Category: Culture

by Robert Reich

It’s a perfect storm. And I’m not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I’m talking about the dangers facing our democracy.

First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans.

The top one-tenth of one percent of Americans now earn as much as the bottom 120 million of us.

Who are these people?

When the OB Rag website first started publishing three years ago, the massive October 2007 fire was raging across San Diego County. Our blog/ website was hatched in the midst of fire, born under fire, so to speak. The fire and the responses to it raised all kinds of issues that we began addressing.

Here are a few of the posts that we wrote and published about the fires – and a few other issues – during that period:

COME INSIDE FOR HEADLINES AND LINKS …

Last Sunday I decided to go see a play downtown. I didn’t want to pay the price for parking, so decided I would take the 35 bus to the trolley station and then take the Blue Line from there. I got all ready to go, allowing myself plenty of time to get there, and went to the bus stop on Sunset Cliffs and Pt. Loma Ave.

Guess what? On Sunday there is no 35 bus on Sunset Cliffs and Pt. Loma Ave.

At age 33, I’m a relative newcomer to reading poetry. In high school, the standard stuff they foisted on us — Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Keats, Byron, Shelley, and so on — struck me as dull, dated, and often incomprehensible. In fact, like so much of the literature I remember reading in English classes, many of the poems we were assigned felt like they were written solely to make teenagers hate reading.

No discrimination is reasonable but there, to me, is nothing more screwed up than the discrimination inherent in our “Don’t ask, don’t tell” world.

Now, thanks to old Jim Crow back in the 40’s and 50’s and 60’s, I’ve faced more than my share of discrimination but I overcame all that, beginning in my childhood …

Paul Connett, author of the newly released book The Case Against Fluoride, will be speaking in San Diego from Oct. 14 – 16. Connett will provide new, compelling science-based arguments against community water fluoridation. Following are the times and locations of his public presentations.

BB Standout made his mark in education

TUCSON, Ariz. – University of Arizona men’s basketball alumnus Ernie McCray was named the 2010 Outstanding Alumni Achiever by the UA Black Alumni.

McCray, a Wildcat letterwinner from 1957-58 through 1960, received the recognition from UABA. A longtime educator and principal in San Diego, he is now retired and focuses his time on community theater and community activism.

ALL DETAILS AND LINKS INSIDE:

* OB Bus Routes Detoured Due to Digging Ditches
* Planning Board Review Committee meets Wed, Oct. 20th
* OB Historical Society: The Portuguese 100 – Plus Years of in San Diego -Oct. 21st
* OB Halloween for Dogs – Canine Carnival & Costume Contest, Oct. 24th
* OB Rec Center Sponsors Halloween Carnival & Costume Contest
* OB lifeguard part of team honored for dangerous rescue
* Sports Arena bought by San Pasqual Tribe & renamed “Valley View Casino Center”
* Pot Dispensaries On Edge
* McMillin reverses at Liberty Station: withdraws hotel and residential plans – and destruction of conference center
* New Sushi at the old Rags on Newport?
* Healthy and Horny Herb shop?
* Food trucks in Los Angeles to have public health ratings

The fall season hasn’t treated new shows kindly. With few exceptions, not many programs made a critical splash, and one of the few that did (‘Lone Star’) got the boot after just two episodes.

It’s all well and good to think in theoretical terms about what can be done to ensure that only the safest, most inoffensive and blandest programming gets the green light in the near future. But I’m here to propose a simpler, more concrete, and potentially more effective way to combat a future slew of boring TV: watch FX’s ‘Terriers.’

Lost in the shuffle in more ways than one, ‘Terriers’ had quietly produced five consecutively strong episodes right out of the gate.

I wrote the first part – below – in response to the pink blindness I see everywhere. It has been a pet peeve of mine for many moons. It (pink ribbons) has been exploited for profit and now that Kentucky Fried Chicken jumped on the bandwagon it is so laughable. The very worst food for Health promotes BC Awareness?

I have a 14 year old granddaughter that’s driving her parents

wild,

No one would ever have suspected it of this child.

A swimmer, a junior life guard to boot,

When it comes to homework she doesn’t give a hoot.

by Krystal Ball / Huffington Post / October 11, 2010

[Krystal Ball is the Democratic candidate for Virginia’s 1st District]

When I was fifteen-years-old, I watched Hillary Clinton during the difficult times she faced when her private life and President Clinton’s private life became public. Nevermind that the people conducting the impeachment hearings were having multiple affairs and oozed hypocrisy.