Source

‘Who Runs the City of San Marcos?’

September 20, 2019 by Source

By Richard Riehl

I was disappointed to learn that our new home in San Marcos, although within city limits, is located in the San Diego County unincorporated area of Lake San Marcos. We cannot vote in city elections, even though we are functionally subservient to the city.

As the November election draws near, I’ve resolved not to vote for any county, state or national candidate before I follow the money to find out who gave them the cash to run their campaigns. Thanks to federal and state law requiring candidates to file public disclosure statements, you can find out who owns an elected official’s loyalty.

Here’s an example of how that works at the federal level. According to the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University, Incoming first-term members of Congress are instructed to spend upwards of four hours per day raising money, which is time taken away from the legislative responsibilities of being an elected official.

Addresses and occupations of donors are required on the California Fair Political Practices Commission

‘The Planet Is On Fire and Trump Fans the Flames’ – Global Climate Walk-Out – Sept. 20

September 19, 2019 by Source

In support of Greta Thunberg and the youth of the world, the Resister Sisters of Ocean Beach posted this message Wednesday, Sept. 18, over …..

San Diegans Voted for Billions in Infrastructure Fixes, But Money Is Running Out

September 18, 2019 by Source

by Mary Plummer / inewsource / September 17, 2019

Three years after San Diego voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to boost money to fix roads, sidewalks and storm drains, funding is falling far short of projections and is expected to run out by the summer of 2022.

When voters approved the Rebuild San Diego measure by a 30-point margin in June 2016, they did it on promises from Mayor Kevin Faulconer, City Councilman Mark Kersey and business groups that $3 billion to $4 billion in expected revenue growth and pension cost savings would fund infrastructure improvements over the next 25 years. It doesn’t look like that will happen.

Ocean Beach’s TV Series, Terriers, Was Robbed of Long-Term Greatness

September 18, 2019 by Source

Editordude: Every now and then a TV critic bemoans the cancellation of “Terriers” – that detective series on FX that was filmed in Ocean Beach but let go after only one season – and it surfaces on the internet. Here is the latest –

by Bryan O’Donnell / 25 Years Later / Sept. 12, 2019

“Only the good die young” as the song goes. Over the years there have been a number of TV shows that have made an impact on us here at 25YL, which we have been sad to see struck down in their prime. …This week Bryan O’Donnell takes a look at Terriers.

I’m upset all over again. In September 2010, FX debuted its quirky drama Terriers, about a pair of underdog private investigators in the San Diego area. Starring Donal Logue as Hank Dolworth and Michael Raymond-James as Britt Pollack, Terriers built a strong cult following…

Why Should the Woman Always Have to Pay: Unsolved Murders in San Diego – OB Historical Society Presents – Thurs., Sept.19

September 17, 2019 by Source

Author Richard Carrico Returns to Ocean Beach for 1923 Unsolved Murder of Local Dancer and Actress

Richard L. Carrico will take the Ocean Beach Historical Society and guests back to 1923 to delve into the mysterious unsolved murder of Fritzi Mann, local dancer and actress. “Found dead on the beach at Torrey Pines, Fritzi showed evidence of blunt force trauma but died from drowning. In addition the autopsy report noted that she was in a “delicate condition.”

The police hauled in several suspects including a Hollywood producer, wealthy businessmen, and Louis Jacobs, a medical doctor from the Army base at Camp Kearny. Jacobs stood trial twice for the murder but ultimately got a verdict of not guilty.

To this day the case remains unsolved, but Carrico has a theory about who the murderer was.

The World We Want

September 13, 2019 by Source

The University of California Has Been Shaped by Market Value
By Niall Twohig

One thing I noticed in my decade studying and teaching at UCSD is that we—students, teachers, and our academic programs—rarely define the principles we want to live by in our university and society. By principles, I’m referring to what critic George Monbiot calls a “description of the world as we would like to see it.”

I see a risk in not defining our principles. If we do not describe the world we would like to see, we risk accepting the world we see as the only possible world. We risk accepting what is valued in that world as what is most valuable to us.

What is valued most in our current world is market value. This value is determined by how much profit one makes when one sells one’s product on the market. All that matters in the marketplace is whether

Read the full article → 2 comments

Watching the Watchers – A Field Guide for Police Surveillance in San Diego County

September 12, 2019 by Source

by Dave Maass, Christian Romero, Madison Vialpando / City Beat / September 4, 2019

San Diego County is a perfect storm for the surveillance state. Between the busiest border crossing in the United States, a large military presence, a major port, a booming tech and cybersecurity industry, and elected officials who campaign on government innovation, it’s a wonder that San Diego has yet to become a Big Brother hellscape.

Or has it? Perhaps the process was so gradual that no one noticed.

