Category: Military

To a packed meeting room on Friday in San Diego, the California Coastal Commission voted unanimously to reject the US Navy’s sonar training program scheduled off Southern California because of harm to endangered blue whales, other marine mammals and sea life.

The Commissioners ruled that the Navy had insufficient information to support its claims that the explosives and sonar training program would have negligible effect on marine mammals. Scheduled to proceed in January, Coastal staff had recommended that the Commission require more protections to the wildlife before authorizing it.

Estimating that their proposed training program would kill 130 marine mammals and cause hearing loss in 1,600 over five years, the Navy rep argued to the Commission that the Navy was set against any additional conditions that they said would reduce the realism or scope of the training. Navy rep Alex Stone stated that the program has enough protections for the wild sea life. Stone directs the program.

NBC San Diego / March 5, 2013

An old military artillery shell was discovered in the backyard of an Ocean Beach resident Monday night [March 4].

A woman working in the garden of her new home at Saratoga Avenue and Santa Barbara discovered what looked like an explosive device and called 911.

When bomb experts arrived just after 6:30 p.m., they found the shell in the dirt outside the home.

The tragedies of 9-11 were several years away when Obceans who knew that patriotism was consistent with the community’s laid-back, do-your-own-thing ethic decided it was high-time to do something big.

An idea to honor those who have served our country in the armed forces took hold and, with the help of the since-vacated Ocean Beach VFW, the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association (OBMA) and others, the idea came to fruition.

In a nutshell, that’s how the Veterans’ Plaza at the corner of Abbott Street and Newport Avenue – with two its flagpoles, 6 ½-foot-high piece of granite rock and adorning plaque, and dozens of inscriptions engraved onto a brand-new, concrete sidewalk – came to be in the mid-1990s, organizers say. Ocean Beach was ahead of the curve.

By Frank Rich / RSN – New York Magazine / February 4, 2013

Not long after President Obama delivers his State of the Union address this month, Hollywood will offer its own annual summation of the national Zeitgeist, the Oscars.

They’ve lately been an irrelevancy: Best Pictures like The King’s Speech and The Artist have been footnotes, nostalgic European footnotes at that, to America’s kinetic pop culture in the day of Homeland.

Not this year.

Whatever the explanation – and little in show business happens by design – the movie industry has reconnected with the country.

By Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian / RSN – TomDispatch / Feb 4, 2013

This piece is adapted from “Uprisings,” a chapter in Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire, Noam Chomsky’s new interview book with David Barsamian (with thanks to the publisher, Metropolitan Books). T
________

Does the United States still have the same level of control over the energy resources of the Middle East as it once had?

The major energy-producing countries are still firmly under the control of the Western-backed dictatorships. So, actually, the progress made by the Arab Spring is limited, but it’s not insignificant. The Western-controlled dictatorial system is eroding. In fact, it’s been eroding for some time.

Teresa Mallory’s nephew Quinn Rogan receives surprise visit after saving lives in Afghanistan

The owner of an antique store in Ocean Beach has her nephew’s photo propped up in her consignment shop on Newport Avenue. The picture has her nephew, Quinn Rogan – wounded in Afghanistan when he blocked suicide bombers from attacking his base – along with the President – who made him a surprise visit recently at Walter Reed Army hospital.

For three days a week, volunteers will staff a brand new ‘help-center’ for American veterans that just opened at the Point Loma branch public library. Now opened just a week, the Veterans Resource Center will connect vets with services and benefits – and just plain, old-fashioned information passed on by a one-on-one basis.

These are services and benefits already earned by the veterans. The Center will be staffed by volunteers on Mondays, Tuesday and Fridays – these are volunteers trained by the California Department of Veterans Affairs. It’s all part of a one-year pilot program that has also opened similar centers this month in Bakersfield and Redding, California.

Ever since the local Point Loma branch of the VFW was forced to close down its chapter clubhouse,

UPDATED: See Inside

By NBC 7 San Diego / Oct. 30, 2012

Move over vampires, goblins and haunted houses, this kind of Halloween terror aims to shake up even the toughest warriors: An untold number of so-called zombies are coming to a counterterrorism summit attended by hundreds of Marines, Navy special ops, soldiers, police, firefighters and others to prepare them for their worst nightmares.

By Nadin Abbott

Occupy San Diego reached an important milestone this weekend. Occupy San Diego is now one year old, and like all children, it has learned a lot this year, but also achieved quite a bit.

The weekend saw a series of events, some low key, some going back to it’s roots in the streets, celebrating the fact that OSD is still here. The first event was at Balboa Park on Saturday afternoon.

When I reached the Park I was no longer surprised to see San Diego Police coming in to talk to an Occupier. Well, so what is new? Same old, same old – right? This time, the officers had cause. No, not the usual we saw over the course of last year. They had a call, from another occupier, reporting what can best be described as a domestic dispute. Given the Occupier in question wore a Guy Fawkes costume with knives (which I could not tell at a distance were plastic either), the cops showed up in force. This is standard.

Moreover, while the Police kept an eye on Occupy, like they do on every demonstration that happens in this town, they also kept their actual contact to a minimum, and kept their distance.

Chris Hedges gave this talk Sunday night – October 7th – in New York City at a protest denouncing the 11th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. The event, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, was led by Veterans for Peace.

By Chris Hedges

Many of us who are here carry within us death. The smell of decayed and bloated corpses. The cries of the wounded. The shrieks of children. The sound of gunfire. The deafening blasts. The fear. The stench of cordite. The humiliation that comes when you surrender to terror and beg for life. The loss of comrades and friends. And then the aftermath. The long alienation. The numbness. The nightmares. The lack of sleep. The inability to connect to all living things, even to those we love the most. The regret. The repugnant lies mouthed around us about honor and heroism and glory. The absurdity. The waste. The futility.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents:

Author Richard L. Carrico’s

“The Country Boy, Madame X and the Japanese Spy”

Thurs., Sept. 20th, at 7 PM
At P.L. United Methodist Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B.

From 1934 to 1936 a ring of Japanese agents and spies enlisted the help of U.S. Navy Personnel to conduct espionage for the Japanese government.

The centers of the spy activities were Washington D. C., San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

By Michael Moore and Oliver Stone / New York Times / August 20, 2012

WE have spent our careers as filmmakers making the case that the news media in the United States often fail to inform Americans about the uglier actions of our own government. We therefore have been deeply grateful for the accomplishments of WikiLeaks, and applaud Ecuador’s decision to grant diplomatic asylum to its founder, Julian Assange, who is now living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Ecuador has acted in accordance with important principles of international human rights.