Month: June 2020

Ewww!

by Ernie McCray

Lately I’ve found myself saying “Ewww!” a lot.

It began over a week ago on a nice easy summer day.

I was reading a great book and two young friends of ours were painting our hallway.

An odor suddenly enters the room. It’s weak at first, and then it blows me away. I mean it was like a farting contest was going on in my nose between contestants who had trained by eating pots full of spoiled pinto beans.

In those moments I wondered:

“Is there a broken sewer in the neighborhood?”

“Did someone dump a truck load of rotten eggs in the backyard?”

“Is a dinosaur decomposing in the canyon our house is in?”

I thought I heard someone walking in the patio and I almost asked “Hey, is that you, Pepe Le Pew? Pig-Pen?”

By David Hernandez / SDU-T / June 14, 2020

San Diego police Officer Jonathan Wiese was almost at Sunset Cliffs early Saturday when a lieutenant radioed that the suicidal driver police had been looking for had just driven off the cliffs.

The man’s wife had called the Sheriff’s Department around 4:30 a.m. reporting that her husband had taken off with their 2-year-old girls, with plans to drive off the San Diego-Coronado Bridge. After police traced the man’s cellphone to Sunset Cliffs, police Lt. Dave Bautista located the truck on Hill Street near Cornish Drive. As soon as Bautista got close, the driver sped off

If you’re one of those who don’t believe there needs to be wholesale reforms of the police (as there’s just a few bad apples) you need to watch this video. Warning: it ain’t pretty – and it’s from August 2019 in New Mexico.

The video shows a squad of police officers fully armed approach a homeless man sleeping at a bus stop. They received a call about him. They put on their full combat gear and at least 4 officers approach the man, with rifles leveled at him. They demand that he raise his hands, which he does, and they demand that he lays flat on his stomach. He refuses.

It’s a very disturbing video – prepare yourself.

By Kevin Hastings

In the late 1960s, city planners and developers devised a plan to transform Ocean Beach into high-density condos, apartments, and hotels. OBceans organized and fought back, pressuring politicians to drop the plan, and ultimately led to the formation of the Ocean Beach Planning Board and a rewrite of the community plan to preserve the small-scale development model we see to this day.

Fifty years later, history is repeating itself with Mayor Faulconer pushing a proposal called “Complete Communities” to transform housing development in multi-family areas of San Diego, and Ocean Beach in particular.

The current zoning and OB Community Plan limits housing density

By Alexandra Petri / WaPo / June 10, 2020

Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?
— President Trump on Twitter

For your birthday, she knits you an unwanted scarf. To be used as a balaclava?

She belongs to a decentralized group with no leadership structure that claims to be discussing a “book,” but no one ever reads the book and all they seem to do is drink wine.

Is always talking on the phone with an “aunt” you have never actually met in person. Aunt TIFA???? Always walking into rooms and claiming

By Colleen O’Connor

Super-forecasters study data, science, trends, history, social and economic conditions to foretell the future. Not really astrologers, but seers of a kind. You can do this yourself.

Just pay attention to the news and details around you. Then ask yourself what will be the most tumultuous and consequential event this summer and fall? Probably, the general election which will control the future of this country and many others.

What will be the defining issue? The impeachment? The protests? The stock market? Taxes, tapes, or “terrific” pardons? Possible. Arguably, the single most upending, calamitous, and dangerous condition during this election season could also be President Trump’s precarious health.

California Dems Need to Avoid Catastrophic Cuts to Education and Vital Social Services

By Jim Miller

The COVID-19 crisis and subsequent economic collapse along with the national uprising against police brutality and systemic racism have cast a glaring light on the nature of American inequality on the healthcare, criminal justice, and economic fronts. It has never been clearer that as most Americans struggle, the elite thrive. As a recent Forbes piece put it back in April, “Billionaires are Getting Richer During the COVID-19 Pandemic While Most Americans Suffer”:

According to the Institute for Policy Studies, billionaire wealth has boomed, while over 26 million people have filed for unemployment since mid-March. The percentage of taxes paid by billionaires has fallen 79% since 1980.

Plant Power Donated 100% Weekend Profits to Black Organizations

Plant Power Fast Food, said it’s dedicating 100% of its profits

New Film, “Mighty Oak”, Set in Ocean Beach

‘Mighty Oak’ – a new film is set in OB.

OB Pier Cafe to Reopen

A restaurant on the Ocean Beach Pier that has been closed

Midway Chuck E Cheese May Have to Close (Along with 526 Other Locations)

The popular children’s restaurant chain, Chuck E. Cheese, may be the latest business to close

Mr. Moto’s Expanding

The Ocean Beach Farmers Market reopened on Wednesday, June 10. It does look a bit different.

Here’s what the sponsor the OB Mainstreet Association says about the new rules and the new look:

The market is a one-way market. The entrance is located at Cable Street & Newport Avenue. Please come prepared with a list, rather than to browse, to make the best use of your time and allow us to move the public through efficiently.

NO BACKPACKS and NO PET ALLOWED other than service animals COME INSIDE FOR THE COMPLETE LIST OF NEW RULES

Here are some of the latest charts on the status of COVID-19 in San Diego County. By time many readers view the above chart, the total cases for the county will be over 9,000.

The number of people in San Diego County who have tested positive for novel coronavirus infection hit 8,998 Thursday, June 11, 161 more than were reported Wednesday, county officials said. Those additional positive tests were among 4,997 that the county received for a positive rate of 3 percent. The 14-day rolling average positive rate remained at 3.1 percent.

Recently – within the context of discussions over the City of San Diego’s plans to bring massive redevelopment to the Midway District on this site – there has been some serious disparagement of the 30 foot height limit, and it’s being blamed for everything from the housing crisis to the lack of affordability at the coast.

So, apparently it’s time, once again, to present some local history – the origins of the 30 foot height limit – and some of the good folks who made it happen.

It all began back in the late Sixties when beach residents began to rebel against a wave of unbridled development occurring at the coast.

By Marjorie Cohn / Truthout / June 1, 2020

The rights of women to terminate their pregnancies and to receive free contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are on the chopping block. Those challenges to reproductive freedom are consistent with Trump’s agenda of pandering to the religious right while erasing Barack Obama’s achievements. The Supreme Court will rule on these cases during the month of June.

Burdening the Right to Abortion

Although the Court does not yet have a case that contests the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade, it has the opportunity to chip away at the right to abortion as opponents continue to erect obstacles to reproductive health care. Their strategy is to bring about death of abortion by a thousand cuts.