Category: Media

Have you noticed our new “look”? If you scroll down far enough, it appears that we have four columns, two of which are side-bars. So, two side-bars. This is new – this is big. This will allow us to take on ads. We need ads to sustain this community webpage.

After many hours of testing and prep, Saturday night, September 12th, Patty Jones clicked the icon with her mouse – and “poof” the new changes were established – our blog transcended its former self, with upgraded software and a more robust platform. We have not ironed out all the bugs yet – so if you see something that appears out of whack, let us know in a comment to this post.

(Click on the headline to see the rest of this post.)

Hey folks, this Friday 9/11/09 Surfrider Foundation SD is sponsoring a special beach clean up starting at Veterans Park in Ocean Beach!

As an added bonus, Dave Matthews Band’s bass player, Stefan Lessard will be joining the effort, chatting with the volunteers and holding a special contest …

This latest politicization of President Obama’s speech that he gave to school children this morning was way over-the-top. It is the latest round of extreme partisanship being carried out by elements within the Republican Party, led by right-wing radio pundits and and being promoted and propagated by the mass corporate media.

They mobilized people to call schools and administrators to cancel the address – or organized a boycott of schools or kept their children out of school for the day. This was ridiculous. The flap they caused was outrageous and clearly unacceptable.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. This is OB Flashes – the OB Rag’s weekly Community Bulletin and Discussion Board. Discuss anything that is bugging you, or exciting you, or of interest. Do it in the comments section. Not only that, if you or your buds are having a meeting or event you would like to inform the rest of us about, do so here. If you want to get rid of something, like an old working TV, do it here.

SAN DIEGO – A San Diego County Superior Court today denied medical marijuana patient Donna Lambert’s request for dismissal. Ms. Lambert’s supporters urged District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis not to pursue the case, to uphold the state’s medical marijuana laws and to turn law enforcement’s attention to matters of public safety not politics.

“I’m disappointed at today’s ruling, but I am resolved to fight this egregious case against me,” said Ms. Lambert, who faces seven felony counts for providing medical marijuana to another qualified patient.

by Frank Gormlie

By 6:00 pm, there was a long line that stretched from the gym’s doors almost all the way to the main road, lining the school’s parking lot as it crept up the small hill. Doug and I were at Rancho Buena Vista High School for Congressman Darrell Issa’s Town Hall meeting on health care. We had driven to southern Vista – a land of new suburbs, condos and malls – from the southern reaches of the county. Everything in sight seemed to have been built in the last ten to twenty years or so.

It had been a long drive from San Diego, and so we had a while to muse about was in store for us … in conservativeland.

By E.J. Dionne Jr. / The Washington Post / September 3, 2009

Health-care reform is said to be in trouble partly because of those raucous August town-hall meetings in which Democratic members of Congress were besieged by shouters opposed to change.

But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong?

Local Congressman Darrel Issa appears to be trying to capture the right-wing momentum sputtering here and there at town hall meetings across the nation. He all of a sudden announced that he, too, is holding a health care reform town hall meeting – this one is tonight in Vista.

It is beastly hot in my tiny house eight miles inland from Ocean Beach and I have just spent a number of hours culling through the news online and I am really really grumpy.

I’ve printed out a copy of Robert Reich’s recent posting The Guns of August: How the Republican Right Fired on Health Care …

OCEAN BEACH, CA. This is the OB Rag’s weekly Community Bulletin and Discussion Board. Discuss anything that is bugging you, or exciting you, or of interest. Do it in the comments section. Not only that, if you or your buds are having a meeting or event you would like to inform the rest of us about, do so here.
Come inside for each of these sizzling stories …

* GO INSIDE FOR OPEN THREAD FOR DISCUSSION

The arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. by Cambridge police again raised the issue of racial profiling of People of Color in North America.

As evidenced in President Obama’s attempt at a ‘teaching moment,’ the idea of racial profiling produces heated debate.

Most African Americans remain convinced that law enforcement agencies routinely use their race as criteria in criminal investigations while a majority of Whites and police vigorously dispute this claim.

Do you carry a credit card balance? You suck. Don’t worry, I do too, and so does my girlfriend, my mom, my sister…but hopefully you’re trying to stop your spending and are hacking away at that balance with the rare nickel and dime left over from the shrinking paychecks …