OB Rag

By Center On Policy Initiatives / Sept 14, 2011 A committee of the San Diego City Council on Wednesday, Sept…

Jim Mahler (filming) assaulted by anti-worker petition gatherer at Mesa College, yesterday, September 14, 2011.
WARNING: The following video contains violence and graphic language.

This video documents the petition gatherer’s response to the AFT Decline to Sign team. (AFT is the American Federation of Teachers.) The petition gatherers are working for City Councilmember Carl DeMaio and his so-called “pension reform”.

The AFT Decline to Sign team at Mesa Community College on the 14th of September was comprised of African American, White, and Latina members. What the team did and is doing at Mesa is non-violent, and from a safe distance, hold up signs that ask students not to sign anti-worker petitions.

Come inside to see the video – Not Safe for Work!

By Billie Jo Jannen / East County Magazine / Sept 12, 2011

A resolution introduced by District 40 State Senator Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) and passed in both houses Friday [Sept. 9th] seeks to put the brakes on a high voltage trans-border power line slated to bring electricity in from the proposed 1250 MW La Rumorosa wind turbine project near Jacumba.

The recent 2010 Census confirmed something that we have observed for a while now. Many of our middle-aged friends are seeing their college-aged kids moving back home. And it’s the economy. They can’t find work – or cheap housing – so they move back to their parents’. My own 22-year old daughter is living with her mom.

Seems OB Ragsters are getting quoted everywhere these days. Doug Porter was quoted by the San Diego U-T just this past Sunday on why their former comment policy turned people off – particularly newbies to town.

And today, we are overjoyed to announce that our own Anna Daniels was quoted yesterday in a Washington Post article.

DeMaio Enters Signers’ Info Into Mayoral Campaign Database, But It Can Only Be Used For Qualification Of Measure

SAN DIEGO – The “Just Say No, San Diego” campaign has obtained documents from the Carl DeMaio for Mayor 2012 campaign illustrating the city councilman inappropriately stole voter identification information from a ballot measure petition, a violation of California campaign laws.

Ordinance would fine banks $1000 a day for failure to maintain foreclosed properties.

The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) have released a brief outlining the costs of foreclosed properties on neighborhoods and cities. Some of the points they raise:

• Foreclosures harm the value of all homes within a neighborhood.
  Homes left vacant and untended during and after a foreclosure can become nuisance properties, deterring potential homebuyers and lowering home values in the neighborhood. Homes in foreclosure experience an average 22% loss in value, and homes within 1/8 of a mile of a foreclosure also decline in value.

By Mike James / Special to the OB Rag

In the fall of 1983 it came to the attention of the Ocean Beach Planning Board that certain large property owners and local Realtors had persuaded then Councilman Bill Cleator to silently put before the Council an amendment for the Ocean Beach Precise Plan. The amendment would have doubled Ocean Beach’s residential density from 25 units-per-acre to 52-units-per-acre.

By Mike Davis / TomDispatch.com / September 13, 2011

1. Twin Towers

Two years from now the staffs of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker will move into the most haunted building in the world. There, the elite of American celebrity photographers, gossip columnists, and magazine journalists may meet some macabre new muses, aloft in the upper stories of 1 World Trade Center where 658 doomed employees were sitting at their desks at 8:46 AM, September 11, 2001.

Editor: This is the personal and harrowing account of the woman who was among three passengers forcefully removed from Flight 623 that originated in San Diego on September 11th. It is a wake-up call to anyone who hasn’t been introduced to the Patriot Act. This is America of today.

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Some real Shock and Awe: Racially profiled and cuffed in Detroit

Silly me. I thought flying on 9/11 would be easy. I figured most people would choose not to fly that day so lines would be short, planes would be lightly filled and though security might be ratcheted up, we’d all feel safer knowing we had come a long way since that dreadful Tuesday morning 10 years ago.

But then armed officers stormed my plane, threw me in handcuffs and locked me up.

By Randall Erickson / Special to the OB Rag

PARIS, FRANCE. In addition to the different forms of aid to the defavorized (a popular political euphemism often used now in place of the more descriptive and simple «poor»), some people have found their own ways to survive or improve their lives. Like in the United States, they scour the garbage bins behind supermarkets and find products that have been thrown out but are perfectly edible, and even non-food products. For reasons incomprehensible to me, some supermarkets pour bleach or other liquid products over the contents of their bins.

By Explorer Parent

The OB Rag had it right when publishing the article on September 1st, “Is former principal of Point Loma charter school being hounded by U-T Watchdog?” Indeed, Jill Green was being targeted by the Union Tribune Watchdog with erroneous and misleading information.