Category: California

By Gavin Aronsen / Mother Jones / January 29, 2012

On Saturday, Occupy Oakland re-entered the national spotlight during a day-long effort to take over an empty building and transform it into a social center. Oakland police thwarted the efforts, arresting more than 400 people in the process, primarily during a mass nighttime arrest outside a downtown YMCA. That number included at least six journalists, myself included, in direct violation of OPD media relations policy that states “media shall never be targeted for dispersal or enforcement action because of their status.”

After an unsuccessful afternoon effort to occupy a former convention center, the more than 1,000 protesters elected to return to the site of their former encampment outside city hall. On the way, they clashed with officers, advancing down a street with makeshift shields of corrogated metal and throwing objects at a police line. Officers responded with smoke grenades, tear gas, and bean bag projectiles. After protesters regrouped, they marched through downtown as police pursued and eventually contained a few hundred of them in an enclosed space outside a YMCA. Some entered the gym and were arrested inside.

Editor: Here’s some news that fell under the radar: police go on a violent rampage on another UC campus, injuring and arresting students. This was up at UC Riverside on Thursday, January 19th. Check out the video on the original site.

By Jamie Applegate / The Daily Californian / Originally published Jan. 20, 2012

Police officers arrested two protesters and struck several others with plastic pellets during a demonstration Thursday [1/19/12] surrounding the UC Board of Regents meeting at UC Riverside.

The two individuals arrested — identified as Kenneth Ehrlich, 39, and Humberto Rivera, 25 — were booked on suspicion of felony assault on a police officer, according to Riverside campus spokesperson Kris Lovekin.

Nine police officers also sustained minor injuries, and about 11 people in the crowd suffered bruises from the pellets, Lovekin said.

For UC Riverside junior Stephen Fong, the protests on his campus marked a dramatic shift in the atmosphere of the student body.

By Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine / January 26, 2012

Last week, we reported that Friends of Palomar Mountain State Park launched a pledge drive to save this beautiful place from closing forever. They asked the state to keep the park open if their group can raise $60,000 to fill the gap between revenues and operating expenses. Already, $16,625 has been raised.

Today [1/26/12], chairman Rick Barclay revealed, “We’ve received a generous matching pledge challenge from Mr. & Mrs. Robert S. Wilson of Rancho Santa Fe: If we can raise $30,000 in pledges and donations, they’ll match that amount.”

Now only $13,375 more is needed to reach the $60,000 total.

Groups Claim National Marine Fisheries Service Fail to Protect Thousands of Whales, Dolphins, Sea Lions and Other Animal Life From U.S. Navy Warfare Training Exercises Along the West Coast

By Ed Joyce / KPBS / January 26, 2012

A coalition of conservation and American Indian groups sued the National Marine Fisheries Service Thursday, Jan. 26, over the use Navy’s use of sonar and other training exercises. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California.

It claims the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to protect thousands of whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions from U.S. Navy warfare training exercises along the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington.

Editor: Check out the following report by former OBcean Michael Steinberg who now lives in San Francisco. Apparently, the Occupy movement in San Diego is not the only one with problems with the daily fishwrap.

On January 20 Occupy protestors took over a 600 unit vacant hotel in San Francisco. But the San Francisco Chronicle missed the point. Actually it missed a lot of them.

As the final action of January 20th’s Wall Street West San Francisco protests, activists marched to the former Cathedral Hill Hotel at Geary and Van Ness and took it over.Why? The San Francisco Chronicle’s report the next morning only informed us that, upon arriving and being greeted by riot cops, “Some activists threw bricks and bottles, injuring two officers, one in the chest and one in the arm.” Also that “40 people broke in through a back entrance and loudly cavorted in the 600-room hotel for two hours. When they threw furniture from the roof, several dozen police cleared the building.”

By Gail Powell / Special to the OB Rag

The Occupy movement has some people thinking that the anti-Wall Street political group has co-opted the medical marijuana issue. Where once the closing of dispensaries would have incited the wrath of medical marijuana activists; now many of those same people are off doing their Occupy thing. That is not to say that the issues of the people supporting the utilization of medical marijuana is dead: it is not.

And I do not wish to make it seem that political protesters are dilettantes who jump from one exciting activity to another. But the federal pressure on the clinics that has come down from the Obama administration is a part of the bigger picture of injustice from the national level filtering malice upon the local level.

By J. Harry Jones/ U-T San Diego / January 17, 2012

PALOMAR MOUNTAIN — A nonprofit citizen’s group hoping to save Palomar Mountain State Park from permanent closure this summer has mounted a pledge drive with the goal of raising $60,000 annually.

Last month the Friends of Palomar Mountain State Park Committee submitted a proposal to the Department of State Parks offering a straightforward deal: If they’ll keep Palomar open, the committee will cover the deficit between revenue and operating costs from public donations.

The park is one of 70 parks slated for permanent closure this July and already all the campgrounds have been shuttered. Rick Barclay, chairman of the committee, said the park isn’t self-sufficient, meaning revenue doesn’t cover expenses, even after the operating budget’s been slashed to the bone.

By Dave Good / SanDiego.com / Jan 10th, 2012

The roots of the San Diego Zoo lie in Ocean Beach, California. That there is even a zoo here at all, world famous or not, is largely due to a chain of events that began in 1913 at the foot of Voltaire Street. On July 4th of that year the doors to the Wonderland Amusement Park were officially opened to the public.

In its time Wonderland must have been spectacular. Protected from the sea by high walls with exotic turrets it spanned eight acres of what is now dog beach.

By Erin Allday /SFGate / January 10, 2012

Smoking a joint or a bowl from time to time appears to cause no long-term damage to the lungs, according to a UCSF study that disproves one of the major concerns about marijuana use – that inhaling anything other than air on a regular basis must be harmful.

The study, results of which were published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the lung capacity of people who smoked marijuana was not diminished by lighting up, even among those who smoked once or twice a week.

Smoking 20 or more joints a month did have a negative impact on the pulmonary system, but that level of marijuana use is unusual.

San Francisco Labor Council Resolution – Adopted Jan. 9, 2012 by unanimous vote (with one abstention)
Condemn Use of U.S. Military to Escort Scab Grain Ship in Longview WA

Whereas, EGT, a joint venture led by multinational grain giant Bunge, agreed to hire union Longshoremen when accepting millions in taxpayer funds to build a huge new grain exporting terminal at the Port of Longview WA, but once the terminal was built has tried to void its contract and refused to hire ILWU labor. With the use of brutal police and courts and 220 arrests in the 225 member ILWU Local 21, EGT has managed to get enough scab grain across picket lines into the new terminal that EGT appears poised to load a ship soon in violation of their agreement with the port; and

Editor: Here is an update of the “Occupation” of the house of a disabled and bedridden retired schoolteacher Lesliane Bouchard by her daughter Kristiane Chappell. Bouchard is about to have her home foreclosed up north in Murrietta in Riverside County. A number of Occupy San Diego activists were among those who joined in occupying her house. (See our earlier posts here and here.)

By Kristiane Chappell

Wanted to give you the link to the most recent press story on mom. I was on Fox 5 this morning, it went really well. I was interviewed by the Washington Post on Wednesday morning and it is supposed to be in the Sunday paper I believe. I have more interviews in the works. The campaign is up over 40 thousand as of right now, making it the 6th most popular Economic Justice petition of all time on Change.org and the numbers continue to go up.