Category: San Diego

The San Diego chapter of the national Coffee Party movement is holding a kind of “coming-out” party in the late afternoon on Sunday, April 11th, and Congressman Bob Filner is the keynote speaker.

This private affair will be at Queen’s Bee, an entertainment venue/ coffee house in North Park from 3:30pm to 5. Stacy Taylor, one of San Diego’s most popular (ex-) radio personalities will also be on hand as a speaker. There is music and poetry, so this could be quite a gig.

The San Diego Coffee Party organization is not even one month old. Its first meetings were on March 13th, and there was so much of a turn-out of kindred spirits that it was organized into 3 to 4 groups. There’s also a chapter in Oceanside, one in Carlsbad, and a small one in Ramona. There are efforts a foot to establish one in the South Bay as well.

About a dozen OBceans are active in the “coastal” section …

Originally posted June 17, 2009

Taggers defacing OB, Iranian election upheaval, Homelessness, Carrie Prejean, Bird Porn. While these are all important issues, except maybe Prejean, the overload of bad news can be enough to make you want to take a nice warm bubble bath with your toaster. So if you start to find yourself overloaded with stressful political, social issues, do yourself a favor. Laugh.

And check out Ocean Beach Comedy.

SURVEILLANCE CAMERA AND POLICE WATCH TOWER COMING TO OCEAN BEACH

Big Brother is creeping into our lives, inch by inch, camera by camera, tower by tower. Recent posts on our blog have described plans by the City of San Diego to install surveillance cameras in and around Mission Bay, including one on the OB Pier, and that the San Diego Police Department dragged out their controversial mobile watch tower for this year’s first Floatopia.

Surveillance cameras, police towers … Big Brother is definitely creeping in … do you remember the origins of Big Brother? He is a fictional character in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the dictator with seemingly absolute control in Oceania, a society that is a totalitarian state.

Editor: Where were you during Easter Sunday’s earthquake? Patty and I were on the wooden deck and we felt every rock and roll, and went through four aftershocks. The following by Doug Copp will make you forget everything you’ve always learned about surviving earth quakes.
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The “Triangle of Life”: Ten Ways to Survive the Next “Big One”

by Doug Copp

My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world’s most experienced rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in an earthquake.

I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries…

Now, I’m not a big fan of “State of” kinds of speeches. Most times they leave me with a feeling of “Now, that was some BS I could have spared myself.” But it was a joy the other night listening to Richard Barrera, the President of the San Diego City Schools Board of Education, share his thoughts on schools being community based in a refreshing non-preachy conversational tone as opposed to the usual empty tome that politicians usually read verbatim at such occasions in coma inducing tones.

His rap resonated with me because as an educator I can say, from having been “part of” creating some fairly dynamic learning environments in my time, that it can’t be done with out tons of input from the “hood.” I mean what is the purpose of education if not to empower communities, the stakeholders?

There we were, all 21 of us, crowding around under the shady umbrella at Java Jungle. And we were all talking politics – imagine!

It was a meeting of the “coastal” section of San Diego’s Coffee Party movement, a movement that is barely two months old, yet already has nearly 400 chapters across the country. What started as a facebook rant about the incivility of American politics and the apparent stalemate in Congress, and which has now blossomed into a nation-wide movement, had its first San Diego meeting on March 13th. The turnout was so huge, that the group broke down into four sections.

The “west of I-5” folks, naming themselves the coastal chapter, had decided to meet on the 27th in OB. And at least half the turnout was from Ocean Beach.

by Denny Knox

I am a founding member of the Peninsula Singers, which is a community chorus that practices in the Community Room at the Hervey Point Loma Library. Recently, we were invited to participate with seven other choruses from around the country at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

We started practicing Beethoven’s Mass in C major about a year ago, the piece that we sang in NYC.

A Review of Past Movers & Shakers: Originally posted April 8, 2009

by Jon Carr

Our first Mover and Shaker is Stefanie Sekich, local clean water activist and employee of The Surfrider Foundation.

Stefanie was the driving force behind the Save Trestles campaign which successfully blocked big developers and the Transportation Corridor Authority (TCA) from building a toll road through San Onofre State beach and the legendary Trestles surf spot.

City Government Enters Official Bid Process for Public Surveillance System In Beach Areas – Including OB Pier

Winston Smith, you’d better touch those toes. And don’t bend your knees to do it either, because Big Brother’s watching, and if you cheat, he’s gonna know. [Editor: in case you are not familiar with the novel, Winston Smith is the main character in George Orwell’s “1984.”]

It may be a couple decades late, but 1984 has finally arrived – government surveillance cameras are soon to be installed in a handful of locations along the San Diego coast, kicking off a program that seems destined for expansion into a spectrum that could one day encompass every public space in America (and whatever private spaces aren’t protected by a heat-shielding drawn curtain). It might soon be time to bust out those tin-foil-lined hats.

by Anna Daniels

The reduced hours schedule for our libraries went into effect Saturday (March 20). The Central library is now closed on Saturdays because of the draconian 10% mid year budget cuts exacted from the library budget by the mayor and approved by the city council this past December.

That 10% cut was more than any other General Fund Department had to sustain. Think about that- our largest library which supports your branch, and serves all citizens- is now closed on Saturdays. And the hours have also been cut at our branches, which I will address further on.

We should all be asking “Why is the mayor balancing the budget on the back of our library system?” I suspect the answer is because he can. We didn’t stop him.

by Nate Hipple

Let it be known: The first Floatopia of 2010 occurred yesterday on Mission Bay!

Apparently, nobody got the memo that Spring has only barely sprung and hence it’s still a bit nippy to be rafting with an ice chest of beer. But never ever underestimate the indomitable spirit of the people’s will to party, even when all signs tell them to behave.

When the city banned alcohol on the beach, Floatopia was the natural reaction. (It’s sort of a cross between ‘Jersey Shore’ and the movie ‘Waterworld’).

The end result of the ban is pushing public drinking …

by Ernie McCray

A little while ago I was asked if I would be willing to co-emcee a celebration of Helen Chavez’s life and it was one of those requests that make you go “Who, me? Cesar’s sweet Helen? You kiddin’ me? Well, uh, hey, by golly gee. Yessiree.” Talking about being honored. Whoo! Whee!

I mean, how could I not leap upon the opportunity to share a stage with a woman who took care of a man I loved, enabling him to stretch his wings as he heeded Gandhi and Martin’s call, understanding innately at deep soulful levels the “Why” of it all – as she, too, could not resist the call to change a world.