one of Yogi Berra’s timeless comments, it must have felt like “déjà vu all over again” for the Midway Community Planning Board on Monday, September 10, when they found themselves voting to approve a final draft of their community plan – one that they voted to approve on the 21st of last March.

The OB Rag’s story dated March 27 described the final vote and the schedule that was supposed to follow:

From the MSNBC YouTube website:

Senator Jeff Merkley talks with Rachel Maddow about a document showing that the Trump administration took ten million dollars from FEMA’s budget ahead of the 2018 hurricane season and gave it to ICE to pay for detentions.
Come inside for the video

Apparently, a three story building is going up in the backyard at 4925 Saratoga Avenue in Ocean Beach. Despite any other 3-story residences in the immediate neighborhood and despite the project being denied by the Ocean Beach Planning Board on May 3, 2017.

Applicant-Owner Todd Schak applied for a Coastal Development Permit (CDP) to build a two-story house (okay, it’s a small house with only 918 square feet) on top of a 4-car garage. There’s already a rehabbed Craftsman 2-bedroom in the front which is 800 square feet.

Resister Sisters of Ocean Beach struck again. And thank you, Pink Floyd!

by Ernie McCray

I don’t remember how I first got on Facebook. But I’m glad I did because it’s worked for me.

I’ve learned to just scroll past all the ads and fabrications and fake news and the like and get right at what’s up with my “friends” who are mostly people I’ve known for some time and people who became my friends through them.