OB Rag

Xiang Jo — a 14-year-old laborer on an iPhone assembly line in Suzhou, China — just wanted to pay homage to someone whose vision transformed the world.

Jo had no idea the homage would cost him his job.

The trouble started Thursday morning, when word of Steve Jobs’ death spread through the factory where Jo and dozens of other young Chinese use the toxic chemical N-Hexane to clean iPhone touch screens.

In a sweet victory for Ocean Beach, the California Coastal Commission just this afternoon granted OB planners who attended today’s hearing in Huntington Beach a continuance before the Commission votes on the Ocean Park Villas condo project. The continuance will allow a full public hearing on the revised project by the OB Planning Board.

Due to the efforts of Planning Board members Craig Klein, Tom Gawronski and Giovanni Ignolia, the Commission put off their decision of whether to grant an amendment to the current Coastal Development Permit that had been granted the original project. But since the project has had a drastic re-design, no public review had been held on the revised plans. Plus local planners had complained about the lack of a public review process at the community level.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state’s 15-year-old medical marijuana law.

In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry, at least 16 pot shops or their landlords received letters this week stating they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical marijuana is legal in California. The state’s four U.S. attorneys are scheduled to announce a broader coordinated crackdown at a Friday news conference.

Let’s Show Support for “Occupy San Diego” as a Community

Several OB activists (along with some former OBceans) are asking residents of Ocean Beach who plan on attending the Occupy San Diego march and occupation to gather together to form an OB contingent.

The Occupy San Diego march will begin at approximately 4:00 pm from the Children’s Museum Park, First and Island in downtown San Diego. Marchers will move along downtown streets and converge on the Civic Center Plaza around 4:30. There will be a rally at the Plaza and then organizers plan on asking people to march to another location for the initial occupation. This change will only be temporary, and was requested on behalf of San Diego’s Jewish community as they too are holding a celebration at the Civic Center – Yom Kippur.

Editor: Check this post out by Abel Thomas, one of the original organizers of this leader-less movement here in San Diego. .

By Abel Thomas / Occupy San Diego / October 5, 2011

Standing in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street NYC, hundreds of San Diego citizens will peacefully occupy [a site downtown, after rallying at] the Civic Center Plaza in downtown San Diego, starting on October 7, 2011. This nonviolent occupation is in protest of the global financial corruption currently invading politics, media and corporations, exemplified by the recent financial industry meltdown and subsequent recession. The occupation will continue indefinitely until a list of demands in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street NYC are met …

By Mike James / Special to the OB Rag

For the past 6 months I’ve been a subscriber to “The Tea Party Nation” web site to learn more about my fellow citizens. (I have masochistic tendencies.) Below are some outtakes of the Occupy Wall Street related articles and comments that recently appeared on the “The Tea Party Nation” site.

By Tom Engelhardt / AlterNet / October 6, 2011

In some ways, Zuccotti Park, the campsite, the Ground Zero, for the Occupy Wall Street protests couldn’t be more modest. It’s no Tahrir Square, but a postage-stamp-sized plaza at the bottom of Manhattan only blocks from Wall Street.

And if you arrive before noon, you’re greeted not by vast crowds, but by air mattresses, a sea of blue and green tarps, a couple of information tables, some enthusiastic drummers, enough signs with slogans for anything you care to support (“Too big to fail is too big to allow,” “The American Dream: You have to be asleep to believe it,” “There’s no state like no state,” etc.), and small groups of polite, eager, well-organized young people, wandering, cleaning, doling out contributed food, dealing with the press, or sitting in circles on the concrete, backpacks strewn about, discussing. If it were the 1960s, it might easily be a hippie encampment.

OB Planning Board Chair Is Accused of Not Calling for a Public Review of Controversial New Revisions

While a number of the members of the Ocean Beach Planning Board are attending today’s (Oct 6th) hearing of the California Coastal Commission to oppose the Commission’s okay of the new design of Ocean Park Villas, back home the war of words between Coastal staff and the Board has escalated.

SUSA dishes up workable mayoral numbers

The polling continues to circle the San Diego mayoral race, with Survey USA returning with new numbers last week. By contrast to the recent local polling that insisted on voters picking a candidate, the 10News/SUSA poll allowed for an ‘Undecided’ option, which proved to be quite popular, underlining the limitations of September’s B&B poll. First, the results

I simply don’t have the energy to produce a flowery perspective on what today’s action means to me or to the diverse group of people who make up the 99%. Today I was witness to something that was commonplace in the 60’s and 70’s but had, for the most part, escaped my own eyes through years of activism. Today I was brought to tears by the magnitude of a collective voice; today I was forced to reconcile my practicality with the sheer power of numbers. Today, I believe I witnessed the metamorphosis of a revolution.

Emergency Meeting Called for Friday, October 7th

Apparently, Cabrillo Elementary School, at 3120 Talbot Street in Point Loma, is slated to be one of the schools closed by the Unified School District at the end of this school year.

Because of this, the Point Loma neighborhood directly affected by this planned closure is scrambling to find ways to keep it open. There has been an emergency meeting called for this Friday, October 7th, at 10 a.m. The meeting will be held in the conference room over the library to discuss what needs to be done to keep the school open.

Everybody freak out! Occupy Wall Street is now in its eighteenth day and the swelling ranks in Liberty Park and tandem actions that have spread to 148 other cities have not provided the rest of us with their goals/DEMANDS/solutions. By God, they owe us an explanation so that we can decide whether we’re for it or against it. Do they really expect us to watch raw unedited footage on the internet and make up our own minds? Exactly how soon is the blood going to start flowing in the streets- I need to take my car in Friday for an oil change.