Month: December 2020

Nuclear Shutdown News

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those working to create a nuclear free future.

Earthquakes & Nukes

When we think of earthquakes and nuclear plants in the US, it usually concerns shakers and nukes in California. In the 1980s, a mass antinuclear movement, The Abalone Alliance, waged a fierce battle against the construction of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on the central California coastline near San Luis Obispo.

Over a two week period in 1981, there were almost 2000 arrests of those committing civil disobedience in opposition to Diablo Canyon. One of the key issues in this struggle was concerns about building a nuke plant in an earthquake prone area.

“Peace Rocks” or . . . . “Signs of the Times”

by Johnny Peace Rocker / December 3, 2020

A few days ago a friend sent me a news clipping about the mysterious nine-and-a-half foot tall “Monolith” that was recently discovered in the red canyons of southeast Utah. The Monolith–installed anonymously on government land without publicity or attribution to any artist or group–appears to be made of stainless steel, riveted together into the shape of a triangular prism, resembling the monolith from the classic Kubrick 1968 sci-fi film: 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Instead, I tell today a similar story about which I have some personal knowledge . . . a story of a series of three stunningly beautiful, six-foot, stained glass PEACE SIGNS

OB Christmas Tree 2020

By Geoff Page

Another beautiful local tree was donated by some residents to be the OB Christmas tree at the foot of Newport this year. It’s a Star Pine and was growing in the upper part of Del Mar Avenue. I decided to check it out when I heard about it on Tuesday from friend who lives near where the tree was.

I went by the location and saw what was left of the tree lying about the yard, not yet cleaned up. A piece of the trunk was among the debris and it was at least two feet in diameter. I was originally told the tree was so large that only a part of it was used.

LoVerne Brown- Online Meeting and Book- “Garment for a Long Journey Poems”

Please join the Ocean Beach Library for a very special celebration of OB’s own Loverne Brown. This will be an online event with readings from “Garment for a Long Journey.” You can find more information, including the Zoom link to this free event, from the OB Library online calendar.

By Thomas Ultican / Ultican / Nov. 27, 2020

“Personalized learning” is being driven by foundations derived from companies that stand to profit by its implementation. Last year, George Mason’s Priscilla Regan and the University of Ottawa’s Valerie Steeves wrote the peer reviewed paper “Education, privacy, and big data algorithms: Taking the persons out of personalized learning” in which they state, “Other than the Carnegie Corporation, the private foundations who have been most supportive of personalized learning are those supported by the technology companies, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Google Foundation.”

In the case of the Carnegie Corporation, the authors note that the philanthropy has been supporting education causes since its founding in 1911. Recently, Carnegie has given monetary support to “personalized learning” but “typically in partnership with one of the tech foundations.”

Based on a listing of the fifteen largest education spending philanthropies in the first decade of the millennium,

December Events All events are online and free unless stated otherwise.

… AND MUCH MORE INSIDE

The Ocean Beach Planning Board, historically, has led the resistance to the community being inundated with a flood of short-term vacation rentals. This history involves the last five years – and much has changed – and nothing has changed – except coastal residents’ awareness of the problem.

Most recently, however, Councilwoman Jen Campbell has been pushing her plan to allow the vacation rentals into the city. This week, in fact, she’s taking her plan to the San Diego Planning Commission.

Whether this is on the agenda of the Planning Board’s committee is not quiet clear – but we’re sure it will come up. The Board’s committee (actually an ad-hoc subcommittee) that covers short-term rentals meets Tuesday night, December 1.

Champagne, Champagne: to Toast a Brilliant Bookend for Women’s History

By Colleen O’Connor

It only took 100 years from securing women’s right to vote to winning the Vice-Presidency. Grandmothers; Great Grandmothers; and their ghostly presences are cheering.

My own grandmother was a suffragette who held strategy sessions in her farmhouse in North Dakota. Could she have imagined a woman becoming the Vice-President of the United States; Speaker of the House of Representatives; Justices on the Supreme Court; Head of the U.S. Treasury; Secretary of State; Ambassador to the U.N.; Presidents of Colleges; Senior Counsel to the President; Director of Intergovernmental Affairs; Manager of Major League men’s sport team?