Author: Anna Daniels

Editor: While repairs are going on, Ragster Anna Daniels looks into the funding for the new roof on the OB Library. About two weeks behind schedule, the re-opening of the Ocean Beach branch will now be around the first of March.

It all started with a forwarded email which expressed shock that the OB Library’s Spanish barrel tile roof had recently been replaced with crappy looking shingles. I sat here in City Heights and conjured up the image of the Ocean Beach library where supporters have protested potential budgets far too many times in the past four years. What a crime to sacrifice the architectural integrity of the building to a badly needed new roof done on the cheap!

I immediately called library administration to get the story on this. According to the spokesperson, the old wood shake roof has been replaced by custom composite tile. I had “mis-remembered” a Spanish barrel tile roof and so did others! This custom tile maintains the same “look” but provides fire retardant capabilities that the shake roof didn’t.

End of story? Not quite. I asked about the funding source for the new roof and was surprised to learn that there were multiple sources, which included building maintenance funds, a donation from the OB Friends of the Library and a

This week’s story is the utter appalling hypocrisy exposed in how the police responded to two protests on November 9. The first took place at Cal Berkeley, where a thousand students protested the steep hikes in student tuition and the ongoing administrative tilt toward privatization. They attempted to establish an occupation on the campus with tents. The police viciously lunged with their batons at students who had linked arms. There were 39 arrests that day and no one knows how many of these young people are still walking around with welts on their body from that barbaric attack. As a post script, we now know that linking arms is a form of violence that justified the police response.

….and lobbing tear gas canisters and shooting rubber bullets at us?

“And so, demonstrating like this is as American as apple pie. We have been marching up and down and demonstrating throughout our history…” Former Secretary of State Colin Powell

Why is there the footprint of a jack boot in the America pie?

We’ve all seen by now the “people’s” videos of non-violent women in NYC being surrounded with orange net and pepper sprayed by the police…

This week’s news of the movement takes place against the backdrop of two reports also released this week that detail how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer .” We knew that already. Now we can update our signs…

The leading story is Occupy Oakland’s successful general strike and temporary port shutdown this past Wednesday. Estimates are all over the map about how many people participated over the course of the day to protest the violent eviction of Occupiers and wounding of an Iraq War vet by police during the previous week. Check out this raw chopper video of the march to the port and do a head count yourself!

The City’s position is pretty damn clear- Occupy San Diego is a threat to business and business must be protected at all costs and above all other things such as protected freedom of speech and the right to assemble. While City Council President Tony Young has not responded to Occupy San Diego’s request for a resolution despite three weeks of an Occupy presence at council and myriad phone calls, the City has moved remarkably quickly to “help vendors displaced by Occupy San Diego.”

The city of San Diego is anticipating $1.1 billion in general revenue funds this fiscal year. According to the city’s Office of the Comptroller, those revenues are deposited in Bank of America accounts. This is just one more sweetheart deal, with no strings attached, for a Wall Street bank that got bailed out while we got sold out.

Bank of America—Poster Child for Insatiable Corporate Greed

Bank of America took our $230 billion in federal subsidies (TARP+), paid no federal taxes in 2009 or 2010, and continues to pay out excessive bonuses and salaries while planning to lay off 30,000 workers.

The biggest story of the week is the number of arrests made at Occupy encampments large and small across the whole country and the late night/early morning police raids that have generated so many of those arrests.

The most gripping example was the early morning dismantling of Occupy Oakland by police with riot gear. The whole world was watching as Iraq War Vet for Peace Scott Olsen was dragged to safety at a protest later that day after being left bloodied and prostrate on the ground by a police projectile. The image of someone in a wheel chair maneuvering through a cloud of smoke and tear gas was no less gut wrenching. Mayor Jean Quan decides to make nice with the occupiers the following day.

My thanks to the San Diego Occupiers who attended the City Council meeting on October 25^th, to abbajerry for the video and Rocky Neptun for his commentary. The mic check and call for a resolution at the morning meeting was truly thrilling! Although I was not present at the meeting I did watch the two non agenda item public comment segments that are available in the City’s online video archive (the opening credit incorrectly displays Monday’s date of October 24th). The last comment period came at the end of the 4 hour session, late in the afternoon. I applaud the dozen or so occupiers who stayed there in order to provide public testimony on behalf of the movement.

According to @occupyarrests, as of yesterday, 2,428 people had been arrested nationwide since the start of Occupy Wall Street.

Around 5:00 am this morning (10/25/11) hundreds of riot gear clad Oakland police stormed the Oakland Occupy Wall Street encampment. Reportedly using flash grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas they cleared the area of tents and arrested 70 people. According to legal observer Marcus Kryshka (see Marcus’ video), the police came in very quickly and denied media and legal observers access to the area.

See video inside…

Throughout Tuesday’s made for Reality TV GOP debate I kept muttering- “just answer the damn question” while trying to imagine Romney and the Not Romneys as president of the United States. Their responses to the foreclosure crisis, immigration and foreign policy were so far off the rails that my brain had to come up with a coping mechanism.

Everybody freak out! Occupy Wall Street is now in its eighteenth day and the swelling ranks in Liberty Park and tandem actions that have spread to 148 other cities have not provided the rest of us with their goals/DEMANDS/solutions. By God, they owe us an explanation so that we can decide whether we’re for it or against it. Do they really expect us to watch raw unedited footage on the internet and make up our own minds? Exactly how soon is the blood going to start flowing in the streets- I need to take my car in Friday for an oil change.

“Pray for your Governor,” exhorts the Lord of Hosts, “for I desire to use him and raise him up. Pray for his protection and for those around him, for all that concerns him in this critical hour, for he is Mine…. He is a key player in the shift that must take place, indeed that has already begun issuing forth from My innermost chambers.” Tom Schlueter, A Statewide Call to Prayer Day Thirty-Four, Texas Apostolic Prayer Network

“Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.” Molly Ivins