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An Aide of Opponent Scott Peters Attempts to Disrupt Kick-Off Event

By Nadin Abbott / February 18, 2012

Lori Saldaña officially launched her primary run for the June 5th election, for Congressional District 52. She is running against Scott Peters on the Democratic Party Primary. During the event Saldaña highlighted her achievements in Sacramento during her six years in the Legislature.

During the event a young man with her opponent Scott Peters’ Campaign tried to disrupt it. His efforts to mar the kick-off event was prevented by volunteers.

During Saldana’s six years she worked on clean water, which is not a “partisan issue.” It is also not a partisan issue to work on clean sea food, in a city that relies on sea food. During those years she worked with Rick Rudy, a commercial fisherman, on these issues. Mr. Rudy is a commercial lobsterman, and a registered Republican.

Saldaña also emphasized the fight for the middle class and labor, and how wages have stalled over the last thirty years. As she pointed out, a master carpenter wages start at around twenty-five dollars, where they were thirty years ago. Another issue that matters to the grass roots are college loans, and access to college.

by Anais Child

By the time I get around to Christmas presents for My Beloved, our bank account is always in the negative and I have run out of creative ideas. Over the many years we have been together, Christmas isn’t a big deal when it comes to exchanging gifts. But this particular year, I wanted to do something … special. I wanted to do something … different.

The most different thing I could do was to enter the downtown Hustler. I had walked past it daily since it opened, but had never been inside…

Hey y’all! – It’s Thursday and editordude called me to say he wanted another column on stories our OBcean friends may have missed due to being too messed up from the night before. Them – not me. I’ve been savin’ some clips from the week. So, Wake and Bake, people! Get off you ass, load the bong, and check these out! C’mon!

For starters, Comedy Central has abruptly suspended Stephen Colbert‘s nightly comedy satire show. Reuters reports that “Comedy Central has suspended production of the Colbert Report for at least two days, an unexplained development that ignited widespread speculation about the popular satirical news show on Twitter and other social networks.” A repeat was shown on Wednesday and also is planned for tonight, Thursday due to due to “unforeseen circumstances”. We all know what a super job Colbert and his pal Jon Stewart have done in educating the nation about Super-Pacs, so we’re hoping everything is okay.

Some sanity from two of our Congressional reps – Filner and Davis – both are co-sponsoring a bill that would require disclosure of corporate money in politics. The East County Mag reports:

Two San Diego Congressional representatives, Susan Davis and Bob Filner, have taken steps to clean up the secret money plaguing our political system. Both Democrats have joined colleagues in cosponsoring the Disclose 2012 Act (H.R. 4010) to require disclosure of the corporate and special interest money in politics.

Editor: Here’s an article that should concern all OBceans, surfers, all swimmers, scuba divers and anyone else who plays or works in the ocean. Federal monies for water testing are being cut. So much for a “smaller government” – eh, you conservatives who see government as the problem. Enjoy yours and your kids’ next visit to the beach.

The EPA plans to cut $10 million in grants it gives annually. Water quality advocates worry that swimmers and surfers will be at even greater risk of illness.

By Tony Barboza / Los Angeles Times / February 16, 2012

Health testing at beaches in California and across the nation is at risk of being cut under a plan to eliminate federal funds for monitoring whether the water is too contaminated to swim in.

Occupy San Diego Throws the ‘Bat Signal’ Up While Democrats Convene at the Party Convention

By Eugene Davidovich / Special to the OB Rag

SAN DIEGO – There are dozens of commercial buildings in San Diego with large flat windowless surfaces which most people would consider an eyesore. But for Occupy San Diego (OSD), during the weekend of the Democratic Party State Convention, many of those buildings including the convention center itself, served as a canvas for the OSD ‘Bat Signal’.

The ‘Bat Signal’ or guerrilla projections; images shown in public without any necessary approvals or permits, have gained steam in recent years in art communities across the world, and are seen on buildings and landmarks from Los Angeles all the way to London.

With the accelerated growth of the Occupy movement, protesters wishing to send a strong, visible, and defiant political message have also begun to employ this tactic in cities across the nation. The first Occupy ‘Bat Signal’ was cast by Mark Read, an artist and activist with Occupy Wall Street, who threw an image of ‘99%’ and the names of different Occupies across the world onto the Verizon building in New York City on November 17th of last year.

Editor: Author and radical observer Chris Hedges has opened up a current dialogue and debate within the Occupy Wall Street movement, in the shadow of last month’s confrontations between Occupy Oakland and the Oakland police. He points the finger at what he calls “the Black Bloc anarchists” and calls them the “cancer in Occupy.” In response to Hedges, David Graeber’s article below asserts that Hedge’s rhetoric is inaccurate and even “dangerous”.

The Cancer in Occupy

by Chris Hedges / TruthDig / Posted on Feb 6, 2012

The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are the cancer of the Occupy movement. The presence of Black Bloc anarchists—so named because they dress in black, obscure their faces, move as a unified mass, seek physical confrontations with police and destroy property—is a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state. The Occupy encampments in various cities were shut down precisely because they were nonviolent. They were shut down because the state realized the potential of their broad appeal even to those within the systems of power. They were shut down because they articulated a truth about our economic and political system that cut across political and cultural lines. And they were shut down because they were places mothers and fathers with strollers felt safe. …. (Come inside for the remainder of this article.)

