OB Rag

Council to take up 11th hour giveaway of Convention Center

CSUSM: The results of electing inaction

By Kit-Bacon Gressit / Excuse Me, I’m Writing / March 17, 2012

Better election fraud than rape. That’s what I always say. Not really. That’s what I’ve been saying since Friday, when I learned that Cal State University San Marcos (CSUSM) student Matt Weaver was arrested. But he was not arrested for repeatedly promoting rape (along with homophobia, misogyny, pedophilia and racism) in the pages of The Koala, the privately-owned, for-profit tabloid he edits and touts as a “humor” publication.* No, Weaver, who was running for president of ASI, the student government, was arrested and charged with three criminal counts associated with the elections:

1. unlawful access to a computer or database,
2. identity theft and
3. election fraud.

Here’s the gist of it: The university’s information security folks noticed suspicious activity …

Many months ago I wrote an article that caused a huge rift in my family; many responses from Rag readers to the point that we needed to shut down the article because of the intensity of the comments from the readers. Because I do not want to rekindle that discussion again, I am asking my daughter to read this article over before I sent it on to be published.

The first article spoke of a granddaughter of mine, age 15, that was going to be retained in her high school for not completing her assignments in any of her classes. As an educator myself, I was appalled to think that in today’s society a young student would be forced to repeat all the classes of a particular grade because work was not turned in. To make matters worse, my field of expertise was teaching teachers how to “Individualize the Curriculum” and how to teach to the needs of the student. I felt that this was not being done in the case of my granddaughter.

Last week news of a “compromise” between Jerry Brown and the coalition behind the Millionaires’ Tax was announced and was seen by some in the media as a victory for progressives. In the LA Times the Republicans greeted the news by saying that the Governor had surrendered to a “backwater union” (my statewide union, the California Federation of Teachers) by giving in and upping the taxes on the wealthy and lowering the sales tax in his initiative.

While the “compromise” does up the progressive elements of the tax and lower the regressive elements, it is still structurally the same as the Governor’s original initiative, hangs on to the regressive sales tax, and continues to be temporary without any of the guarantees of higher education funding beyond community colleges or any of the other specific requirements that the Millionaires’ Tax contained. Indeed, it’s likely that what this new measure will do is go to the general fund to offset costs rather than restore cuts and/or create new jobs.

This is the sixth and final day in which “Doonesbury creator” Gary Trudeau satirizes Texas’ state mandated health care requirements for women seeking an abortion. Trudeau depicts a woman in the first trimester of an unwanted pregnancy as she undergoes a state mandated transvaginal sonogram, listens to her physician provide a state mandated detailed description of her possibly 2 ½ inch fetus, and then waits another state mandated 24 hours before having the abortion.

Are these really the same people who are frothing at the mouth about “big government mandated Obamacare?” My shit detector just hit “10.”

In an interview earlier this week with the Washington Post Trudeau explains the impetus for this week’s strips:

“For some reason, the GOP has chosen 2012 to re-litigate reproductive freedom, an issue that was resolved decades ago. Why Santorum, Limbaugh et al. thought this would be a good time to declare war on half the electorate, I cannot say. But to ignore it would have been comedy malpractice.”

Occasionally, we’ll post an update on the comings and goings on Newport Avenue – the main business street in OB. And even less occasionally, however, we’ll showcase news from ‘off-Newport’ – updates away from the main business district, where there’s also village and commercial life.

And that’s what we found on Thursday, March 15th, as we cruised the back streets, allies, and beaches of ‘Off-Newport’ and hereby file this report:

Finally! OB Streets Are Being Striped!

It has finally happened. Certain streets in OB are being stripped. Sections of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Cable Street were having their final yellow strips added. Cable Street itself over the past several years has taken a number of hostages in the tire world, as it’s pothole were infamous. Now, with the new pipes, the new asphalt, and now the stripping – the community can begin to settle back after having its roads torn up for over a year.

