OB Rag

With all that is going on in the world today, this little problem I faced today is a small one. None-the-less, I have never liked being screwed without a climax and I think that screwing almost took place today.

Like most residents in San Diego, I receive several monthly advertisements offering me discounts, free gifts, reduced price items. This is not about those advertisements; rather it is about one particular advertiser.

By Cristian Tapia / FOX40 News / November 29, 2011

Occupy movements in major West Coast cities are planning a coordinated blockade and shutdown of their local ports on December 12.

In a press release received Tuesday morning, it states, Occupy L.A., Occupy San Diego and Occupy Portland are listed as some of the major port cities joining Occupy Oakland to mobilize thousands of people to shut down their local ports

After setting up a table at Civic Center Plaza this afternoon to do voter registration, an Occupy San Diego organizer was arrested by police for “trespass and refusing to leave”.

At approximately 1:30 pm, Ray Lutz was sitting at a table with several signs stating “Register to vote”, and was in the process of registering a man, when a half dozen police officers approached him – including Captain Mark Jones – .

Two dozen local activists join LA protesters at the hour of their eviction

When a few of us in Occupy San Diego this past weekend heard that our sisters and brothers in Occupy LA were facing eviction early Monday morning, about two dozen of us traveled up to LA and camped out with them in solidarity.

When OSD veteran Julie M. put up on facebook that she wanted to drive up to LA and show support for their occupation, a number of us jumped at the chance to drive up there with her. So Howard, Humberto, Claudia and I crammed into Julie’s Prius and headed out for LA, leaving from the Civic Center Plaza on Sunday, the 27th.

By Dave Rice / San Diego Reader / November 28

Occupy San Diego is preparing to once again attempt to set up a tent encampment in Civic Center Plaza this afternoon, according to a brief release the group prepared last night.

Energized by a video shot in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving day depicting eight or more police officers holding a wheelchair-bound man face down while making an arrest, at least 50 members of Occupy San Diego have decided that they have waited long enough for a discussion with the city council on ending the sleeping ban that has recently been enforced in the Plaza and surrounding blocks.

See the video inside…

Every year I spend Thanksgiving and the weekend after it with my family and friends in the Anza Borrego Desert. On hikes with my seven-year-old son, we are grateful for our chance encounters with roadrunners, jackrabbits, coyotes, beetles, and the occasional lucky sighting of a big horn sheep. We have a friend who is a birder who can tell us what kinds of birds we are near from the sound of their calls. When we go back to eat, we break bread with another friend who beat cancer and whose presence reminds us that life is short and precious.

More than anything else, it is the beautiful stillness of the desert that brings us there—the way the landscape seems to listen. At night you can still see stars and think about the vastness of the universe in a way that reminds you of your smallness and your connection to the largeness of all that is. It is humbling and enlarging at the same time.

Good morning OB, San Diego and all points beyond! I hope all of you had a good Thanksgiving. We sure did! Actually it was one of the better ones for me during the last few years, we had more than a dozen family and friends here for dinner on Thursday, and then almost all of them came back Saturday for my mother’s 73rd birthday. We had chocolate cake and my two little grand-daughters (her great-grand-daughters) helped her blow out her birthday candles.

It’s pretty amazing having four generations of family all together in one place and we are blessed that we all live close and can do it on a pretty regular basis. It’s one of the thing that I am thankful for.

An Online Petition by Citizens of San Diego

Why This Is Important

Chief Lansdowne has mishandled the Occupy San Diego Protest. He has facilitated the waste of over 2.4 million dollars in 30 days on suppressing free speech at Civic Center Plaza in San Diego.

He has ordered the macing and beating of peaceful protesters and continues to waste over $57,000 per day on intimidating, harassing, and suppressing the peaceful protest rather than protecting and serving the interests of those exercising their freedom of speech and assembly.

We the Citizens of San Diego call on Chief Lansdowne to resign his post as Chief of Police immediately.

Sign this Petition!

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class’s venality

By Naomi Wolf / guardian.co.uk / November 25, 2011

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.

For most people, Thanksgiving Day is as much about the food as it is self reflection. The turkey cooked to a golden brown, mashed potatoes topped with gravy, salty stuffing, sweet cranberry sauce and a collection of pies for the tasting.

But for OBcean John Kenney, this Thanksgiving was spent sipping glasses of water and contemplating the state of politics.

Kenney has been on a hunger strike for 19 days.

He announced his intentions at the San Diego City Council meeting on Nov. 8 and has since only indulged in water and the occasional coffee. His hope is simple: to get the attention of the City Council members and begin a dialogue regarding the rights of San Diego occupiers to gather at the Civic Center.

Here’s a round-up of Occupation matters:

Police crackdowns on Occupy camps are the real threat

By Linda Lye / SFGate / November 23, 2011

Around California and all over the country, we have been told that Occupy encampments must come down because of “health and safety concerns.” But all around the country, we have seen the police take down these encampments with an overzealous use of pepper spray, tear gas and flash-bang grenades. The real “health threat” we should be concerned about is the threat to the health of our democracy when the government reacts to peaceful political expression with police violence. Go here for the remainder of this article.

San Diego Police on UC Davis Pepper Spraying: ‘We don’t want that here.’

By Danya Bacchus and Sarah Grieco / NBC San Diego / Nov 21, 2011

What happened at UC Davis has local law enforcement talking. San Diego Police officers have said they’ve had the tough job of balancing the first amendment rights of Occupy San Diego protesters and enforcing the law.

UPDATE:Biologists have finished their necropsy of a dead fin whale.Siri Hakala with NOAA said the necropsy on the dead 67-foot fin whale shows whale died from a ship strike. …….Marine Biologists To Perform Necropsy On Fin Whale

On Wednesday, November 23rd, San Diego Lifeguards are towing the dead fin whale that washed up on an isolated Point Loma beach out to sea and then over to Fiesta Island.

A boat is being used to tow the 67-foot whale carcass to the Mission Bay area where National Marine Fisheries Service scientists will perform an autopsy – necropsy – to figure out what killed it and its fetus.