By David Graeber / n+1 / Posted Feb. 9, 2012

I am writing this on the premise that you are a well-meaning person who wishes Occupy Wall Street to succeed. I am also writing as someone who was deeply involved in the early stages of planning Occupy in New York.

I am also an anarchist who has participated in many Black Blocs. While I have never personally engaged in acts of property destruction, I have on more than one occasion taken part in Blocs where property damage has occurred. (I have taken part in even more Blocs that did not engage in such tactics. It is a common fallacy that this is what Black Blocs are all about. It isn’t.)

I was hardly the only Black Bloc veteran who took part in planning the initial strategy for Occupy Wall Street. In fact, anarchists like myself were the real core of the group that came up with the idea of occupying Zuccotti Park, the “99%” slogan, the General Assembly process, and, in fact, who collectively decided that we would adopt a strategy of Gandhian non-violence and eschew acts of property damage. Many of us had taken part in Black Blocs. We just didn’t feel that was an appropriate tactic for the situation we were in. … (Come inside for the remainder of this article.)

Medical marijuana patient in unambiguous compliance with state law, faces second prosecution attempt by San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. Jury selection begins Feb. 14.

By Eugene Davidovich / San Diego ASA / Feb. 9, 2012

In the summer of 2009, Benjamin Gasper, along with two other seriously ill medical marijuana patients rented a warehouse space in the Sports Arena area of San Diego, a heavily commercial district far from residences and other “sensitive uses,” and began to collectively cultivate medical marijuana for personal medical needs.

All three members of the collective, as court documents have shown, signed an agreement in which they entered into a contract to “associate collectively or cooperatively to cultivate marijuana for medical purposes.”

The agreement went as far as stating that “all members of our medical marijuana collective will contribute labor, funds, or materials, and all will receive medicine.”

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, I’m Writing / February 12, 2012

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, seems to have been widely misquoted last Friday, after the Obama administration announced a compromise to the campaign-season conflict between religious liberty and women’s contraception coverage under health insurance plans provided by Catholic employers (hospitals, universities and other agencies, but not churches). With the compromise, responsibility for funding contraceptives was shifted to the insurers, and Dolan purportedly said the resolution was, “a first step in the right direction.”

But, oh no, no! What Dolan surely said was that the resolution was “a first step in the right direction — to hell!” and that was made clear when the bishops slammed the compromise later in the day.

By Eugene Davidovich

After a busy morning, participants in the Occupy San Diego InterOccupy Conference arrived at Children’s Park. News reporters from CW6, as well as other local media outlets, converged in anticipation of the protesters’ arrival and a planned action to take place at the San Diego Convention Center.

Frank Gromlie of Save The Bill of Rights group and Occupy San Diego took the bullhorn and spoke about the dangers of the National Defense Authorization Act recently passed Congress and signed into law by the president.

He explained the government can now indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without trial, judge or jury for simply being dissenters. He went on to talk about how the bill limits U.S. citizen’s rights to a fair trial, free speech, and pointed out that both the Democratic and Republican party failed their constituents by allowing such a draconian measure to pass.

By Eugene Davidovich

On Saturday morning as planned at 8:30am, protesters with Occupy San Diego began to assemble at Civic Center Plaza on 3^rd and B for the all day InterOccupy conference.

The first couple hours at the plaza were filled with sign making, passing out welcome packets which contained information about the day’s events, and getting to know the protesters who came down to Occupy San Diego from other cities and states for the day.

Editor: In this impassioned plea to save County planning committees, East Co Mag editor Miriam Raftery takes a stand in their favor. This plea should resonate with OBceans and other San Diegans about their own planning groups. Ocean Beach, for example, has an active planning board that when it was established in the mid-Seventives, was the very first democratically-elected planning committee in the history of California. The OB Planning Board is also engaged in a “war” of sorts with the City of San Diego and local developers. But hear out Raftery’s plea and apply it to your own local committee.

By Miriam Raftery /East County Magazine / Originally published Feb. 2, 2012

“People will never hear about projects until after they’re done if this [elimination of planning groups] goes through.” – Mark Ostrander, chair, Jacumba sponsor group

I’ve rarely published an editorial, reserving my opinion for only those matters with the gravest of consequences for East County. One such matter will come before San Diego’s Supervisors on February 29, when supervisors will vote on whether or not to eliminate all community planning groups countywide. They will also weigh other “reforms” aimed at making it easier to pave over paradise–or put a Goliath-scale project next door to you–with nobody the wiser until it’s too late.

by Dirk Ebers

In the 1982 rhythm-and-blues classic Atomic Dog, George Clinton croons a question for the ages: “Why must I feel like that — why must I chase the cat?”

Clinton is talking about the longing for sex, of course. And you can probably relate to his lyrics, whether you’re a man or a woman, straight or gay, Ocean Beach or Point Loma. After all, sex seems to be on the human mind a lot. But why?

In Atomic Dog, George Clinton has a simple answer: “Nothin’ but the dog in me.” And researchers in an intriguing branch of psychology believe Clinton is exactly right.

Evolutionary psychology is the study of how the human mind’s processes might be products of evolution. In other words, the field asks if there might be survival benefits to weird little kinks of human nature, such as the tendency for men in cultures around the world to — all else being equal — prefer big boobs.