Serving OB, the Peninsula and San Diego Beaches
By Valerie Tarico / AlterNet
After an autumn of Bible-based gay bashing, and Religious Right candidates with “rape Tourette’s,” and End Times aficionados gunning for Armageddon rather than peace in the Middle East, some nontheists may be finding it a little tough to feel warm and chirpy about the birth of the baby Jesus.
Lots going on this Christmas season on ol’ Newport Avenue, the main street of the Ocean Beach village. We do an occasional newsy review of the comings and goings among the shops, stores, and merchants on the avenue, so here then, is our latest Newport News from Tuesday, December 18th.
Christmas Tree Lights Need A-Fixin’
Mike Colpo, a volunteer with the OB Town Council, and chief OB Christmas Tree decorator, was having troubles with the lights on Tuesday.
Here is the official agenda for the Ocean Beach Planning Board’s Project Review Committee, for Wednesday, December 19th.
On the agenda are two important items, the Sprint Wireless antennae upgrade and renewal at the Masonic Lodge at 1711 Sunset Cliffs Blvd, and the application for a coastal permit to allow the San Diego police trailer to permanently remain in the OB Pier Parking lot.
Both issues have been contentious ones in the past.
Did you ever wonder what ever happened to OB Rag blogger Anna Daniels? Anna had been writing for us since early 2009, and as a feminist and San Diego civic activist for years, she has graced our publication with her thoughts and razor sharp insights on the workings (or non-workings) of local government, especially libraries and infrastructure.
Well, Anna moved over to the San Diego Free Press …
In a discussion I had with a friend the other day, we got to talking about the “heroes” of our time.
We had so many people to look up to that 15 minutes after starting naming those wonderful people we were still naming names. In our early teens – yes, we were “teens” once – a long time ago – our hero’s came from a variety of resources – and perhaps the first ones came from an unlikely source – the comic books, the radio stations, etc.
Who can forget “Tom Mix”? or “Jack Armstrong”? Even the “Superman” we idolized as doing only good was different that the Superman of today. The Betty, Veronica, and Archie’s of yesterday.
The OB Rag just ran a poll this past week that asked the question:
Should Congress raise taxes on the most wealthy 2% of Americans to avoid deep cuts in programs from Social Security to Defense?
The answer was overwhelming: 77% of our readers who responded said “Yes”.
Only 19% said “no”. 4% were unsure.
The poll ran from December 11 to the 18th; there were 74 responses.
In contrast, the East County Magazine had the same poll – although for a longer period of time – and the results from their readership were slightly different
Editor: The media, both corporate and progressive, has been awash with commentaries on and responses to the Connecticut school shootings. Here are a few more – originally posted in San Diego Free Press.
By Frances O’Neill Zimmerman
Time for newly-re-elected President Obama and the lame Congress of the United States to enact an assault weapons ban and to provide safeguards against easy access to guns and ammo. The old assault weapons law was allowed to expire a couple of years ago, thanks to craven legislators succumbing to pressure from the National Rifle Association.
The Connecticut shootings force into our collective minds the day of the tragedy of the McDonalds Massacre of July 18, 1984.
Then-San Diego newscaster Monica Zech, was in a news channel helicopter that day of the massacre, and she was the first reporter to break the story. Later, as the El Cajon Fire Public Information Officer, Zech wrote the following personal thoughts of her observations from that horrific day. (Originally posted at OB Rag on June 2, 2008 – see the entire post here.)
San Ysidro McDonald Massacre-A Birdseye View
by Monica Zech, 2004
My thoughts: Remembering and reporting on the San Ysidro McDonald Massacre, where 21 people died, 19 were injured – 7/18/84.
Our new Mayor Bob Filner has pledged to focus more on the neighborhoods of San Diego and less on the power brokers who hide out in the corridors of City Hall. And new City Council President Todd Gloria also has promised to make infrastructure “sexy”.
So, in order to assist Mayor Filner and Councilman Gloria in helping to decide what infrastructure is needed in Ocean Beach, we thought we’d provide a list for Santa.
Here’s what Ocean Beach needs for Christmas (for starters):
Back in 2003 Ocean Beach was promised a new library – …
By Tom Fudge / KPBS / Dec. 10, 2012
Up to 200 million gallons of San Diego water comes to the Point Loma treatment plant every day, to be treated and pumped into the Ocean. But people are starting to imagine another way to handle our wastewater.
The plan for the day had been to finally get the Christmas decorations up and address cards. I turned on the news to get my daily laugh from the cirque de D.C. and see how much closer we were coming the fiscal cliff. I wish I had not. The news was so just awful, again, I wept. Twenty-six souls lost, 20 of them only 6 and 7 years old. In an instant, another mad man took away so many dreams, so much joy, and so much love.
According to reports, the 20-year-old murderer took his own life, so we will never get the chance to ask him why or how he became so full of evil. Even if we were able to, it would not stop the carnage which all too often frequents the innocent, here and abroad. It will not stop, because we either do not care enough, or we must ghoulishly enjoy it enough to not do anything about.
Now that labor has been squashed, the right’s next moves in Michigan includes draconian anti-abortion laws and, sit down for this one, loosening the restriction on concealed weapons in places like churches and schools to please the gun lobby.
While liberals were busy gloating over their electoral victory and crowing about the demise of the right, Grover Norquist, the Koch Brothers, and company were busy going for blood—democracy be damned. Despite getting spanked at nearly every level, the plutocratic wrecking crew kept their eyes on the prize and jammed through a “right to work” law in Michigan, exacting sweet revenge on the Democrats and their labor allies.
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