The Green Calendar for Ocean Beach and San Diego -September 2019

September 11, 2019 by Source

These events were put together by folks at the Ocean Beach Green Center – ( 4862 Voltaire Street, Ocean Beach 92107 oceanbeachgreencenter@gmail.com)

Events in Ocean Beach or Point Loma

September 19th Thursday 7 pm Film Night. “Time to Choose” In this 2016 documentary from Charles Ferguson (Inside Job, No End in Sight) he addresses the worldwide climate change challenges and solutions. He leaves audiences understanding not only what is wrong, but what can be done to fix this global threat. “Time to Choose” is a sobering polemic about global warming that balances familiar predictions of planetary doom with a survey of innovations that hold out some hope for the future. New York Times. Come watch this film and get yourself ready for the Climate Walkout Sept 20th. at the Ocean Beach Green Center – 4862 Voltaire Street,

LA Times Opinion: ‘I’m 73 and live in a van. …already received a warning in Ocean Beach … It feels like there’s no place for me in California anymore’

September 11, 2019 by Source

Editordude: The following opinion piece was published in the LA Times two days ago and it’s already making the rounds on the net. It’s by LaVonne Ellis, a former correspondent for ABC Radio News Networks.

By LaVonne Ellis / Los Angeles Times / Sep. 9, 2019

I wake up early these days, when morning light outlines the blackout curtains and floods the skylight above my bed. After washing up with baby wipes and donning clean clothes, I slide open a curtain to reveal the front seats and windshield of the van that is my home, and check the back one last time to make sure everything is secure. Then I crawl into the driver’s seat and turn the key.

Read the full article → 11 comments

San Diego Housing Commission Releases RFP for Famosa Canyon – Here It Is

September 11, 2019 by Source

The San Diego Housing Commission released the RFP (Request for Proposals) for development at Famosa Canyon at the end of August. The Housing Commission calls the 5 plus acres “Site 428.”

Here below are pertinent sections of the RFP for the layperson. Included is the Intro, “Background”,”Goals and Objectives”, “Site Information” and the minimum requirements for the site. (All graphics from the RFP.)

Site 428: RFP Executive Summary

INTRODUCTION

Development teams experienced in high-quality, affordable rental housing are invited to submit proposals for potential development of approximately 5.61 acres, designated Site 428, on the southeast corner of Famosa Boulevard and Nimitz Boulevard in zones RM-2-5 and RM-3-7 (Site).

Read the full article → 5 comments

Here’s the Proposed Street Vendor Ordinance for San Diego

September 11, 2019 by Source

Have you checked out the proposed Street Vendor ordinance for San Diego?

It is supposed to go before the full City Council in October. This is a good time to check into it – and as in many ordinances, it starts out with “definitions”, so don’t get lost in those. Just skip down to the more substantive sections of the proposal.

At their last meeting, the OB Planning Board endorsed it and reportedly, the OB Mainstreet Association also favors the current version.

So, here it is – in its entirety – without edit, without comment (I did add graphics):

Chapter J
Business Regulations, Business Taxes,
Permits and Licenses Article 6:
Division 1: Sidewalk Vendor
§36.U1U1

Title
This Division shall be known as the Sidewalk Vendor Ordinance. This Division regulates sidewalk vendors in the public right- of-way.

Billionaire Eli Broad’s Academy Is All About the Destruction of Public Education

September 10, 2019 by Source

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican

In 2002, the billionaire, Eli Broad, established his own education leadership training program. Although he is the only person ever to create two Fortune 500 companies, Broad, who attended public school, has no other experience or training in education.

However he is so rich, he can just institute his opinions such as his belief that education knowledge is not needed to run large urban school systems; consultants can be hired for that knowledge.

Read the full article → 7 comments

Albert Spalding, Madame Tingley and the Great Myth of Baseball

September 10, 2019 by Source

By Randy Dotinga / Voice of San Diego / September 2, 2019

If you head out to a Padres game this month, you might assume you’re enjoying the national pastime invented by a man called Doubleday in a bucolic place called Cooperstown. But this origin story is a hoax, perhaps the greatest in all of sports, and it has its roots right here in Point Loma, where wealth, the occult and shameless myth-making collided early in the 20th century.

At the center of it all was a man named Albert Goodwill Spalding,

Trump Is More Mad — and Worried — About Elizabeth Warren than Alabama

September 10, 2019 by Source

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego / September 9, 2019

Trump’s tweets are still going strong about Hurricane Dorian and the Sharpie map that included Alabama in its wake. And the “fake news” is still reporting it.

Trump is mad. So much so that even his aides are worried about his mental state.

But, underneath it all, Trump is truly mad, and nervous, about Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Why? Because she can count. A strong economy is Trump’s best election-year bragging right—and it is teetering.

