OB Rag

By Frank Rich / The New Yorker / April 22, 2012

The first 25 conservative donors to give $1 million or more to super-PACs this cycle, either on their own, with their families, or with companies that they or their families control. Others have likely given millions more to 501(c)(4)s, “social welfare” groups that are not required to disclose their donors. (Based on filings through February 29.)

Sheldon Adelson, casino developer, his wife, Miriam, and their family

$16.5 million: Gingrich

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Harold Simmons, leveraged-buyout pioneer, his wife, Annette, and his holding company, Contran Corporation

$15.4 million: Crossroads, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum, Romney

By Frank Rich / The New Yorker / April 22, 2012

If you want to appreciate what Barack Obama is up against in 2012, forget about the front man who is his nominal opponent and look instead at the Republican billionaires buying the ammunition for the battles ahead. A representative example is Harold Simmons, an 80-year-old Texan who dumped some $15 million into the campaign before primary season had ended. Reminiscing about 2008, when he bankrolled an ad blitz to tar the Democrats with the former radical Bill Ayers, Simmons told The Wall Street Journal, “If we had run more ads, we could have killed Obama.”

It is not a mistake he intends to make a second time. The $15 million Simmons had spent by late February dwarfs the $2.8 million he allotted to the Ayers takedown and the $3 million he contributed to the Swift Boat Veterans demolition of John Kerry four years before that. Imagine the cash that will flow now that the GOP sideshows are over and the president is firmly in Simmons’s crosshairs.

There’s a new group in town called “Respect OB” and they are calling for a community meeting tonight – Tuesday, April 24th – on the grass at the foot of Newport Avenue. The individuals organizing the gathering have distributed fliers all over OB and have even gained some media traction.

Originally growing out of a sub-committee of the OB Mainstreet Association a couple of months ago, the group has evolved. And now it hopes to bring together all the disparate elements of the community, the homeless, the businesses, the residents, and the churches – in an effort to address what some see as the deterioration of relations, friendliness, caring for the village, etc., – hence the emphasis on “respect”.

The flier asks: “What is happening to the OB I Love?” and then: “ARE YOU BOTHERED BY” with a list of issues:

Nathan Fletcher is not a man of great political courage. He isn’t even a particularly independent thinker. But he is politically clever, and he knows that San Diego’s Democratic base has a long history of being bamboozled by wolves in sheep’s clothing from the days of Pete Wilson to the present.

Fletcher’s recent move to leave the Republican Party and become an Independent clearly banks on this tradition continuing. Indeed, if I were Fletcher’s campaign manager I would have advised him to do exactly the same thing. After losing the GOP endorsement to Carl DeMaio, Fletcher was sitting at 13% in the polls in third place with only a slight lead over the absolutely hopeless Bonnie Dumanis. And if you are a genuinely affable, good-looking, war veteran with big ambitions and the strong conviction that the world needs you now, that is not a good place to be sitting.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, I’m Writing / April 22, 2012

In the 1960s, when Juan Felipe Herrera was in elementary school, he lived in a homemade RV in Escondido.

“We lived in a trailer my dad made, off Lincoln,” Herrera said, “He built a house on top of a car. That way you could pull it.”

Like most campesinos, they moved a lot, the boy and his farm worker parents.

Today, Juan Felipe Herrera — UC Riverside creative writing professor, activist and artist — is California’s fifth poet laureate and the first Chicano. He was appointed to the position by Governor Jerry Brown in March. These days, with 28 books, an opera, plays and a joy that is contagious, Herrera is still moving a lot, but in a different way.

By Andy Cohen and Annie Lane

Longtime Congressman and current candidate for Mayor of San Diego Bob Filner discusses mayoral race in an exclusive in depth interview.

On Friday mayoral candidate Bob Filner sat down with the OB Rag to discuss a wide range of topics, including sharing details on a pension plan that he has been promoting that as of yet has not been formally presented for examination.

The plan is an alternative to Prop B, the pension alternative plan developed and promoted by fellow mayoral candidate and current city councilman Carl DeMaio, outgoing mayor Jerry Sanders, and city councilman Kevin Faulconer. The “Comprehensive Pension Reform” plan that has been aggressively promoted by DeMaio calls for all new city employees to receive retirement benefits in the form of 401(k) style plans instead of a defined pension benefit package as is currently the norm.

Sometimes in life we get very cool and much unexpected surprises. Yesterday was one such. I am working with a fledgling group of folk who are starting a local chapter of Mediators Beyond Borders International (the story behind this group I will save for another post). Our fearless leader is an energetic woman, Yvette Durazo, whom I met through a training session in Restorative Justice. When you are with Yvette, just buy the ticket and go along for the ride, she is one of those folk who simply inspire.