New Seawall Means Expanded Beach at Bermuda

…

We’re all happy that the Ocean Beach branch library has reopened. The “grand” reopening was on Saturday, March 10th. Closed for months for repairs, it was back to busy as usual when we visited it on Thursday, March 15.

The library – really one of the hubs of the village – has new rugs, new roof, new paint, some new furniture … and perhaps, soon, will have new hours. Especially if Mayor Sanders and the City Council glide some money toward expanding the library’s hours, which was promised.

Here’s todays Doonesbury cartoon No. 5 for Friday, March 16th.

Jeff Light, editor of the revamped San Diego U-T, the guy who made the decision to black-out this week’s Doonsbury cartoons because artist Gary Trudeau is drawing about women’s reproductive rights, came on the OB Rag the other day and left a lengthy comment as to why he made the decision.

While we really appreciate Jeff coming onto our site – something his predecessors would never have done and which is a sign of the drastic difference he has made on the newspaper – we believe his reasoning falls flat. Here’s his comment from Wednesday in full:

You know, sometimes people with strong feelings get worked up and do things that they probably realize, deep down, are out of bounds. … So, Rush Limbaugh calls some poor woman a slut, …. To me this is all the same sort of thing.
I didn’t kill those strips for any partisan reason. I run Doonesbury every day. …

April, in 2011, was the last time I had company sexually, after nearly a year of fun in the hay – with a beautiful woman I met a while after my wife died.

This has been some kind of experience because I have always very much enjoyed “doin’ the do.” And so did, Nancy, my sexy soulmate of 34 years, through and through. She was 62 when she left and I was 71.

We had such a rich sex life. Both of us were fit and young in spirit, still eager, up for it (pun somewhat intended) both on planned date nights, a couple of times a week, or spontaneously. Whichever came first.

Regional Water Quality Control Board Unanimously Adopts San Diego Bay Cleanup

The Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Board) on Wednesday, March 14, unanimously ordered a cleanup of the 143,400 cubic yards of toxic sediments from the bottom of San Diego Bay. After a 20-year battle, the polluters will be held accountable, and the bay will have a chance to return to a cleaner state.

In addition to celebrating the long-awaited cleanup order, San Diego Coastkeeper and Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) asked the Regional Board to require that the cleanup actually achieve the alternative cleanup levels that the Regional Board staff has determined is safe for public health and environment.

“The Regional Board should be applauded for finally acknowledging this pollution and the harm it causes to human, environmental and economic health,” said Jill Witkowski, legal director at San Diego Coastkeeper. “It’s about time that we make those responsible for the pollution clean up their mess.”

Originally posted on March 15, 2012

A few words about political cartoons, U-T’s Steve Breen, and the blackout.

Over the past few days Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau has depicted a woman’s experience in a Texas abortion clinic. The woman has been introduced to the shaming room, pronounced a suspected slut, and has been Rick Rolled, as Governor Rick Perry casts aside the woman’s own doctor’s health assessment to present a legislative edict of his own.

Trudeau has been a comic strip artist since 1970. He is also a Pulitzer Prize winning comic strip artist ( 1975), and political satirist and social commentator. It is therefore not a surprise that his cartoons riff off of the mainstream news and delivers them up with a distinctive point of view. This is what political satirists and commentators do.

That is what U-T San Diego’s own political cartoonist, Steve Breen does—he draws political cartoons that represent his own distinctive point of view. Breen was born in 1970, the same year that Trudeau became syndicated, and he has won two Pulitzer Prizes (1998, 2009).

Looks like the few remaining fire pits on the beaches of Ocean Beach … and the remaining on other areas … will be “saved” once more. Mayor Jerry Sanders said on Tuesday, March 13, that “San Diego’s 186 fire pits will be fully funded for the first time in three-and-a-half years.”

The San Diego U-T reports:

Due to a projected $16.5 million budget surplus, the city again will pay for them on its own. It costs $120,500 annually to maintain the concrete structures, but the city struggled with budget deficits as high as $120 million in 2010, which kept the pits on the chopping block.