Beach Commemoration for Lifelong OB Resident Billy Holt – Saturday, Sept.14

September 10, 2019 by Source

Billy Holt passed away unexpectedly on July 8th. He was a native San Diegan and lifelong Ocean Beach resident. Billy was a 1966 graduate of Point Loma High School and many of his former classmates have been shocked at his sudden departure.

OB Woman’s Club – ‘The Inside Secrets of Sesame Street’ Plus Buddha Bowls – Tues., Sept.10

September 10, 2019 by Source

Suuunny Day ….. Sweepin’ the clouds awaaay…?

You’re invited to join the women at the OB Woman’s Club for a fun and nostalgic trip down memory lane as we listen to insider stories from Dr. Lucille Burbank, a researcher on the show and the author of “The Inside Secrets of Sesame Street”.

There’s a fun meeting on tap, packed with info about the upcoming Ping Pong Tournament, Card Night, the Obcean Luau Fundraiser and more!

A light meal of Buddha Bowls will be served

City of San Diego Map of Scooter Corrals in Ocean Beach

September 9, 2019 by Source

Here is the official map from the City of San Diego on scooter corrals in Ocean Beach.

Read the full article → 39 comments

Elizabeth Warren on War and Peace

September 9, 2019 by Source

Warren’s troubling foreign policy history includes uncritical support of Israel, supporting sanctions on Venezuela, and vilifying Russia and China as national security threats. But her views are also evolving.

by Reese Erlich / The Progressive

In the last few months Senator Elizabeth Warren has gained ground in public opinion polls tracking the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. In some states, she’s ahead of Senator Bernie Sanders and pulling close to former Vice President Joe Biden.

In domestic politics, Warren makes a populist appeal to working people with calls for free college tuition, single-payer health care and breaking up monopolies. In foreign policy, she takes a similar stand, calling for an end to foreign trade pacts such as Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA.

Read the full article → 5 comments

Turning Greenhouse Gas into Pure Liquid Fuel

September 6, 2019 by Source

Lab’s ‘green’ invention reduces carbon dioxide into valuable fuels

Rice University / Science Daily / September 3, 2019

Summary:

An electrocatalysis reactor built at Rice University recycles carbon dioxide to produce pure liquid fuel solutions using electricity. The scientists behind the invention hope it will become an efficient and profitable way to reuse the greenhouse gas and keep it out of the atmosphere.

A common greenhouse gas could be repurposed in an efficient and environmentally friendly way with an electrolyzer that uses renewable electricity to produce pure liquid fuels.

The catalytic reactor developed by the Rice University lab of chemical and biomolecular engineer Haotian Wang uses carbon dioxide as its feedstock and, in its latest prototype, produces highly purified and high concentrations of formic acid.

Read the full article → 6 comments

Cases of Vaping-Related Lung Illness Surge, Vitamin E Acetate One of Many Possible Causes

September 6, 2019 by Source

Indiana announced a third death linked to the illness on Friday. State and federal health officials are working urgently to understand the causes.

By Matt Richtel and Denise Grady / New York Times / Sept. 6, 2019

Federal health officials reported on Friday that the number of people sickened with a severe lung illness linked to vaping has more than doubled to 450 possible cases in 33 states, including three deaths and a possible fourth.

The Indiana Department of Health announced the third death on Friday, saying only that the victim was older than 18. “There is clearly an epidemic that begs for an urgent response,”

We Had the Bronze Age, We Had the Iron Age – Now, We Have the Plastic Age, Say Scientists

September 5, 2019 by Source

The Guardian
Plastic pollution is being deposited into the fossil record, research has found, with contamination increasing exponentially since 1945.

Scientists suggest the plastic layers could be used to mark the start of the Anthropocene, the proposed geological epoch in which human activities have come to dominate the planet. They say after the bronze and iron ages, the current period may become known as the plastic age.

The study, the first detailed analysis of the rise in plastic pollution in sediments, examined annual layers off the coast of California back to 1834. They discovered the plastic in the layers mirrors precisely the exponential rise in plastic production over the past 70 years

‘Come Show OB Some Love’ – 8th Annual After Summer Community Cleanup

September 5, 2019 by Source

‘Come Show OB Some Love’ – 8th Annual After Summer Community Cleanup

Dan Rather: ‘Beware the Trump Fatigue’

September 4, 2019 by Source

By Dan Rather /Dan Rather facebook / Aug. 28, 2019

Beware fatigue. It is easy to say, of course, much harder to achieve.

Memories jump to mind of fourth quarter huddles with my high school football team and a coach exhorting us to dig deeper. The thought enters the mind, “Sure coach, but you don’t know how licked we are.” Of course you would never utter the words, and deep down you knew he was right. I have seen so many times where those with the advantage falter from exhaustion.

