Category: Health

By Terrie Best – San Diego Americans for Safe Access

The James Slatic family sat in San Diego Civil court Monday, November 15^th, along with an impressive group of supporters, to listen to testimony on just why The San Diego District Attorney confiscated each of the family of four’s checking and savings accounts and has refused to give the funds back in the absence of criminal behavior.

It was tough to understand government seizing money from two young girls and their parents and as the testimony unfolded it became clear no financial investigation was conducted either. Still, anti-cannabis Judge Jay Bloom ruled against the family and the case will now be moving up to a higher court.

Update on the OB Torrey Pine Trees for November

By Kris Schlech

Save Peninsula Trees has been active this past month! We received our (official) letter from the City and eight OB Torrey pine trees have been designated as Heritage Trees. They will forevermore be identified as such on the City’s Master Tree Inventory.

There are other trees in OB we’d like to identify and nominate, but this is a wonderful start and OBceans should feel proud to be the keepers of such national treasures! We also created a flyer with loads of useful info about Torrey pines, the Green Store has copies, or ask for one digitally through
savepeninsulatrees@gmail.com.

By Alexandra Rosemann / Alternet

Police used water cannons and tear gas against hundreds of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, late Sunday, Nov. 20. At least one person was arrested and dozens injured.

The confrontation began at 6pm, near the encampment were the protests against the $3.8 billion pipeline have been ongoing for months. According to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, 400 protesters attempted to cross Blackwater Bridge on state Highway 1806 after removing a burned-out truck.

By Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine

A decades-long battle over the proposed Gregory landfill has ended. Yesterday – Nov. 17- , the Pala Band of Mission Indians announced the tribe has complete purchase of more than 700 acres of the property—including most of Gregory Canyon and Gregory Mountain, a sacred site known as Chokla.

Shasta Gaughen with the Pala Indians called the news “amazing,” adding in an e-mail, ”This means that a dump in Gregory Canyon will never happen. Chokla, Medicine Rock, and other spiritual and cultural sites on the property will now be protected forever. Critical wildlife habitat, endangered species, and the San Luis Rey River will be spared the threat posed by millions of tons of polluting garbage.”

GCL, LLC retained ownership of a portion of the property but has agreed to pursue construction of residential and commercial development instead of a landfill on other portions of the property outside of the mountain and canyon.

Americans For Safe Access

California voters approved Proposition 64, the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act, by a vote of 56% to 44%. Voters in Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada also approved legalization measures. Medical cannabis had a big night, too. Voters approved or expanded medical cannabis laws in Florida, North Dakota, Arkansas and Montana.

Proposition 64 legalizes the adult use, possession and cultivation of cannabis for non-medical purposes in California. It also creates a process for licensing and regulating adult use businesses, including cultivators, product manufacturers and retailers by 2018.

On Tuesday, November 15th, Native Americans, environmentalists, and nurses will stage a protest at the San Diego Army Corps of Engineers office as part of a national day of action calling on the Army Corps and President Obama to revoke permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline.

There will be speakers – including local Native American leaders who’ve traveled to Standing Rock – and music. Organizers will sign and deliver individual postcards to the Army Corps.

There was a groundbreaking event for People’s Organic Food store’s new organic cafe and juice bar on Saturday, November 12th. It will be located just east of the market, where Tiny’s bar used to stand.

The editors of the OB Rag and the San Diego Free Press are pleased to present our 2016 General Election Progressive Voter Guide.

We believe this is a historic election, one that will set the course of the United States for decades to come. If there ever was an election where voting was important — this is it.

The candidacy of Donald Trump is no accident. It is a consequence of decades of building a constituency for a market-driven political economy by capitalizing on fear, bias, and ignorance.

By Frank Gormlie

On Friday, November 4th, the California Coastal Commission finally gave SeaWorld what it wanted. In what veteran San Diego Union-Tribune writer, Lori Weisberg, called an “easy approval“, the Commission okayed new decorations for its old Orca tanks.

Call them a new backdrop for the set, call them a new stage for a new Orca encounter, call them whatever – the new decor – which will include a “Northwestern” motif, complete with fake fir trees, fake waterfalls, and a fake rock fiberglass facade – will be for the patrons, the visitors – to make them feel better – it won’t be for the Orcas. They’ll still be in the same old tanks.

Oil Corporation Tramps on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

By John Lawrence

Finally, there is an alliance of a major group — U.S. Indians — and environmentalists who are taking a stand to prevent the furtherance of fossil fuel interests.

Bill McKibben of 350.org says we must stop now insofar as building more fossil fuel infrastructure, which is what a pipeline represents, if we are to have a hope and a prayer of saving the planet from the effects of global warming.

The Native Americans have those interests and more — they rely on clean water from the Missouri River for their lives and livelihoods. This pipeline would probably result in the pollution of the water they rely on because pipelines aren’t foolproof. They break and spew their pollution. In addition, the pipeline construction is desecrating Indian burial sites.

Via UrbDeZine

By Mario Torero, Brent Beltrán, and Bill Adams / UrbDeZine

Barrio Logan is little known to most San Diegans – beyond being a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood near downtown. Yet it is one of San Diego’s most historically significant and culturally important neighborhoods.

In particular, it has national prominence for its role in the Chicano / Mexican-American civil rights movement. However, more than a Chicano historic asset, the neighborhood and it’s history stands as a monument to the resilience and survival of the nation’s minority and working class populations in the face of assaults and exploitation by the overwhelming power of the state and business interests.

In particular, many ethnic working-class urban neighborhoods across the country were destroyed or severely damaged by en masse relocation of their residents to build freeways and other neighborhood-destroying and suburb serving facilities.

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Hurricane Matthew Imperils US Nukes As It Threatens Millions

Hurricane Matthew, which brought death and destruction from Haiti to the Carolinas in October, also had an impact on a number of aged nuclear facilities in the US. There are no nuclear plants in Haiti, Cuba or the Bahamas, which suffered the worst of the hurricane’s wrath.

On October 4, as Matthew approached Florida, Florida Power & Light, the electrical utility that runs the St. Lucie nuke plant in the southeast part of the state, declared an “unusual event” at the plant.

On a scale of 1 to 5, an Unusual Event is a 1, with the worst such nuclear plant emergency being mandatory evacuation.