A few weeks ago, she sent me an e-mail and asked if I would like to attend the Dalai Lama event with her at San Diego State University. I had already decided I would not spend the $30 – $70 to see a spiritual leader (it simply does not sit right with me… sort of a Jimmy Swaggart thing), but I have yet to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, and so I accepted her invitation.

Fire breaks out at San Onofre on Friday – took nearly an hour to contain

Editor: It seems we hear new problems about the San Onofre nuclear power plant every time we open a newspaper or watch the news. Apparently, yesterday, a fire broke out at the plant that took nearly an hour to contain.

The U-T reports: “on Friday, the plant operator reported that a fire broke out in the plant’s turbine room outside the reactor containment dome on the northern reactor, Unit 2. The fire was reported at 12:49 p.m. and was extinguished at 1:41 p.m. by the plant’s own fire department. There were no injuries, Edison said in a written statement. The fire took place “in an electrical panel,” the statement said. Edison spokeswoman Jennifer Manfre could provide no further description of the fire and its cause was still unclear.”

Friends of the Earth / April 20, 2012

San Francisco, Calif. — The Japanese firm responsible for fabricating the failing steam generators at Southern California Edison’s San Onofre nuclear reactors announced today that it is undertaking analyses of the causes of the serious, unresolved safety problems.

In papers filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the firm, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, revealed that its reviews will extend at least through the end of August — ensuring that the troubled reactors will not be able to operate through the summer.

OB Assisted Gates: Camera Lucida Series Concert

By Eric / blogsandiego.com

Searching for a spiritual gate, if in need of a mantra or a blissed sound trigger, try the sounds of Charles Curtis, OB resident and Camera Lucida Concert Series curator among many other titles and accolades. These live concerts consist of the best players the region and often beyond has to offer in the manner of old world, classical, intensely magical, and proficiency. Musicians include the top San Diego Symphonists and top UCSD players, joined by special guests to create some of the highest quality chamber music in the US.

I attended the presentation on April 2nd, consisting of Bach’s Preludes and Fugues for String Trio (arr. Mozart), Strauss’ Sextet for Strings from Capriccio, Op. 85, and Brahms’ Sextet for Strings in B-flat, Op. 18. The Strauss piece was especially sweet, balanced in a moment, delicately calling into the upper right-hand section of my brain to question noble dances of a certain imagined time. Throughout, the playing was superb, the mood blissful, and the audience proved fully engaged as they offered a standing ovation with multiple call-backs for the players to be recognized.

Rally Commemorates Chernobyl, TMI, continuing meltdown at Fukushima on Sunday, from Noon to 3pm

“Shut Down San Onofre” Momentum builds following Radioactivity Release and Design-Error Shutdown of the Plant

April 20, 2012 (SAN ONOFRE) – Nuclear Industry Expert Daniel Hirsch and Irvine City Councilmember Larry Agran will join a dozen other speakers at the “Shut Down San Onofre” rally at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on Sunday, April 29, to support the view that the reactor should never be restarted. The event occurs just after the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the 33-year anniversary of the Three-Mile Island accident, and the first Fukushima Daiichi meltdown anniversary — an accident which is far from over.

Finally! The bike and pedestrian bridge over Rose Creek is finished. As an avid bike rider, I ride the circuit around Mission Bay all the time. My bicycling buddies and I have been waiting for this crucial link to be done and over with, so we can avoid running along the very busy streets that surround the Park.

Constructed for a year and coming in at $2.9 million, the bridge – renamed the Mike Gotch Memorial Bridge after the former Mission Beach-based San Diego City councilman – was dedicated yesterday, April 20th. Many of us remember Mike Gotch fondly. He passed away a few years ago from skin cancer.

Originally called the Rose Creek Bikeway and Pedestrian Bridge, the project – as the City informs us –

“is the vital missing link between the existing regional bicycle network that connects the existing bicycle facility along Pacific Beach Drive to the Class I bikeway at North Mission Bay Drive. This project is described and in conformance with the Mission Bay Master Plan and the Pacific Beach Master Plan. This bridge and bikeway will create a safe and convenient route over Rose Creek and significantly help minimize the use of Grand Avenue as the only route over the Creek.”

Every now and then, we like to say ‘thanks’ to the people and businesses that help keep the OB Rag in business.

And we ask our readers and supporters to check them out and say ‘thanks’ to them by going on their websites and using their businesses.

So, here are a few of the more recent sponsors

There’s Sorrentino’s Pizza, up in Clairemont Mesa.

Vets for Peace

Adams Avenue Unplugged!