Month: December 2019

“Today, in service to our duty to the Constitution and to our country, the House Committee on the Judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment, charging the President of the United States Donald J. Trump with committing high crimes and misdemeanors,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said Tuesday morning, December 10. CNN reported:

Democratic leaders announced they will bring two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, charging him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress to set in motion the third impeachment of a US president in history.

A Southern California church flipped the lights on its outdoor manger scene Saturday evening to reveal Jesus, Mary and Joseph as border detainees, each figure isolated in its own chain-link cage with a barbed-wire top.

The nativity display from Claremont United Methodist Church, a suburban congregation east of Los Angeles,

By Richard Riehl

It was a dark and stormy night at the Riehl’s a couple of weeks ago, when Karen told me her ancient computer keyboard had been misbehaving. I suspected it only needed dusting, but unable to find our compressed air canister, I ordered a new keyboard from Amazon. It arrived the next day.

A few days later, I ordered a four-pack of Falcon Dust Off Electronics Compressed Gas Dusters. Amazon wouldn’t sell me just one. Buying four online was easier than driving to the nearest CVS store to pick one up.

Judging by how seldom we use them, our four new keyboard dusters will last longer than both of us. I must have inherited my security issues from my father. At my age, Dad wore a belt, plus suspenders.

Two weeks after my order, Amazon notified me that my package could not be delivered. I was told to check with UPS to find out why.

PARADE PHOTOS INSIDE

Grace Quigley – one of the co-chairs of the OB Holiday Parade – sent out an email to the hundreds of parade volunteers on Saturday – including this reporter – promising the parade would go on “with or without rain.” And she was so right.

The 2019 OB Holiday Parade was so lucky – it ducked the rain – and any injuries from a car that drove through a line of pedestrians.

Thousands of people – adults and kids jammed the sidewalks of OB’s three business blocks – as they do every year. But this year, the rain was making it a dicey game. But nature smiled and the rain passed.

The Grand Marshall(s) this year was/ were the James brothers, Pat, Mike, Ron and Greg.

It’s official! The Ocean Beach Town Council’s 2019 Holiday Food & Toy Drive began Monday, Dec. 9. Come on down to the Point Loma Masonic Center to donate items or lend a hand sorting and boxing food and gifts!The event continues through Dec. 12, and is held at the Masonic Center from 5:30 – 8 pm.

The Delivery Day is on Saturday, Dec. 14 from 9 am to 1 pm. Traditionally, 80 local and needy families receive the food and toys.

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego

Lots of political obituaries are being written about Senator Kamala Harris’ exit from the 2020 presidential contest.

The causes range from “poor treatment of staff” to “no real direction” to “a woman of color who faced a daunting double standard” and even just “too attractive.”

The “what happened to Harris” question, after her flawless campaign kickoff in front of 20,000 cheering supporters in Oakland and her opening debate performance, now mystifies the pundits.

As Harris herself admits, “it was the hardest decision of my life” to exit the race but “I couldn’t fund my own campaign”— a blunt reference to new billionaire contenders and her inability to raise enough money.

However, there may be more compelling reasons for her exit.

By Jim Miller

Her Heart Stopped for 6 hours. Now She’s Ready to go Back to Work

Fractured Forests Are Endangering Wildlife, Scientists Find

Killer Heat: US Cities’ Plans for Coming Heatwaves Fail to Protect the Vulnerable

Eight-Year-Old Girl Strip-Searched Before Visiting Father at Prison

No Sex in the Bunkbeds!: Tales from the Most Intimate Sharing Economy Start Up Yet

Google’s Anti-Worker Actions Evoke IBM’s Racist Past

This Has Been the Warmest Decade in Earth’s History

From KTLA / Dec. 6, 2019

The bomb cyclone that pounded the West Coast last week brought with it some of the tallest waves ever recorded off the California coast.

A monstrous 75-foot wave was recorded about 20 miles off the coast of Cape Mendocino in northern California, according to the University of California, San Diego’s Coastal Data Information Program.

In the 15 years the program has operated a station in that location, the significant wave height — or the average height of the tallest third of waves that occur over 30 minutes — typically doesn’t exceed 10 feet tall during the winter.

The 75-footer was the tallest of the waves recorded in that period, which averaged around 43 feet tall.

Holiday Parade – Saturday, December 7 – 5:05 p.m.

For 40 years, our quaint little surfing village of Ocean Beach has hosted one of the best Holiday Parades in SoCal. On Saturday, December 7th, Newport Avenue is lined with colorful OBceans and visitors all eagerly awaiting the commencement of the 39th Annual OB Holiday Parade at 5:05pm. Our 2019 Theme is ‘Miracle On Newport Ave’!

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / Nov. 23, 2019

i-Ready sells digital math and English lessons to school districts.

It provides diagnostic testing which recommends interventions for struggling students that it then provides. i-Ready’s pedagogy embraces competency based education (CBE) a theory promoted by the US Department of Education and blended learning theory also financially supported by the federal government.

CBE is the latest name for an education theory that failed in both the 1970’s and 1990’s. Blended learning theory is an experiment with almost no research supporting it but lots of research pointing to its health risks. Students dislike i-Ready.

By Marjorie Cohn / TruthOut / Nov. 28, 2019

Once again, the United States is complicit in an illegal coup d’état in Latin America, this time in Bolivia. On November 10, a right-wing, anti-Indigenous group seized power after the Bolivian military’s removal of President Evo Morales, who had declared victory in the October 20 presidential election.

The United States’ fingerprints are all over the coup. Advisers from the U.S. Southern Command have been stationed on Bolivia’s border with Argentina, Ivanka Trump made a surprising visit to an Argentine province near the Bolivian border in September, the pro-U.S. Organization of American States (OAS) cast unfounded doubt on Morales’s election victory, and the U.S.’s National Endowment for Democracy provided suspicious grants to Bolivia.

At least 32 people have been killed and hundreds injured since the coup began.