We are at a moment when the sheer cumulative toll of the Trump presidency strikes with the relentlessness of a summer heat waves (which many of us have also been contending with this year, thanks likely to the climate crisis the President dismisses).

Public Watchdogs Call for Court to Halt Burial of Nuclear Waste at San Onofre

September 4, 2019 by Source

On August 28, Public Watchdogs, a nonprofit advocacy group, requested an immediate court-order to halt the transfer of deadly radioactive nuclear waste at the San Onofre Nuke plant into “thin-walled” dry storage canisters.

The group filed a temporary restraining order (TRO) with the United States District Court, and is petitioning the courts to step in and protect the environment and the lives of more than 8 million people who live within the radiation plume zone identified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The attorney for Public Watchdogs, Chuck La Bella, stated:

“My immediate concern is for the health and safety of the millions of people who could be impacted by a toxic cloud being released from SONGS. The consequences of a nuclear accident are catastrophic and would last for generations.”

Read the full article → 5 comments

Reader’s Rant: ‘Why I Voted to Support Development at the Famosa Site’

September 4, 2019 by Source

By Jim Hare

The Peninsula Community Planning Board, of which I am a member, has considered the matter of a potential 78-unit workforce housing development on Housing Commission Site #428. The site is off Nimitz Boulevard near the end of Catalina Boulevard in Point Loma.

While the potential project is unknown except for a site feasibility study, many in the community and some members of our Board have sought abandonment of the project and dedication of the property to open space. That position prevailed by vote at the PCPB on August 28th. I cast a vote against the action based on these thoughts:

Read the full article → 6 comments

Sponsor a Table at the Annual OB Pier Pancake Breakfast – Sept. 21

September 4, 2019 by Source

From OBTC:

Please mark your calendars! The 21st Annual OB Pier Pancake Breakfast will take place on Saturday, September 21st from 7:30am – 12:00pm.

Proceeds of this community event benefit our holiday events including the annual OB Food and Toy Drive, which helps as many 100 local families and seniors in need during the upcoming holiday season. Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for children. Tickets can be purchased online.

The Ocean Beach Town Council is seeking Table Sponsors for the Pier Pancake Breakfast. To become a Table Sponsor which includes 8 tickets to the OB Pier Pancake Breakfast, please

‘Juggernaut Port vs. People of Point Loma’

August 29, 2019 by Source

By Cholly

The standing room only meeting of 600 or so concerned citizens at Portuguese Hall Wednesday, Aug. 28, opened with introductions and laudatory remarks by the Port’s chief planner Lesley Nishihira. Nishihira praised the Public Outreach Program of the Port – which it was claimed included “more than 250 interviews with key stakeholders and partner agencies, 13 open houses and community meetings, 36 public board workshops and two online surveys with a combined total of more than 6,300 respondents.”

Introductions included the three attending Port Commissioners:

Marshall Merrifield, (a former member of Mayor Jerry Sanders’ Economic Advisory Council),
Ann Moore, (Vice Chair of the Port Commissioners; former City Attorney of Chula Vista), and
Rear Admiral Garry J. Bonelli, (U.S. Navy SEAL and former executive staff member of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG).

Each of the Commissioners was an extremely friendly, polished, finely-honed and exceptionally street-wise orator. Just the type you’d eagerly buy a car from.

Resistance to Port’s Master Plan: ‘It’s Not About Piers for the Wealthy – It’s About a Land and Water Grab’

August 28, 2019 by Source

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego / August 27, 2019

If you think that fights over scooters, Airbnb, height limits, infill development, increased density, traffic congestion, and the homelessness are testy — wait for this one.

Remember the early Barrio Logan community standoff with shipbuilders? … How about Bay Ho’s resistance to running the trolley extension in front of their homes? Or the Campland’s quick 5-year lease extension? Then there are the violations of the Liberty Station lease … the reversal on preservation of the former Navy chapel now to be a restaurant.

Small wonder voters are angry. Any neighborhood resisting is now dubbed a “stranglehold.”

Do Colder Waters Off West Coast Mean a Return to ‘Normal’?

August 28, 2019 by Source

By Deborah Sullivan Brennan/ San Diego Union-Tribune / Aug. 27, 2019

Record high Pacific Ocean temperatures recorded off the West Cost in recent years have receded to near normal, according to a report on the California Current.

That cool shift marks the end of “the blob,” the mass of warm water that dominated the West Coast, and of the El Nino event that followed. It’s unclear, however, what that means for fish and marine mammals, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stated in the 2019 ecosystem status report for the California Current Ecosystem.

“The big thing is that a lot of the physical conditions of the ocean here off of our coast are beginning to return to normal,” said